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MUSIC HISTORY:
JAZZ / ROCK / BLUES / ETC.
Reviews, News, Commentaries
and Music Biographies by Randy
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All written works contained herein are under the exclusive ownership of Lark Publishing, Inc. (Randy). All rights reserved. Duplication prohibited. No text may be used in whole or in part without expressed written consent of Lark Publishing, Inc.
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Eric Clapton's Me and Mr. Johnson (2004), as painted by Peter Blake.
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Review / Overview
(May 2004)
Eric Clapton, Mr. Johnson and the Blues
Clapton Returns to his Blues Roots for Latest Release
Eric Clapton’s new album, Me and Mr. Johnson (2004) is easily the best effort he’s put out since his last straight-ahead blues album, From The Cradle (1994). Since that time, Clapton has wandered off into essentially pop territory on his 1998 effort, Pilgrim, as well as a mixture of genres on the lackluster 2001 release, Reptile. And while Riding with the King (2000) -- recorded with the legendary B.B. King -- showed promise and was a step in the right direction, it was ultimately uninspired, as was his smooth and over refined career-synopsis live effort, One More Car, One More Rider (2002). As is always the case with Eric Clapton, a return to the blues is welcomed and holds much promise.
Assembled behind him on Me and Mr. Johnson is a crack band -- Billy Preston on Hammond organ and piano, Steve Gadd on drums, Andy Fairweather-Low and Doyle Bramhall II on (additional) guitars, Nathan East on bass, Jerry Portnoy on harmonica, and additional drumming and bass work from Jim Keltner and Pino Palladino respectively. Clapton has basically attempted to reinterpret fourteen of Johnson’s seminal solo acoustic works for full band, and he is largely successful on nearly all counts.
Clapton sounds more confident and on target than he has in ten years. Blues lends an easy focus to his playing and singing that puts the listener closer to where he’s coming from than anything else he attempts. He’s playing as well as ever, his tastefully economical lead lines spraying out like warm familiar embers. He’s also really developed over the years as a great singer, though with Me and Mr. Johnson one wishes he went for the more rough-hewn emotive approach he took on From the Cradle. The band is tight and clearly well drilled – Andy Fairweather-Low has worked with Clapton for a long time and supplies taught, clean rhythm work, and Steve Gadd shows a real sense of simplicity and swing throughout, drumming with the usual metronomic perfection he’s known for.
Billy Preston’s work in particular is nothing short of superb: if anyone deserves another shot in the spotlight it’s him, and the sooner he’s ensconced in a studio to cut his own deservedly high-profile gospel-blues album the better. He solos on Hammond organ with righteous aplomb on “Little Queen of Spades,” while Jerry Portnoy -- from none other than one permutation of Muddy Waters’ seventies bands -- wails on harmonica like he’s summoned the spirit of Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, and Paul Butterfield combined.
The usual Clapton criticisms still apply -- the overall presentation and delivery is a touch too subdued, too controlled -- and there’s the occasional track where Clapton sounds as if he’s not really translating what he’s singing. On “32-20 Blues” he could just as easily be singing about Pepticon instead of literally threatening to kill his woman with a shotgun. (When one is singing “Hellhound On My Trail” one ought to sound like that’s actually the case.) His solos are as always immaculately skillful and precise, but he could still stand to cut loose and careen (at least nearly) out of control once in a while, and that doesn’t happen.
Still, it’s great as always just to hear him play blues. On “They’re Red Hot,” Clapton achieves a sublime accessibility with Johnson’s work without undermining the material’s integrity -- no mean feat. “Stop Breakin’ Down” bristles with grinding energy, and “Kind Hearted Woman” does come off as truly heartfelt. The production is clear and uncluttered -- as it was on From The Cradle -- and the energy that permeates all the tracks repeatedly perks interest, with Clapton leading the way.
But Eric Clapton has almost always been more a follower than a leader, and therein lies the difficulty. Yet Clapton’s work has always been most successful artistically when he’s leading and not following. Witness (a) his purist angle that brought him into the more appropriately elite element of John Mayall’s traditional blues band -- The Bluesbreakers -- after his defection from the newly pop-focused Yardbirds; (b) nearly all of his innovative work with Cream; (c) Derek and the Dominos, where Clapton put his own stamp and his own message -- in what was truly his own voice -- on the blues he’d loved and celebrated for so long; and (d) works like E.C. Was Here (1975) or From The Cradle, where Clapton flew directly in the face of unprecedented popularity and success to record the pure blues album that many had waited years for him to record (in both cases). These are the efforts of a serious artist aware of his strengths, which put (or kept) Clapton on the proverbial map. (Points to those who are aware that E.C. Was Here was entirely producer Tom Dowd’s idea.)
Clapton has suffered what amounts to an artistic identity crisis ever since leaving Cream. He appropriated the styles of other artists he liked, whether it be the laid-back country vibe of Don Williams, or the slow, lazy glide of J.J. Cale. Neil Young perhaps succeeds with said genre hopping because it was always done with complete conviction and a sense of purpose, and he managed to make it his own. With Clapton it appeared more to be from lack of anything else better to do once any appropriation was complete. The result is a fan, i.e. one of my general height, weight and build, who can say in all seriousness that he loves Eric Clapton but yet doesn’t like a good portion of his catalog.
In still other instances, such as his 1996 single, “Change The World,” he delivered what was little more than a bland pop confection recorded with a then-hot pop songwriter (Babyface). And anyone could have told him that the geriatric retooling of “Layla” -- from 1992’s Grammy-winning Unplugged -- was little more than a study in how to pointlessly deflate your own best work. And while the remainder of Unplugged was good, it could also be seen as merely serviceable.
Much of this grows simply from what amounts to an artistic inferiority complex -- by Clapton’s own admission -- that has largely kept him from doing what he does best: the blues. While doing publicity for From The Cradle in 1994, Clapton was asked, “… Is From The Cradle the real you?” His answer was revealing:
“…This probably is as close as we’re going to get to that right now, and it may be that the next album will be me from this platform, but this is me in terms of my musical identity today – where I come from and what I mean, and wherever I go in the future will be a result of this.”
Immediately afterwards he began recording one of his most disappointing and unabashedly pop-oriented records, the overproduced Pilgrim, which if nothing else sounded musically like Clapton trying to be someone else. As brilliant as he’s capable of being, Clapton has never been known for his sense of artistic direction. And while Me and Mr. Johnson places him firmly back on track, one wonders how long he’ll be able to stay there.
This is not to suggest that any semblance of pop aesthetics is wholly inappropriate in the Clapton canon; he need not be straightjacketed into strictly blues either. When he has a sense of purpose, carefully crafts his work, and pays attention to his own artistic frame-of-reference, he comes up with efforts that display the range he does have -- 461 Ocean Boulevard (1974) or the more earthy Money and Cigarettes (1983), on which his takes on Sleepy John Estes’ “Everybody Ought To Make A Change” and Albert King’s “Crosscut Saw” are worth the price of admission alone. Thus sometimes what’s more important is knowing your limitations and working from within them.
But why Clapton has felt his true self and his inherent blues leanings were not enough is unknown, and one of the more puzzling questions in rock or blues history. It must indicate something if an artist’s two strongest records of the last ten years were albums of blues covers, but then Clapton may simply not see it that way. Regardless, Me and Mr. Johnson -- while not as strong or as emotionally satisfying as From The Cradle -- is the best Clapton has sounded in some time, and may even be one of his best all-time efforts. It far exceeds the meager limits Clapton tends to set for himself.
To his credit, Clapton has been a tireless crusader for the blues and its far-too-often neglected founding fathers. The incalculable attention he has garnered for Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters (among others) is a noble act of a true disciple of the blues. It would be interesting to hear Clapton do an album of original material within a blues context that pays equal homage to the players he regards as heroes.
In a recent interview, Clapton stated that he felt he no longer had anything to prove. Unfortunately, he sounds like it. That’s about the best indication of an artist who’s lost sense of his artistic purpose, and that’s partially why Me and Mr. Johnson is a good record and not a great one. Give me an artist who has nothing to prove, and I’ll show you an artist who has nothing to say. Thankfully everything Robert Johnson had to say is worth hearing -- again -- through Clapton’s mouth and guitar.
Copyright © 2004 by Lark Publishing (Randy). All rights reserved. Duplication prohibited.
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