I have about 20 pages left in this book to read so I figure I can review it faithfully (unless it turns out that Eric Clapton was a woman all along and I don’t find it out until the last page).
Eric Clapton, guitar extraordinaire decides to tell us about his life up until this point. Like most biographies, it starts with some pretty dull stuff about growing up as a kid and hunting for frogs. The real meat of the book comes in the earlier chapters where he starts playing guitar in clubs with various bands and having a good time. It’s written very innocently, in that in my eyes, jamming with the Stones is awe-inspiring, when he talks about it, it’s not that big of a deal, and I guess it wouldn’t be as they are just buddies.
You don’t really get a feel of his greatness until he mentions offhand that one day he noticed the words “Clapton is God” on a side of a building. He is very humbling and doesn’t think of himself in that way. Meanwhile, I realize that all this talk about playing in clubs and having a good time is actually the moment where outsiders of Clapton’s mind are literally making Clapton into a guitar god-like figure and that he’s making his mark on the world. I found it strange to be reading the autobiography and not getting a true sense of his mark on the world. I guess anyone wouldn’t feel that they contributing to something big until later on. So it was just a matter of fact to him at the time. He was simply playing guitar.
The book is pretty amazing with the stories of playing guitar with George Harrison, BB King, others…I thoroughly enjoyed the points where he is in the Yardbirds, Cream, Derek and The Dominos. The story about him falling in love with Pattie Boyd is an interesting one but I must admit he’s a little frustrating to take considering he pretty well gives up on Pattie as soon as he gets her.
The later half of the book deals with his realization that he has a drinking problem and then it talks about his time in rehab and his eventual return to grace. At sixty years old, he seems to have things in order with a new wife, three kids and a sober life. I personally didn’t find the later half of the book TOO interesting but it is what it is.
All in all, I didn’t know much about Eric Clapton before reading his book. I think I would have preferred to read a biography instead of an autobiography at this point and then follow up with the autobiography. I would receive both viewpoints then. However, the book is chock full of ‘WHOA!’ moments when you see he is jamming with some of my rock idols or simply having a good time with them. If you are an Eric Clapton fan, pick it up, otherwise, I guess you can get by with reading the first half of the book for some awesome classic rock stories.
One reply on “Review: Eric Clapton’s Biography”
Not a bad read, but I found he didn’t do his own story justice. In my opinion his recollection was fairly generalized. He didn’t include much of his own personal feeling or details about some of the greatness that is Clapton or his legendary career. Other than going into detail about his own personal struggles with addiction he appeared to brush over a lot of great moments with mere mention of jamming with “so and so” or creating a hit like Layla among others. Obviously he didn’t want to “toot” his own horn, but I’ve read more interesting details about Clapton, his guitars, songs, and bands over the years from other sources than I did from reading his autobiography. I guess I was expecting the definitive Eric Clapton story from the source himself, but was left wanting more.
For someone who is such a guitar icon, he didn’t delve too deeply into creating some of his memorable riffs, or performing memorable shows. Maybe it boils down to his lack of memory……too much booze and drugs over the years has clouded his memory.
All in all it wasn’t a bad book, but if you’re looking for insight and detailed stories into the music end of all things Clapton you might be disappointed.