THE CLAPTON CHRONICLES

To celebrate Eric Clapton’s current return to the world’s stages, we present a classic interview in which he talks to Pierre Perrone about the blues, BB King, Pete Townshend and Jeff Beck

“I don’t like doing interviews or rather I don’t like to see myself in the papers. I prefer the quiet life,” Eric Clapton told me when I interviewed him about Riding With The King, his collaboration with blues legend BB King.

Our wide-ranging conversation provided a chance to reflect on Clapton’s life, his love of the blues and the therapeutic effect the music has had on him. Tanned, wearing a Stevie Wonder Anthology T-shirt and beige trousers, he looked relaxed as he sat in his manager’s Chelsea office across from a shelf full of Grammies.

The guitarist talked at length about his friendship with BB King and British contemparies like Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend and George Harrison. He also looked back on his personal highs and lows and touched on future recording plans, which have indeed come to fruition.

As a youngster, you were fascinated by the blues. Why do you think you felt such empathy with this type of music?

It was like a cry from the heart. I had a fairly strange childhood (Clapton was an illegitimate child mostly brought up by his grandparents) and, even when I was nine years old, I knew I wasn’t quite the same as everyone else. I had a lot of selfesteem problems and, when I heard Big …

by Pierre Perrone
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