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But.
He wrote Wonderful Tonight. Which is a fucking smug, hateful, misogynistic piece of turgid dross that so, so, so many pub performers trot out as a romantic finisher and for that he can never find redemption.
Its not a knock on you mate. But don't let his association with black artists fool you. Racism is not as simple as that. Even Hitler married a jewish woman. The fact those artists still associated with him speaks more about their character than his i.e they're more forgiving and tolerant than he is.
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
I am not a big Clapton fan musically he has been there my whole life and there are times I have dipped in and listened to him and I was lucky enough to get a front row ticket from my Daughter for a big birthday and undoubtedly when challenged as he was with having Derek Trucks in the band at the time he can bring a surprising A game as a blue rocker.
I always think its easy sitting on the side lines and moralising about celebrities and their behaviour when Clapton gets mentioned this places turns into the Daily Mail it really does.
The reality to me is Clapton was a pretty dysfunctional illegitimate kid brought up in a weird family dynamic and then had adulation and success thrown at him and the monicker of being god. Much of what followed for years was an industry and an era that encouraged and enabled their stars to live all kinds of excess as long as they kept the machine running. Somehow Clapton manged to navigate that even through his slim years. The industry allowed him to most of the time bury his demons. In the end that stuff comes back and I have always seen Claptons outbursts, racist vaccine etc being that he simply is trying to find answers to what ails him so he ends up getting shit face with a load of land owning country types who sprout racist shit till it makes some sense to the kid who grew up being called the basted combined with the endless chip on his should gets drunk and blows up a concert. Yes he continues to fuck up.
I have no doubt he and many like him are just some of lifes fuck ups that have spent there lives trying to do the right thing and failing. He has the trappings of wealth from his music but by his own admission until his latter years and loads of rehab and therapy and working with Crossroads has never really been able to express himself emotionally,
For all those who like to throw shade at these threads through a modern politically correct lens. If Clapton was some news paper wrapped, down and out in cardboard city you would happily be throwing money in his jar and feeling sorry for his arse.
The trappings of wealth and money have made him no less a screw up than the next person with issues.
Yeah sure its hard to feel sorry for the guy on his yacht
But yeah as maybe mentioned before maybe its his political views and such that divide opinion.
As a recovering addict, I have said and done the most horrible things in my darkest days. Oh yeah, I have been called a Wog Paki and all sorts of shit back in the day. Some of the folks who I used to fight with as a kid have thankfully grown to be very cool human beings.
However - being racist isn't politics. It's just being racist.
But - how do you feel about domestic violence and rape?
From the wiki, and from a Sunday Times interview:
Before heading down the "well, we don't really know what happens behind closed doors..." path - he admitted it. There's nothing to misunderstand about.
None of this has anything to do with politics or religion.
He's just a really nasty human being.
I’m so bored I might as well be listening to Pink Floyd
When he hands himself into the police for the admitted rape of Patty Boyd he can go to prison and that process can start.
I’m so bored I might as well be listening to Pink Floyd
Rachmaninov made a lot of money from the slave trade. As disgusting as it is to us now it was legal then and me buying an album is not going to benefit him in the slightest. Me buying an album now is not endorsing / supporting him in the slightest.
While they are still alive, or indeed died in recent memory, then that's a pretty solid line.
I’m so bored I might as well be listening to Pink Floyd
Have you got any Zeppelin or Aerosmith in your CD collection?
Bandcamp
He doesn’t seem to have much harmonic awareness in his soloing, and often doesn’t seem to land the end of a phrase on a note that seems like ‘home’ or that seems to resolve the tension of the phrase. Or to put it another way, he ends up on notes that sound amateurish to me.
Is he an awful guitarist? No.
Are there millions of more harmonically interesting players out there? Absolutely.
I did have a single of 'Love in an Elevator' but I have no idea what happened to it. I don't own a record player anymore.
EDIT:
It does lead to a good question though. If I bought an album as a teenager should I chuck it now after I learn something? Or is that a stupid waste to chuck it?
Should it be based on admissions and convictions only or on rumours and hints?
What about consuming the music in a way that does not benefit the artist? It's easy enough to get a used CD from a charity shop so no benefit goes to the artist. It's also easy to find free music on the web and not use something like youtube or spotify that benefits the artist.
I do have a monster CD collection - most of it in the attic now. I've never catalogued it.
I have no doubt if I went looking there would be some very unsavoury people involved in some of them.
I'm not going to beat myself up over owning something I bought before I knew.
But that doesn't mean I'd find it acceptable for me to buy anything new from them after the date of knowledge.
It's definitely up the individual whether they want to support an individual, but I'm not going to be shy about pointing out what an individual might have done - particularly if there has been no remorse or submission to authority / rehabilitation etc.
I’m so bored I might as well be listening to Pink Floyd
To be honest I don't think we are anywhere near knowing the extent of the exploitation of groupies etc that went on in the sixties, seventies and perhaps to a lesser extent the eighties. Lori Maddox was the tip of a huge iceberg that is being largely ignored or glossed around.
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
But back to the racism. I can forgive things people say at bad times in their lives. It happens. It shouldn't define someone for the rest of their lives. But I think the apology I heard from him after he'd presumably sobbered up and had time to think about it left me feeling uncomfortable. If i remember correctly it was along the lines of what I think of as the Ron Atknison racism defence i.e. he says "how can I be racist after all I've done for Black music?" or "footballers" in Ron's case. Seems a bit entitled and even narcissistic. What about what Black music has done for you Eric?
Do we discard information simply because it runs contrary to some other deeply held opinion or belief? Where the line is drawn is subjective of course. Those who argue that Hitler had some good ideas so he can't be all bad are probably straying onto the wrong side of the line that most others would draw. Clapton gets flack for not being a particularly wonderful human being and for not always being the most interesting guitarist all the time. No denying he has influenced others in a positive way but at the same time it isn't always easy to overlook the misdemeanors that go along with his history. The Savile reference above is apposite. Ultimately all the good works can't disguise the bad things. If you can divorce the music from the man and just enjoy it for what it is then where's the fault? We have to compartmentalise so many things just to exist. I can listen to Badge in the context of it simply being sound and not consider at the same time that it came from a man with otherwise diverse character flaws. The tune with which I have an issue these days is Rainbow's "All night long" which to me encapsulates misogyny bordering on peadophilia (if you've ever really listened to the lyrics). Not sure that makes Blackmore a terrible guitarist though.
I would hazard the opinion that he is more interesting than Clapton so maybe he could be forgiven a few murders before he becomes persona non grata.