What Does That Make God, Then?

Album: Eric Clapton, 1983 (a cassette reissue of a Polydor compilation that was originally released in the Netherlands in 1970 as part of the Music for the Millions series)

(Aside: The picture to the left is the album cover for the 1970 release Eric Clapton & Friends. I've gone through two periods in my life -- my first year of grad school and about seven months of my first year of freelancing -- when I cultivated a similar too much hair and shaggy beard look. It isn't as liberating as it appears. If nothing else, just consider how much time a guy who looks like this spends each morning unclogging the drain from yesterday's shower. But maybe that wasn't as big a concern for Mr. Clapton and his compatriots.)

(Another aside: Why am I'm flagging paragraphs as asides? Isn't everything I write in this blog discursive? For example, I know feel compelled to tell you that Webster's defines "discursive" as meaning "a: moving from topic to topic without order : rambling b: proceeding coherently from topic to topic." And telling you that compels me to observe that if I am being discursive, I'm either wasting everyone's time, or I'm busily making myself into a modern-day Daniel O'Connell. You tell me.)

Acquired: I purchased the Clapton compilation at the Little Creek Navy Exchange in 1983. Post exchanges used to be great places to find all kinds of esoterica because the Department of Defense just bought stuff that vendors could deliver for cheap. That could be Wedgwood china, or it could be semibootlegged greatest hits collections on cassette. Px's have gradually turned into Targets, which I guess is a good thing for customers, but it was cool to never quite know from week to week what would be on the shelves.

Best Track: "Layla"

Lasting Memory: I have a distinct memory of listening to "Bell Bottom Blues" on a winter night in 1986 while sitting in the backseat of a car being driven by a named Craig as all seven of us passengers tried to figure out which of the houses in the Ghent neighborhood we were cruising through was the one having the kegger. Good times, man. Good times.

Beyond the pithy observation that a Clapton song has definitely provided the soundtrack to at least one, and probably several, of your own sepia-toned memories, I've nothing much to say about Clapton the artist or Eric Clapton the 1970 compilation. He was good. This cassette, even though it is in mono, reflects that.

I do have a couple of questions, though:

1. If Clapton is indeed God, as the London graffiti of the mid-1960s proclaimed, does that mean Jesus was a rhythm guitarist for the Apostles?
2. How can the very man who wrote and recorded the jaw-dropping original have turned into such a college-town coffee shop hack?
3. What are you gonna do when the room gets lonely?

I won't link to a clip or video for a good version of "Layla." If you can't find a radio station that will play that within the next hour, you need to move.

Up Next: The Clash, The Story of the Clash (Sides 1&2), 1988