It’s easy for many rock legends to have a few blind spots throughout their later years.
As much as fans want to know the ins and outs of what they had for breakfast the day that they made their classics, there’s a good chance that everyone from Elton John to Paul McCartney are going to have a few hazy memories about what they were doing when they were penning some of their iconic tunes.
But while Eric Clapton did pride himself on being a journeyman with no fixed band to work with, that didn’t always lend itself well to him figuring out the pieces of history that people want to know.
Because if you look at what ‘Slowhand’ was doing during his prime, most people would have been lucky if he was able to stand up when making some of his iconic tunes. Cream could always be counted on to deliver a great show, providing that they didn’t get into a massive brawl onstage, and even for as short a timeframe as they worked in, Derek and the Dominos seemed to reach the creative peak where they could read each other’s minds whenever they played live.
But when looking through his discography, Clapton has always been candid about the moments where he was abusing himself a little too much. Outside of being unreliable to his bandmates half the time, some of the best records in his solo catalogue don’t show him at his healthiest. ‘Wonderful Tonight’ might be a fantastic song, but the line about Patti Boyd taking his drunk ass back to bed is probably a lot closer to reality than people really wanted to admit to themselves.
Then again, none of that mattered once he had a guitar in his hand. Clapton was more used to making the guitar cry every time he played for a crowd, but it also depends on the kind of stage he’s working on. He was a man of many talents throughout his creative peak, but when it came time for his close-up, when starring in The Who’s film adaptation of Tommy, he had no problem admitting that he wasn’t all there.
The film itself has gone down as a must-watch for any classic rock fan, but ‘Slowhand’ said he has no recollection of anything he did, saying, “I can barely remember. I was in semi-blackout for most of that. I went through the brandy and other substances that were being introduced into my system, along with the rest of the guys. I can’t really remember very much about it except that I was so kind of turned off by the whole thing in the end, because I don’t really like that, being on that side of the camera.”
While Clapton didn’t need to carry as heavy a load as someone like Tina Turner or Elton John during the film shoot, his film cameos were best when they didn’t have a storyline. In the concert footage from George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh or even his appearance in The Last Waltz, Clapton was much more comfortable letting the music do the talking rather than worrying about every minute detail that goes into framing a shot.
Granted, it’s not like Clapton was exactly willing to comply with the demands of everything, either. According to the guitarist, he had made deliberate plans to shave his beard so that he couldn’t be filmed again when doing pick-up shots, only to be told that the director would eventually add a fake beard to his character as he played away in the background.
Tommy can feel like a rock and roll superhero movie at times given how many people came to bring the album to life, but it’s understandable why Clapton wouldn’t want to revisit this era of his career. It may have been fun while it lasted, but once the partying stopped, it’s hard to look back on this footage and see how miserable he was.
