Eric Clapton

This article is about the person. For the album, see Eric Clapton (album).
Eric Clapton
CBEClapton performing at the Royal Albert Hall in May 2017
BornEric Patrick Clapton
30 March 1945 (age 78)

• Ripley, Surrey, EnglandOccupationsGuitaristsingersongwriterrecord producer
• Years active1962–presentSpouses

Pattie Boyd
​

​(m. 1979; div. 1989)​[1]

Melia McEnery ​(m. 2002)​

• Children5Musical careerGenresRockblues
• Instrument(s)Guitarvocals
• LabelsPolydorAtcoRSOWarner Bros.DuckRepriseSurfdog
• Formerly ofThe YardbirdsJohn Mayall & the BluesbreakersCreamThe Dirty MacPlastic Ono BandBlind FaithDelaney & Bonnie and FriendsDerek and the Dominos

Websiteericclapton.com
Eric Patrick Clapton CBE (born 30 March 1945) is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is regarded as one of the most successful and influential guitarists in rock music.[2] He ranked second in Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time"[3] and fourth in Gibson's "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time".[4] In 2023, Clapton was named the 35th best guitarist of all time.[5] He was also named number five in Time magazine's list of "The 10 Best Electric Guitar Players" in 2009.[6]
After playing in a number of different local bands, Clapton joined the Yardbirds from 1963 to 1965, and John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers from 1965 to 1966. After leaving Mayall, he formed the power trio Cream with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, in which Clapton played sustained blues improvisations and "arty, blues-based psychedelic pop".[7] After four successful albums, Cream broke up in November 1968. Clapton then formed the blues rock band Blind Faith with Baker, Steve Winwood, and Ric Grech, recording one album and performing on one tour before they broke up. Clapton then toured with Delaney & Bonnie and recorded his first solo album in 1970, before forming Derek and the Dominos with Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon. Like Blind Faith, the band only lasted one album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, which includes "Layla", one of Clapton's signature songs.
Clapton continued to record a number of successful solo albums and songs over the next several decades, including a 1974 cover of Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" (which helped reggae reach a mass market),[8] the country-infused Slowhand album (1977) and the pop rock of 1986's August. Following the death of his son Conor in 1991, Clapton's grief was expressed in the song "Tears in Heaven", which appeared on his Unplugged album. In 1996 he had another top-40 hit with the R&B crossover "Change the World". In 1998, he released the Grammy award-winning "My Father's Eyes". Since 1999, he has recorded a number of traditional blues and blues rock albums and hosted the periodic Crossroads Guitar Festival. His most recent studio album is Happy Xmas (2018).
Clapton has received 18 Grammy Awards as well as the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music.[9][10] In 2004, he was awarded a CBE for services to music.[11] He has received four Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, including the Lifetime Achievement Award. He is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of the Yardbirds and of Cream. In his solo career, he has sold more than 280 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time.[12] In 1998, Clapton, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, founded the Crossroads Centre on Antigua, a medical facility for those recovering from substance abuse.[13]

Early life

Clapton was born on 30 March 1945 in Ripley, Surrey, England, to 16-year-old Patricia Molly Clapton (1929–1999) and Edward Walter Fryer (1920–1985), a 25-year-old soldier from Montreal, Quebec.[14] Fryer was drafted to war before Clapton's birth and then returned to Canada. Clapton grew up believing that his grandmother, Rose, and her second husband, Jack Clapp, Patricia's stepfather, were his parents, and that his mother was actually his older sister. The similarity in surnames gave rise to the erroneous belief that Clapton's real surname is Clapp (Reginald Cecil Clapton was the name of Rose's first husband, Eric Clapton's maternal grandfather).[15] Years later, his mother married another Canadian soldier and moved to Germany,[16] leaving Eric with his grandparents in Surrey.[17]
Clapton received an acoustic Hoyer guitar, made in Germany, for his thirteenth birthday, but the inexpensive steel-stringed instrument was difficult to play and he briefly lost interest.[17] Two years later he picked it up again and started playing consistently.[17] He was influenced by blues music from an early age, and practised long hours learning the chords of blues music by playing along to the records.[18] He preserved his practice sessions using his portable Grundig reel-to-reel tape recorder, listening to them over and over until he was satisfied.[18][19]
In 1961, after leaving Hollyfield School in Surbiton, he studied at the Kingston College of Art but was expelled at the end of the academic year because his focus had remained on music rather than art. His guitar playing was sufficiently advanced that, by the age of 16, he was getting noticed.[19] Around this time, he began busking around Kingston, Richmond, and the West End.[20] In 1962, he started performing as a duo with fellow blues enthusiast Dave Brock in pubs around Surrey.[19] When he was 17, he joined his first band, an early British R&B group, the Roosters, whose other guitarist was Tom McGuinness. He stayed with them from January until August 1963.[13] In October of that year, he performed a seven-gig stint with Casey Jones & the Engineers.[13]

Career

The Yardbirds and the Bluesbreakers

Main articles: The Yardbirds and John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers
In October 1963, Clapton joined the Yardbirds, a rhythm and blues band, and stayed with them until March 1965. Synthesising influences from Chicago blues and leading blues guitarists such as Buddy Guy, Freddie King, and B.B. King, Clapton forged a distinctive style and rapidly became one of the most talked-about guitarists in the British music scene.[21] The band initially played Chess/Checker/Vee-Jay blues numbers and began to attract a large cult following when they took over the Rolling Stones' residency at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, London. They toured England with American bluesman Sonny Boy Williamson II; a joint LP album, recorded in December 1963, was issued in 1965.
Appearing at the Royal Albert Hall in London for the first time in 1964, Clapton has since performed at the venue over 200 times.[22]
Yardbirds' rhythm guitarist, Chris Dreja, recalled that whenever Clapton broke a guitar string during a concert, he would stay on stage and replace it. The English audiences would wait out the delay by doing what is called a "slow handclap". Clapton's nickname of "Slowhand" came from Giorgio Gomelsky, a pun on the slow handclapping that ensued when Clapton stopped playing while he replaced a string.[23] In December 1964, Clapton made his first appearance at the Royal Albert Hall in London, with the Yardbirds.[22] Since then, Clapton has performed at the Hall over 200 times, and has stated that performing at the venue is like "playing in my front room".[24][25]
In March 1965, Clapton and the Yardbirds had their first major hit, "For Your Love", written by songwriter Graham Gouldman, who also wrote hit songs for Herman's Hermits and the Hollies (and later achieved success of his own as a member of 10cc). In part because of its success, the Yardbirds elected to move toward a pop-orientated sound, much to the annoyance of Clapton, who was devoted to the blues and not commercial success. He left the Yardbirds on the day that "For Your Love" went public, a move that left the band without its lead guitarist and most accomplished member. Clapton suggested fellow guitarist Jimmy Page as his replacement, but Page declined out of loyalty to Clapton,[26] putting Jeff Beck forward.[21] Beck and Page played together in the Yardbirds for a while, but Beck, Page, and Clapton were never in the group together. They first appeared together in 1983 on the 12-date benefit tour for Action for Research into multiple sclerosis with the first date on 23 September at the Royal Albert Hall.[27]
Clapton joined John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers in April 1965, only to quit a few months later. In June, Clapton was invited to jam with Jimmy Page, recording a number of tracks that were retroactively credited to The Immediate All-Stars. In the summer of 1965 he left for Greece with a band called the Glands, which included his old friend Ben Palmer on piano. After a car crash that killed the bassist and injured the guitarist of the Greek band the Juniors, on 17 October 1965 the surviving members played memorial shows in which Clapton played with the band.[28] In October 1965 he rejoined John Mayall. In March 1966, while still a member of the Bluesbreakers, Clapton briefly collaborated on a side project with Jack Bruce and Steve Winwood among others, recording only a few tracks under the name Eric Clapton and the Powerhouse. During his second Bluesbreakers stint, Clapton gained a reputation as the best blues guitarist on the club circuit. Although Clapton gained fame for playing on the influential album, Blues Breakers – John Mayall – With Eric Clapton, this album was not released until he had left the band for the last time in July 1966. The album itself is often called The Beano Album by fans because of its cover photograph showing Clapton reading the British children's comic The Beano.[29]
Having swapped his Fender Telecaster and Vox AC30 amplifier for a 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar and Marshall amplifier, Clapton's sound and playing inspired the famous slogan "Clapton is God", spray-painted by an unknown admirer on a wall in Islington, North London in 1967.[30] The graffito was captured in a now-famous photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall. Clapton is reported to have been embarrassed by the slogan, saying in his The South Bank Show profile in 1987, "I never accepted that I was the greatest guitar player in the world. I always wanted to be the greatest guitar player in the world, but that's an ideal, and I accept it as an ideal".[31]

Cream

Main article: Cream (band)
Clapton (right) as a member of Cream
Clapton left the Bluesbreakers in July 1966 (replaced by Peter Green) and was invited by drummer Ginger Baker to play in his newly formed band Cream, one of the earliest supergroups, with Jack Bruce on bass (Bruce was previously of the Bluesbreakers, the Graham Bond Organisation and Manfred Mann).[32] Before the formation of Cream, Clapton was not well known in the United States; he left the Yardbirds before "For Your Love" hit the US top ten, and had yet to perform there.[33] During his time with Cream, Clapton began to develop as a singer, songwriter and guitarist, though Bruce took most of the lead vocals and wrote the majority of the material with lyricist Pete Brown.[21] Cream's first gig was an unofficial performance at the Twisted Wheel Club in Manchester on 29 July 1966 before their full debut two nights later at the National Jazz and Blues Festival in Windsor. Cream established its enduring legend with the high-volume blues jamming and extended solos of their live shows.
By early 1967, fans of the emerging blues-rock sound in the UK had begun to portray Clapton as Britain's top guitarist; however, he found himself rivalled by the emergence of Jimi Hendrix, an acid rock-infused guitarist who used wailing feedback and effects pedals to create new sounds for the instrument.[34] Hendrix attended a performance of the newly formed Cream at the Central London Polytechnic on 1 October 1966, during which he sat in on a double-timed version of "Killing Floor".[34] Top UK stars, including Clapton, Pete Townshend and members of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, avidly attended Hendrix's early club performances. Hendrix's arrival had an immediate and major effect on the next phase of Clapton's career.[35]
Clapton's The Fool guitar (replica shown), with its bright artwork and famous "woman tone", was symbolic of the 1960s psychedelic rock era.
Clapton first visited the United States while touring with Cream. In March 1967, Cream performed a nine-show stand at the RKO Theater in New York. Clapton's 1964 painted Gibson SG guitar – The Fool – a "psychedelic fantasy", according to Clapton,[36] made its debut at the RKO Theater. Clapton used the guitar for most of Cream's recordings after Fresh Cream, particularly on Disraeli Gears, until the band broke up in 1968.[37] One of the world's best-known guitars, it symbolises the psychedelic era.[37] They recorded Disraeli Gears in New York from 11 to 15 May 1967. Cream's repertoire varied from hard rock ("I Feel Free") to lengthy blues-based instrumental jams ("Spoonful"). Disraeli Gears contained Clapton's searing guitar lines, Bruce's soaring vocals and prominent, fluid bass playing, and Baker's powerful, polyrhythmic jazz-influenced drumming. Together, Cream's talents secured them as an influential power trio. Clapton's voice can be heard on Frank Zappa's album We're Only in It for the Money, on the tracks "Are You Hung Up?" and "Nasal Retentive Calliope Music".
In 28 months, Cream had become a commercial success, selling millions of records and playing throughout the US and Europe. They redefined the instrumentalist's role in rock and were one of the first blues-rock bands to emphasise musical virtuosity and lengthy jazz-style improvisation sessions. Their US hit singles include "Sunshine of Your Love" (No. 5, 1968), "White Room" (No. 6, 1968) and "Crossroads" (No. 28, 1969) – a live version of Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues". Though Cream were hailed as one of the greatest groups of its day, and the adulation of Clapton as a guitar legend reached new heights, the supergroup was short-lived. Drug and alcohol use escalated tension between the three members, and conflicts between Bruce and Baker eventually led to Cream's demise. A strongly critical Rolling Stone review of a concert of the group's second headlining US tour was another significant factor in the trio's demise, and it affected Clapton profoundly.[38] Clapton has also credited Music from Big Pink, the debut album of The Band, and its revolutionary Americana sound as influencing his decision to leave Cream.[39][40]
Cream's farewell album, Goodbye, comprising live performances recorded at The Forum, Los Angeles, on 19 October 1968, was released shortly after Cream disbanded. It also spawned the studio single "Badge", co-written by Clapton and George Harrison (Clapton had met and become close friends with Harrison after the Beatles shared a bill with the Clapton-era Yardbirds at the London Palladium). In 1968, Clapton played the lead guitar solo on Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", from the Beatles' self-titled double album (also known as the "White Album"). Harrison's debut solo album, Wonderwall Music (1968), became the first of many Harrison solo records to include Clapton on guitar. Clapton went largely uncredited for his contributions to Harrison's albums due to contractual restraints, and Harrison was credited as "L'Angelo Misterioso" for his contributions to the song "Badge" on Goodbye. The pair often played live together as each other's guest. A year after Harrison's death in 2001, Clapton was musical director for the Concert for George.[41]
In January 1969, when the Beatles were recording and filming what became Let It Be, tensions became so acute that Harrison quit the group for several days, prompting John Lennon to suggest they complete the project with Clapton if Harrison did not return.[42] Michael Lindsay-Hogg, television director of the recording sessions for Let It Be, later recalled: "I was there when John mentioned Clapton – but that wasn't going to happen. Would Eric have become a Beatle? No. Paul [McCartney] didn't want to go there. He didn't want them to break up. Then George came back."[43] Clapton was on good terms with all four of the Beatles; in December 1968 he had played with Lennon at The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus as part of the one-off group the Dirty Mac.[44]
Cream briefly reunited in 1993 to perform at the ceremony inducting them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A full reunion took place in May 2005, with Clapton, Bruce and Baker playing four sold-out concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall,[45] and three shows at New York's Madison Square Garden that October.[46] Recordings from the London shows, Royal Albert Hall London May 2-3-5-6, 2005, were released on CD, LP and DVD in late 2005.[47]

Blind Faith

Main article: Blind Faith
Blind Faith in 1969, with Clapton standing far right
Clapton's next group, Blind Faith, formed in 1969, was composed of Cream drummer Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood of Traffic, and Ric Grech of Family, and yielded one LP and one arena-circuit tour. The supergroup debuted before 100,000 fans in London's Hyde Park on 7 June 1969.[48] They performed several dates in Scandinavia and began a sold-out American tour in July before their only album was released. The LP Blind Faith consisted of just six songs, one of them the hit "Can't Find My Way Home". Another, "Presence of the Lord", is the first song credited solely to Clapton.[49] The album's jacket image of a topless pubescent girl was deemed controversial in the US and was replaced by a photograph of the band. Blind Faith dissolved after less than seven months.[50]

Delaney & Bonnie and first solo album

Main article: Delaney & Bonnie
Clapton subsequently toured as a sideman for an act that had opened for Blind Faith, Delaney and Bonnie and Friends. He also performed as a member of Lennon's Plastic Ono Band at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival in September 1969, a recording from which was released as the album Live Peace in Toronto 1969.[51] On 30 September, Clapton played lead guitar on Lennon's second solo single, "Cold Turkey".[52] On 15 December that year, Clapton performed with Lennon, Harrison and others as the Plastic Ono Supergroup at a fundraiser for UNICEF in London.[51]
Delaney Bramlett encouraged Clapton in his singing and writing. Using the Bramletts' backing group and an all-star cast of session players (including Leon Russell and Stephen Stills), Clapton recorded his first solo album during two brief tour hiatuses, titled Eric Clapton. Delaney Bramlett co-wrote six of the songs with Clapton, also producing the LP,[53] and Bonnie Bramlett co-wrote "Let It Rain".[54] The album yielded the unexpected US No. 18 hit, J. J. Cale's "After Midnight". Clapton also worked with much of Delaney and Bonnie's band to record George Harrison's All Things Must Pass in spring 1970.
During this period, Clapton also recorded with artists such as Dr. John, Leon Russell, Billy Preston, Ringo Starr and Dave Mason. With Chicago blues artist Howlin' Wolf, he recorded The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions, that also included long-time Wolf guitarist Hubert Sumlin and members of the Rolling Stones, Winwood and Starr.[55] Despite the superstar line-up, critic Cub Koda noted: "Even Eric Clapton, who usually welcomes any chance to play with one of his idols, has criticized this album repeatedly in interviews, which speaks volumes in and of itself."[55] Other noted recordings from this period include Clapton's guitar work on "Go Back Home" from Stephen Stills' self-titled first solo album.[56]

Derek and the Dominos

Main article: Derek and the Dominos
With the intention of counteracting the "star" cult faction that had begun to form around him, Clapton assembled a new band composed of Delaney and Bonnie's former rhythm section, Bobby Whitlock as keyboardist and vocalist, Carl Radle as the bassist, and drummer Jim Gordon, with Clapton playing guitar. It was his intention to show that he need not fill a starring role, and functioned well as a member of an ensemble.[57] During this period, Clapton was increasingly influenced by The Band and their 1968 album Music from Big Pink, saying: "What I appreciated about the Band was that they were more concerned with songs and singing. They would have three- and four-part harmonies, and the guitar was put back into perspective as being accompaniment. That suited me well, because I had gotten so tired of the virtuosity – or pseudo-virtuosity – thing of long, boring guitar solos just because they were expected. The Band brought things back into perspective. The priority was the song."[58]
Clapton (right) with Derek and the Dominos
The band was originally called "Eric Clapton and Friends". The eventual name was a fluke that occurred when the band's provisional name of "Del and the Dynamos" was misread as Derek and the Dominos.[59] Clapton's biography states that Tony Ashton of Ashton, Gardner and Dyke told Clapton to call the band "Del and the Dominos", since "Del" was his nickname for Eric Clapton. Del and Eric were combined and the final name became "Derek and the Dominos".[60]
Clapton's close friendship with George Harrison brought him into contact with Harrison's wife, Pattie Boyd, with whom he became deeply infatuated. When she spurned his advances, Clapton's unrequited affections prompted most of the material for the Dominos' album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970). Heavily blues-influenced, the album features the twin lead guitars of Clapton and Duane Allman, with Allman's slide guitar as a key ingredient of the sound. Working at Criteria Studios in Miami with Atlantic Records producer Tom Dowd, who had worked with Clapton on Cream's Disraeli Gears, the band recorded a double album.
The album contained the hit love song "Layla", inspired by the classical poet of Persian literature, Nizami Ganjavi's The Story of Layla and Majnun, a copy of which Ian Dallas had given to Clapton. The book moved Clapton profoundly, as it was the tale of a young man who fell hopelessly in love with a beautiful, unavailable woman and went crazy because he could not marry her.[61][62] The two parts of "Layla" were recorded in separate sessions: the opening guitar section was recorded first, and for the second section, laid down a few weeks later, drummer Jim Gordon played the piano part for the melody, which he claimed to have written (though Bobby Whitlock stated that Rita Coolidge wrote it).[60]
The Layla LP was actually recorded by a five-piece version of the group, thanks to the unforeseen inclusion of guitarist Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers Band. A few days into the Layla sessions, Dowd – who was also producing the Allmans – invited Clapton to an Allman Brothers outdoor concert in Miami. The two guitarists met first on stage, then played all night in the studio, and became friends. Duane first added his slide guitar to "Tell the Truth" and "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out". In four days, the five-piece Dominos recorded "Key to the Highway", "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" (a blues standard popularised by Freddie King and others) and "Why Does Love Got to be So Sad?" In September, Duane briefly left the sessions for gigs with his own band, and the four-piece Dominos recorded "I Looked Away", "Bell Bottom Blues" and "Keep on Growing". Allman returned to record "I Am Yours", "Anyday" and "It's Too Late". On 9 September, they recorded Hendrix's "Little Wing" and the title track. The following day, the final track, "It's Too Late", was recorded.[63]
Eric Clapton in Barcelona, 1974
Tragedy dogged the group throughout its brief career. During the sessions, Clapton was devastated by news of the death of Jimi Hendrix; eight days previously the band had cut a cover of "Little Wing" as a tribute. On 17 September 1970, one day before Hendrix's death, Clapton had purchased a left-handed Fender Stratocaster that he had planned to give to Hendrix as a birthday gift. Adding to Clapton's woes, Layla received only lukewarm reviews upon release. The shaken group undertook a US tour without Allman, who had returned to the Allman Brothers Band. Despite Clapton's later admission that the tour took place amid a blizzard of drugs and alcohol, it resulted in the live double album In Concert.[64]
Recording of a second Dominos studio album was underway when a clash of egos took place and Clapton walked out, thus disbanding the group. Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident on 29 October 1971. Clapton wrote later in his autobiography that he and Allman were inseparable during the Layla sessions in Florida; he talked about Allman as the "musical brother I'd never had but wished I did".[65] Although Radle remained Clapton's bass player until the summer of 1979 (Radle died in May 1980 from the effects of alcohol and narcotics), it was not until 2003 that Clapton and Whitlock appeared together again; Clapton guested on Whitlock's appearance on the Later with Jools Holland show. Another tragic footnote to the Dominos story was the fate of drummer Jim Gordon, who had undiagnosed schizophrenia and years later murdered his mother during a psychotic episode. Gordon was confined to 16-years-to-life imprisonment, later being moved to a mental institution, where he remained for the rest of his life.[21]

Personal problems and early solo success

Clapton's career successes in the 1970s were in stark contrast with the struggles he coped with in his personal life, which was troubled by romantic longings and drug and alcohol addiction.[66] Still infatuated with Boyd and torn by his friendship with Harrison, he withdrew from recording and touring to isolation in his Surrey residence as the Dominos broke up. He nursed a heroin addiction, which resulted in a lengthy career hiatus interrupted only by performing at Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh benefit shows in New York in August 1971; there, he passed out on stage, was revived, and managed to finish his performance.[21] In January 1973, the Who's Pete Townshend organised a comeback concert for Clapton at London's Rainbow Theatre, titled the "Rainbow Concert", to help Clapton kick his addiction. Clapton returned the favour by playing "The Preacher" in Ken Russell's film version of the Who's Tommy in 1975. His appearance in the film (performing "Eyesight to the Blind") is notable as he is clearly wearing a fake beard in some shots, the result of deciding to shave off his real beard after the initial takes in an attempt to force the director to remove his earlier scene from the film and leave the set.[60]
Yvonne Elliman with Clapton promoting 461 Ocean Boulevard in 1974
In 1974, Clapton started living with Boyd (they would not marry until 1979) and was no longer using heroin (although he gradually began to drink heavily). He assembled a low-key touring band that included Radle, Miami guitarist George Terry, keyboardist Dick Sims (who died in 2011),[67] drummer Jamie Oldaker, and vocalists Yvonne Elliman and Marcy Levy (also known as Marcella Detroit). With this band Clapton recorded 461 Ocean Boulevard (1974), an album with an emphasis on more compact songs and fewer guitar solos; the cover version of "I Shot the Sheriff" was Clapton's first number one hit. The 1975 album There's One in Every Crowd continued this trend. The album's original title, The World's Greatest Guitar Player (There's One in Every Crowd), was changed before pressing, as it was felt its ironic intention would be misunderstood. The band toured the world and subsequently released the 1975 live LP E. C. Was Here.[68] Clapton continued to release albums and toured regularly. Highlights of the period include No Reason to Cry (a collaboration with Bob Dylan and The Band); Slowhand, which contained "Wonderful Tonight" and a second J. J. Cale cover, "Cocaine". In 1976, he performed as one of a string of notable guests at the farewell performance of The Band, filmed in a Martin Scorsese documentary titled The Last Waltz.[69]

Continued success

A seven-times Platinum RIAA certification for the album Timepieces: The Best of Eric Clapton (1982)
In 1981, Clapton was invited by producer Martin Lewis to appear at the Amnesty International benefit The Secret Policeman's Other Ball in London. Clapton accepted the invitation and teamed up with Jeff Beck to perform a series of duets – reportedly their first ever billed stage collaboration. Three of the performances were released on the album of the show, and one of the songs appeared in the film. The performances at London's Drury Lane theatre heralded a return to form and prominence for Clapton in the new decade. Many factors had influenced Clapton's comeback, including his "deepening commitment to Christianity", to which he had converted prior to his heroin addiction.[70][71][72]
After calling his manager and admitting he was an alcoholic, Clapton flew to Minneapolis–Saint Paul in January 1982 and checked in at Hazelden Treatment Center, located in Center City, Minnesota. On the flight over, Clapton indulged in a large number of drinks, for fear he would never be able to drink again. Clapton wrote in his autobiography:[73]