http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/turn_it_up/20
  07/07/exclusive-eric-.html

Exclusive:  Eric  Clapton talks about his passion for Chicago and
its guitarists

When he was just a directionless teenager at Kingston Art  School
in  England  during the early '60s, Eric Clapton began a passion-
ate, long-distance love affair with  Chicago.  Upon  hearing  the
blues  of Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush and Hubert Sumlin on
vinyl records, Clapton saw his future as a guitarist. Since then,
hes  gone  on  to  sell millions of albums, and become one of the
touchstones of rock guitar. But he never forgot his Chicago  con-
nection,  and  remains  one  of the greatest champions the city's
blues scene has ever had.

So it's only fitting that he returns to his spiritual  birthplace
as  an artist this week to host his second Crossroads Guitar Fes-
tival, Saturday at Toyota Park in Bridgeview, Ill.  The  festival
will  benefit Clapton's pet charity: the Crossroads Centre in An-
tigua, a clinic for the chemically dependent. The  festival  will
feature 22 artists and bands, including Jeff Beck, the Bands Rob-
bie Robertson, and a Clapton reunion with Steve Winwood, partners
in the short-lived 60s super group Blind Faith.

A  few  minutes after ending a rehearsal with his band at a South
Side arena Tuesday, Clapton, 62, sat down for an  interview  with
the  Tribune.  Dressed down in a white T-shirt and fraying jeans,
the bespectacled guitarist  was  in  a  garrulous  mood,  clearly
thrilled  at  the prospect of sharing the stage this weekend with
some of his boyhood heroes.

Kot: Why Chicago?

Clapton: A combination of things beneficial to everyone. To start
with,  it  has  to be on the continent, because of the music her-
itage. Economically it makes sense. I'd actually like  having  it
in  my garden [in Surrey, England]. There is some beautiful coun-
tryside where I come from that would be ideal.

But it's very rare to get an open air show in  England  where  it
doesn't  rain. America is a perfect solution, because all the mu-
sicians can get to it easily. Chicago is central. It also has the
added benefit of being the birthplace of modern blues. It came up
from the South, and the good stuff that I was  listening  to  was
coming  out  of Chicago. For me it had a certain resonance. And I
was confident we could find somewhere to play here.


Q: When you were listening to those classic Chicago blues records
as  a teenager, did you have a mental picture of what Chicago was
like?

A: A certain amount of image was created by the guys  themselves.
It was well known there were these clubs called Smitty's and Pep-
per's Lounge and the South Side of Chicago was the hot  place  to
be.  Needless  to  say, where I came from, we didn't get the full
picture, the harsher aspects of it. It seemed  incredibly  roman-
tic,  gangsterish  and exciting. The first band I identified with
from Chicago was the Muddy Waters band. "The Best  of  Muddy  Wa-
ters" was the first thing I had where it was quite clearly coming
from this town.

 I looked into the guys who were around him  --  Otis  Spann  and
Little Walter --- and found their records, and then I found Buddy
Guy and Otis Rush and everybody else.  It  also  seemed  to  keep
pointing back to the fact that this was the home for all that. It
became the place I wanted to go to as a teenager. A lot of people
would've  liked  to  go to California, especially during the '60s
when the love thing was going on. Even then, during the mid-'60s,
I felt Chicago was the place to come to, musically, for me.

Q:  When  you  actually  got to meet the people on those records,
what was that like?

A: I met Muddy in London when I came to do a  session  with  Blue
Horizon,  this blues collective label. I was shoved in there with
them, I managed to finagle playing on  their  session.  And  they
were  extremely  powerful men. And I was a little boy. I was only
19, and very unsure of myself. I had  met  Sonny  Boy  Williamson
earlier.  He  was  quite  a mean boss. A character. The difficult
part about that was that I wasn't a huge fan of his.

We really didn't hit it off. I was in the Yardbirds, and  he  was
coming  out on a blues tour, and they decided to put us together.
And we really didn't get on well. He didn't think we played well,
and  I thought he was a strange guy and unnecessarily harsh. When
I met Muddy, it was a different story. He was generous,  open,  a
benevolent  character.  He  was much more secure in his status in
the music business. I really don't know what the  deal  was  with
Sonny  Boy,  but it was clear the guys around Muddy knew who they
were. There was no infighting. I was very impressed as the  years
went  by  that all the guys who played with him were free to make
their own albums. They were encouraged to make their own  albums.
Jimmie  Rodgers  made some great records, Little Walter made some
great records. There was no paranoia about that. It wasnt compet-
itive.

Q:  You  have a blues holy trinity on this bill: B.B. King, Buddy
Guy and Hubert Sumlin. But they're all very  different  stylists.
What did you learn from each of them?

A:  The  first  one who got to me was Hubert, by virtue of having
the earlier records on Chess that Howlin' Wolf made, which Hubert
was on. I'd never heard anything like that kind of guitar playing
before. It seemed to me almost impossible to define  how  he  was
getting  those  effects. Buddy later came to London and I saw him
play live, and got a whole other take of what Chicago  blues  was
like  live, and what kind of guitar player he was. B.B., I got to
later on.

When I first heard him, for my taste it was a little bit too  ho-
mogenized,  it  was  commercial blues. He was coming from a whole
other area: T-Bone Walker, Big Joe Turner, and  Louis  Jordan.  I
hadn't  figured  out how to get to Louis Jordan. I only got there
later in my life, and began to understand where that sat  in  the
history  of it all. My interest came from country blues to Chica-
go, and my interests and tastes were defined  by  more  primitive
classics.  Anything  that  smacked  of  production  or background
singers, even horns  it took me a while to digest Bobby Bland and
Little  Junior  parker, because they had orchestras. I was inter-
ested in Muddy's kind of thing, small combos, with  two  guitars,
harmonica, bass and drums.

Then  I started to see more and more of B.B. and started to real-
ize that his proficiency on the instrument was probably  far  be-
yond  anybody's  reach.  It  was something else he was doing that
these guys would attempt. Buddy would tell you that  he  grew  up
trying  to  imitate  him. But I didnt realize that. None of these
guys was doing the same thing when I first heard them. It  wasn't
until  you  talk  to these guys and set up a meaningful relation-
ship, which is the only way you get them to talk about  how  they
grew  up and what they listened to. It was very good to know what
they meant to one another, too. There wasn't any rivalry.  Every-
one seems quite happy to share their space. There's a lot of dif-
ference in their styles, but viva la difference.

Q: But there were the  cutting  contests  in  the  Chicago  blues
clubs,  and the showmanship came about because of this overheated
environment where everyone was a great player. Did you  have  any
sense  of  competition  or rivalry with your peers on the British
scene?

A: I only got to know two or three guys  that  play  that  style.
There was Peter Green, and I cant think of anyone else who played
from the same origin, same root of influence as I did. The  other
guys  mentioned like Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page were much more from
a rockabilly sensibility. There were very  few  people  drawn  to
Chicago  blues  and  country  blues the way I was and Peter Green
was. I suppose because we were so rare, there wasn't  a  rivalry.
It  was more of a nurturing. Wed be starving, and if you run into
another of your kind, it's something to feed on. The head-cutting
thing  is  an  interesting  phenomenon. I've been involved in it,
where I've been on stage with lots of players and we try  to  ex-
pand  what  we usually do, just to make a statement. I never felt
it to be anything other than that. Not hostile. Ive never seen it
done with any malice.

Q: So you enjoy it?

A:  Oh,  yeah! It's inspiration to me. I play a certain way on my
own at home. I play a certain way if I'm the only  guitar  player
in  my band. But if I have Doyle [Bramhall] and Derek [Trucks] in
the band like I have for this show, I will try to do  more,  out-
side  of what I normally try to achieve. We did a gig on Saturday
where Robert Randolph opened. He's difficult to follow.  Normally
speaking  I'd  stay away from the stage [during the opening act],
but on this occasion because there was nowhere to go,  I  watched
his set. It had a really positive effect on what I played. I knew
Robert was going to stay for us, and I played for Robert.  That's
the way I think it works. You don't play to spite them or to play
against them.

Q: Cream was about three guys pushing each other, and the "Layla"
sessions  were  about you and Duane Allman pushing each other. Do
you feel pushed to another level when you're in  the  company  of
people who arent going to back down from you? Does your own play-
ing benefit?

A: Yes. It's the difference between being a bedroom guitar player
with  your  headphones  and  computer to being out in the market-
place, out with the big boys. There's nowhere to hide. I have  to
step beyond what I've been practicing. I have to go beyond what I
know. It's a gamble. Unless you have a great deal  of  faith  and
confidence  in  yourself,  it's tough to step from the known into
the unknown, because anything can happen. The guys we admire that
made music such a great thing, the history of music, is about go-
ing into the unknown. The great players, they like it out  there.

Q: It takes you out of your comfort zone.

A: Yeah. Ever since I was inspired by the guys I heard on record,
it was my ambition to meet them and play with them in person. One
by  one, those guys who were my heroes would eventually be in the
same room with me. I can remember meeting Mike  Bloomfield,  even
before  I  met [Jimi] Hendrix. The guy in America at the time was
Mike Bloomfield. There was no one else. You know why? He was  se-
rious.  There  was no bull involved. He was an academic musician,
he knew his stuff, he knew his roots, he knew where it came  from
and  he  knew where he belonged in it. It didn't have anything to
do with being on TV or show-biz or commerciality or popularity.

He knew about me too. So from the beginning it was about  meeting
people that I admire and getting up into a place where I thought,
"This is it." What do we do? We just play, play our  hearts  out.
And  I've done that now with just about anyone I've ever listened
to. Im a very fortunate man. I enjoy being in that  arena,  where
we just have to make it up.

Q:  Was  there ever a time where you were pushed further than you
wanted to be?

A: Yeah, and it's a funny one too. In the '60s and '70s they  set
about  to  make  these  sort of super jams. There was one [in the
late '60s] you can see on You Tube I think where Buddy [Guy]  was
in  town,  Buddy  Miles was in town, and someone had this idea we
should do this super jam. I think Jack [Bruce] was on  bass.  And
Rahsaan  Roland Kirk was there. I'd seen him play many times, but
Id never been on stage with him, and I was very intimidated,  be-
cause  I  knew  he was a fairly aggressive guy, and someone said,
what are we going to play? And I just hopefully threw out, "Let's
play  a blues." Figuring I'd be safe. And Roland Kirk says, "OK,"
and [counts down very fast].

I didnt realize that blues can be any tempo, and it  was  horren-
dous.  I  had nothing to do. It was taken far beyond my capabili-
ties. There was this square off going on. Roland was happy  play-
ing  the groove, but something started up between the two Buddys,
and all hell broke loose, kind  of  seriously  hostile.  And  I'm
thinking,  I  wished I'd never come. The only time it's backfired
and whoever thought it was a good idea, hadn't really done  their
homework.

Q:  So  there will be a Blind Faith set this weekend with you and
Steve Winwood?

A: Yes, I think we will do a couple of Blind Faith songs.

Q: Blind Faith is one of the great unrealized  chapters  in  your
career. Why return to it now?

A: I like the music. Everything was going so fast [38 years ago].
We weren't really ready to be a band. We were in the  same  boat,
and the next thing we knew we were playing stadiums across Ameri-
ca. The management was nuts and wanted to reap  [the  money].  We
were just pushed out there too soon.  We made one album, where we
were just beginning to scrape the surface of our creativity and I
was  gone, off joining [the American rock group] Delaney and Bon-
nie, and having fun. The thing with the corporate commercial  en-
terprise  is  that  the fun can get kicked to death very quickly,
and it did. We were snowed under with our obligations.  And  I've
always  yearned to renege that, try to get back [to that original
idea]. Because from Day One, Steve has always been a huge hero of
mine.

I've  always  looked forward to seeing him play. There has always
been a great deal of affection between us. And  that  was  a  sad
event,  and  it  took a while for us to trust one another, or for
him to trust me, because I was the one who abandoned it. We enjoy
country  pursuits  as  well. We fish and do those kinds of things
together. We played a show about two months ago where we did  the
songs  just to see if it would be OK, and it was great. And he is
a remarkable guitar player, too. He should have been at the first
guitar  festival  [in  Dallas in 2004], so now I am trying to re-
dress that and bring him, and see what happens.

Q: What was the goal with Blind Faith?

A: My approach was that I had been very inspired by the Band, and
Traffic too. Both had been based on a principle that Steve talked
about, which is  "unskilled  labor."  Everyone  would  carry  the
weight. People would take turns singing, trading instruments, and
Blind Faith was a beginning attempt at that principle  of  making
music  for fun on a much more amateur scale. It was a reaction to
the pseudo-virtuosity that had been laid on Cream. The supergroup
thing  had  had its day for me, and the expectations were boring.
There  was  only  one  thing  people  wanted:  drum  solos,   mad
psychedelic  solos.  And  I wanted to be in a band where we could
just establish grooves.

It might have been that we were influenced by Booker T,  the  Me-
ters, those groups that played for the love of the groove. We had
a fairly good run-up to it, and then the notion of  how  to  make
that marketable, of where you go to play it, what sort of venues,
we handed over control of that to management, and we should  have
applied  our creativity to the whole thing. We went straight into
world tours playing in massive stadiums  of  20,000  people.  You
play  a set, and its impossible to create a really intimate atmo-
sphere. There is nothing like playing in a club the way you  just
throw everything in the air and improvise as much as you can. You
need that to be in a smaller venue.

Q: Which is why you switched to Delaney and Bonnie?

A: Yeah. Blind Faith had been smaller scale. But we  bought  into
this  financial  dream  of it, too, and that went big. And here's
Delaney and Bonnie and  no  one  knows  who  they  are,  and  the
anonymity  of  it  attracted me as much as anything. I dived into
that tide. I could become a sideman. I really love standing  next
to the bass player and drummer. I like that more than standing up
at the microphone. I really do.

Q: You've always considered your singing voice secondary  to  the
guitar.  But  you're  a  pop  star, and your voice is really well
known. Did you ever get comfortable with your singing  voice  and
playing that role?

A:  I  think  I deliberately sold out a couple of times. I picked
the songs that I thought would do well in the  marketplace,  even
though  I  didn't  really  love the song. But that's been kind of
limited. I feel I've been very true to my  principles,  even  the
way  I  sing.  I've  always been aware that the best way to cover
that slot is to do it yourself, rather than get a singer. I'm not
a  big  fan  of  lead vocalists, people who sing but dont play. I
never wanted to be in a band where the guy who was up front  just
sang.  I've  always  thought  it better when one of the musicians
sings, like Steve Winwood. And Delaney was one of the first  peo-
ple to say to me, "You can sing, you should sing."

So,  what  I've  tried to do is get to the point where its barely
satisfactory to myself. I'm competently doing it to the  best  of
my abilities. But I've never really worked on being a singer.

Q: When did you find your voice on guitar?

A:  When I was in the John Mayall band [Bluesbreakers, 1965-66] I
really found my stride. I knew I was  playing  with  my  own  re-
sources  and  not  piecing together other peoples stuff, not just
emulating someone.

Q: You did a lot of woodshedding during that time. Do  you  still
work on your guitar playing?

A:  I  did  more  of that in the '90s than I'm doing right now. I
just don't get the time right now. I'm a new father, with a young
family  who  at  this stage of the game require quite a lot of my
attention, and deprive me from any kind of rehearsing. Anytime  I
pick up a guitar, I'm a source of amusement for them. They try to
take it away from me, or tell me to shut  up,  or  make  me  play
things that they can dance to. My time is not my own.

Q: You have three young daughters.

A: All under the age of six. I also have an older daughter who is
22, and she's fine, established in  her  life.  And  these  young
ones,  they  are  very angelic and they are very distracting. For
this festival, they left me alone for two weeks, home on  my  own
so  I  could work on stuff. Beyond trying to play anything coher-
ent, I just sat there with an electric guitar and practiced bend-
ing  [the strings]. Because otherwise I don't play at home unless
I'm amusing them.

Q: You've also managed to get Robbie Robertson out of hiding this
weekend.  You  went to play with The Band at their house in Wood-
stock in 1968. How did that go?

A: Robbie and I first met at a friend's house in [Los Angeles  in
the  '60s],  and  I  knew that I met someone that I would want to
know through my life. He was a serious guy, a great musician.  He
was out there in some respect, and I wanted to be around him, and
see what was going on. We went  up  there  [to  Woodstock,  N.Y.,
where Robertson and the Band lived in 1968]. I met with the guys.
They didn't play. They showed me around  Big  Pink,  their  club-
house.  Maybe they jammed a little bit, I don't think we did any-
thing serious.

It was more getting to know one another. And  through  the  years
Robbie and I have stayed in touch, and played on a few things. At
one point we tried to collaborate to write in the early '90s.  We
spent  a  couple  of  months  woodshedding;  there are loose ends
there. So Robbie coming to play is a good way for us  to  get  in
tune  again.  George  Harrison was very similar to Robbie in some
respects. They obviously love music, but it's  a  very  divergent
appreciation.  [They  also  love] movies, literature. And playing
live is not very much a part of his life. And  it  was  the  same
with  George.  George  found  it in the end very difficult to ap-
proach the live stage. And I'm not sure how  Robbie  feels  about
that.

 But if he's anything like me, I'm sure he has a yearning for it.
There is that thing in all of us. There's  something  that  comes
off  with  the night, the stage, the audience. As much as you re-
hearse, it's all an act of God.

Q: Yet I'm amazed you sit in with the Band, and  nothing  musical
came of it?

A:  We  were all having too much fun. There was no one around. At
that time, it seemed to me there was no one  in  control  of  the
Band.  That was another thing that appealed to me about them, and
the way they ran  their  affairs,  was  that  apart  from  Albert
[Grossman] in the background there, I don't know who their manag-
er was. They made their decisions. They were grown-ups.  I  still
felt  I was in and around other musicians who were led where they
were supposed to go. We really weren't in control of our own des-
tinies.  The Band appealed to me because they seemed to know what
they wanted to know. And they were like men. In the same way  the
blues  guys  were men. And I wanted to be a man. Through the late
'60s and early '70s, I'd see those guys on tour, and wed  get  up
and  sing  and  play  with them, and hang out. It was never taken
very seriously.

Q: Did you enjoy "The Last Waltz" [the Bands farewell concert  in
1976,  in  which  Clapton,  Bob  Dylan  and a host of greats per-
formed]?

A: I did, yeah. A fantastic event. I loved it.

Q: The backstage scene must have been unbelievable.

A: Unbelievable. The wildest party I'd ever seen.  And  everybody
there was the right people to be there. There wasnt anybody there
where you went, "Who invited him?" Most of the things  I've  been
to, there are maybe two people I want to see, and there are a lot
of people I want to hide from. But everybody there it was  great,
great meeting.

Q: Was the music up to snuff?

A:  For me, Muddy [Waters] and Van [Morrison] steal the show. Van
doing ["Caravan"] with the leg kicks. Some of the  greatest  live
music you'll ever see.

Q: I take it you've seen the movie?

A: [Laughs]

Q: Did the movie match up with your experience?

A:  I  have  to say I was pretty off my head. I think a lot of us
were. But the music stood up. The Band had their  chops  up.  And
whoever  was  off  their head, it didnt show, because they put it
together so well.

Q: You brought Cream full circle [with the 2005 reunion tour]. Is
there anything more going on with you and that band?

A:  I  never close the door on anything. There is always going to
be a valid reason to re-approach things, as long as  everyone  is
alive.  What  if I went bankrupt and I was on the skids? I'd kind
of hope that one of those two guys would say, "Lets put  together
a  benefit for Eric." So theres always going to be a reason to go
back to it.

Q: But you don't see any new music being done with Cream?

A: No, I don't. Because my selfish reasons are that  after  doing
this  here  in  Chicago,  I dont want to do anything for a while.
Robbie and I will probably kick  some  things  around.  And  that
probably  won't  even  start  till next year. I really want to be
with my family for a couple of years. And if I've  got  something
left to say  I'll probably go on the road again. But I don't want
to make any plans now.

Q: The music industry must be depressing to you now, though.

A: I think it's finished. I think it's had its day. I  don't  buy
CDs  anymore  either.  It's gotten to a middle ground for me now,
where the things  I  found  really  interesting  from  the  past,
they're  hard  to  find.  You  can  get  only a certain amount on
iTunes, and you can't get vinyl.  It's  obsolete.  I  don't  know
where  it's  going  and I don't care. Because as far as I can see
there has always been a handful of people dedicated to making mu-
sic  with  their hands, and as long as that's alive, I'm happy. I
will probably live long enough to see that continue.  Maybe  that
too will die, but I won't be here.

Q: You've done so much to nurture the blues. Do you think it will
carry on?

A: Oh, sure. There is no shelf life for that. It's classical  mu-
sic  now.  It's on another level with the music of the great mas-
ters. It's very important. It touches people in a way that  clas-
sical music touches people. It's on the same level.

Q: But are there new people coming up to keep it going or will it
survive only in the recordings?

A: Both. There will be a certain element preserved and enshrined,
but  as a language it will continue to flourish, because the peo-
ple who understand the language know how to put it into any  kind
of  music  you can play. It's possible to use that root to embel-
lish rock, pop, jazz. It doesn't have to be strictly uniform.  It
can be applied in different ways.

Q:  Would  you  say  that's the key part of your legacy: shedding
light on the blues and bringing it forward?

A: It's always been important to me to point out where  it  comes
from, not just music, but anything. I get a little concerned when
people don't look back far enough. The punk thing worried me  be-
cause it was a deliberate attempt to wipe out the past, the roots
of music. It was a purely political move. It's dangerous.  And  I
think  that's why it was so exciting to people, the kind of revo-
lution it symbolized. Thank God certain people carried on through
it  and  ignored  it.  In a way it was necessary, but it could've
wiped out the origin of where we come from.

Q: But the Chicago blues stuff you admired was pretty  punk  too,
very in your face. They were the punks of their day, in a way.

A: I think Buddy would fit that. But he'd also tell you about all
the guys that came before him. The thing with the  punk  movement
was,  they didn't want any of that stuff. It was all dead. It was
calculated.

Q: What was your response to punk?

A: Stick to your guns and do what you love. Clearly, I was one of
the people targeted with "assassination," along with Phil Collins
and anyone else popular during that period. The thing to  do  was
to keep going, and believe I was doing the right thing. But I was
fearful. I was worried about meeting some of them. There was such
antagonism.  Im  sure  there  were people in the middle of it all
like Joe Strummer of the Clash who did like the  music  from  be-
fore.  But  I  never met Johnny Rotten, and I didn't want to meet
Johnny Rotten. I didn't want  to  meet  people  in  confrontation
where  Im marked as dead. I was scared. And I've never really un-
derstood or was motivated by hatred or anger. Blues when  it  was
played at its most aggressive can be about anger. But it's a much
more compassionate setting.

Q: You titled one of your albums "Journeyman," which is a  modest
way to look at your role in all this. Do you believe that?

A:  Yes, it's comfortable. I'm just a water carrier. I like that.
It makes sense to me. It's more fun, the responsibility is a lit-
tle less severe. I'm just trying to turn the light on.

greg@gregkot.com



  

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