Eric Clapton - Clapton Is God

A bit ho-hum for the longtime completist

Clapton has always bitched about The Yardbirds, for whom he was no more eloquent an instrumentalist than his predecessor, Top Topham. A blues purist, he left them for John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers just before the release of million-selling For Your Love. The Yardbirds fill one CD of what is subtitled The Cream Of Early Eric. Hardly “early” tracks from Martha Velez and Viv Stanshall, all with the fellow’s “woman tone” to the fore, conclude the second disc, while items with Otis Spann and Champion Jack Dupree begin it. The rest is from the Mayall period, drawn from selections on Blues Anytime, a series of compilations on Immediate – as were rambling improvisations taped informally with Jimmy Page in 1965. While collectors new to Clapton will be fascinated, some might find a still, small voice asking whether the guitar deity myth would have run less risk of exploding had he been killed in a van crash just after Bluesbreakers, or just before For Your Love.

3 stars 3 stars 3 stars

Castle | CMEDD 1531

Reviewed by Alan Clayson
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