Slowhand

October 29, 2018
Norman (Paul McCartney: The Life) reveals little that’s unknown about Eric Clapton’s life and music in this straightforward yet enjoyable biography, written with Clapton’s consent (though Clapton himself was not interviewed). Norman draws on conversations with the guitarist’s friends, music associates, and family to chronicle Clapton’s rise to fame, from his early years in art school through the formation of his various bands such as Derek and the Dominoes and Cream, as well as his love affair with and marriage to Pattie Boyd (once George Harrison’s wife). Norman also writes about Clapton’s heroin and alcohol addiction; the death of his four-year-old son, Conor, in 1991; and his development of the Crossroads guitar festivals, starting in 2004. Norman notes that, despite his superstardom, Clapton remains a sensitive, sometimes reclusive musician who seems never satisfied with either his own guitar playing or the bands he abruptly left: the Yardbirds, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, and Cream. Norman does unveil one feature of Clapton’s life that’s not widely known: the guitarist’s deep love of fine fashion (he bought 50% of shares in England’s famous J.C. Cording men’s store in 2004 and became its design director). In this thorough book, Norman hits all the important notes, and Clapton emerges as a person more comfortable with his fretboard than with other people.

The renowned guitar superhero emerges as "supersurvivor" in this authoritative biography.In the latest of his long list of accomplished rock biographies, novelist and playwright Norman (Paul McCartney: The Life, 2016, etc.) turns to Eric Clapton (b. 1945). The author concluded that Clapton's own autobiography was the only "formidable deterrent" to writing one, but he felt it withheld "as much as it revealed." Written with Clapton's approval and access to family members and close friends, Norman's fine biography, both objective and sympathetic, envisions Clapton as "one of the most thoroughly dissolute rockers of olden times" who became the "most thoroughly reformed." His unmarried mother asked her mother, Rose, to adopt baby Eric, and he grew up believing her to be his mother. The music of Buddy Holly impressed him mightily, and Clapton was much taken by Holly's Fender Stratocaster: "That's the future. That's what I want." His doting grandmother bought him a basic guitar, and he practiced by listening to records. At the heart of the book is Clapton's constant quest for the right band and the right guitars to get the right blues sound. After playing with fledging bands like the Roosters and Engineers, he got his big break with the Yardbirds, famous for their impromptu "rave-ups." During this "CLAPTON IS GOD" (as a London graffito read) period, he got his famous nickname, "Slow-handclapton." More bands followed, including John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Cream, and Blind Faith. Clapton also changed girlfriends as often as he changed bands. Norman describes his subject as a notorious "womaniser on the scale of Mick Jagger, a sex addict before the term was invented." George Harrison was Clapton's best friend, but he seduced and later married Harrison's wife, Pattie Boyd; Clapton wrote "Layla" for her. Norman discusses in detail Clapton's yearslong, devastating addictions to heroin and alcohol and provides countless fascinating stories about his fellow rockers.Extremely knowledgeable about the rock music scene, Norman tells Clapton's story with verve and insight.

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