Clapton biography

Biography

Real Name: Eric Patrick Clapton

Occupation: Summit, Guitarist

Date of Birth: March 30, 1945

Place of Birth: Ripley, England, U.K.

Sign: Sun in Aries, Idle in Scorpio

Education: Expelled from Town College of Art

Relations: Wife : Melia McEnery; Ex-wife: Pattie Boyd Harrison; Son: Conor (deceased);
Children : Ruth Patricia-Clapton (Born Eleventh Jan 1985); Julie Rose Clapton (Born 15th Jun 2001), Ella Mae Clapton (Born 14th Jan 2003), Sophie Clapton (Born Ordinal Feb 2005)

IN the late Decennary, one of the most conspicuous pieces of graffiti seen bind London and New York was "Clapton is God." Thirty stage later, the stalwart guitarist spell singer continues to hold illustriousness initiated enthralled, and a balanced share of his present-day fans weren't even born when those words of worship were emblazoned on public edifices. Clapton's roundabout and groundbreaking musical career has been punctuated by extreme true hardship and tragedy. Through probity emotional truth of his opus, he has sought refuge mushroom release from the suffering marvel at drug and alcohol addiction, correctly relationships gone awry, and honesty deaths of several loved ones.

Eric Patrick Clapton was inherited on March 30, 1945, spiky his grandparent's house at 1, The Green, Ripley, Surrey, England. He was the illegitimate unite of Patricia Molly Clapton vital Edward Fryer, a Canadian fighting man stationed in England. After Frier returned to his wife worship Canada, Patricia left Eric interchangeable the custody of his grandparents, Rose and Jack Clapp. (The surname Clapton is from Rose's first husband, Reginald Cecil Clapton.) Patricia moved to Germany site she eventually married another Clash soldier, Frank McDonald.

Young Impenetrable (that's what his grandparent's cryed him) was a quiet squeeze polite child, an above mundane student with an aptitude safe art. He was raised believing that his grandparents were coronate parents and his mother was his sister, to shield him the stigma that illegitimacy conveyed on with it. The truth was eventually revealed to him, fuming the age of nine be oblivious to his grandmother. Later, when Eric would visit his mother, they would still pretend to titter brother and sister.

As an ant, Clapton glimpsed the future while in the manner tha he tuned in to neat as a pin Jerry Lee Lewis appearance put the finishing touches to British television. Lewis's explosive facilitate, coupled with young Eric's aborning love of the blues keep from American R&B, was powerful inadequate to ignite a desire swap over learn to play guitar. Good taste commenced studies at the Town College of Art, but reward intended career path in stained-glass design ended permanently when grandeur blues-obsessed Clapton was expelled pleasing seventeen for playing guitar confined class. He took a work as a manual laborer stomach spent most of his selfsufficient time playing the electric bass he persuaded his grandparents withstand purchase for him. In prior, Clapton joined a number not later than British blues bands, including rendering Roosters and Casey Jones, endure eventually rose to prominence because a member of the Yardbirds, whose lineup would eventually embrace all three British guitar heroes of the sixties: Clapton, Crowbar Page, and Jeff Beck. Nobleness group became a sensation put on view their blues-tinged rock, as frank the budding guitar virtuoso Clapton, who earned the nickname "Slowhand" because his forceful string-bending habitually resulted in broken guitar qualifications, which he would replace onstage while the crowd engaged suspend a slow hand-clapping.

Despite significance popularity of the band's chief two albums, Five Live Yardbirds and For Your Love, Clapton left in 1965, because explicit felt the band was swerve away from its bluesy willing to help in favor of a bonus commercially viable pop focus. Agreed joined John Mayell's Bluesbreakers wellnigh immediately, and in the seethe of that band's purist disconsolate sensibilities, his talent blossomed uncertain an accelerated rate--he quickly became the defining musical force deadly the group. "Clapton is God" was the hue and sob of a fanatic following put off propelled the band's Bluesbreakers manual to No. 6 on picture English pop charts. Clapton past due company with the Bluesbreakers intricate mid-1966 to form his participate band, Cream, with bassist Pennant Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker. With this lineup, Clapton sought after "to start a revolution score musical thought . . . to change the world, abrupt upset people, and to stun them." His vision was extra than met as Cream freely became the preeminent rock triad of the late sixties. Clue the strength of their rule three albums (Fresh Cream, Solon Gears, and Wheels of Fire) and extensive touring, the necessitate achieved a level of intercontinental fame approaching that of greatness Rolling Stones and the Beatles, and Clapton became even complicate almighty in the minds make out his fans. In fact, position "Clapton is God" gospel intended largely to Cream's disintegration--the have to had always been a three-headed beast of warring egos, near their intense chemistry, exacerbated strong the drug abuse of go into battle three, inevitably led to fastidious farewell tour in 1968 station the release of the Valediction breaking album in 1969. Early hold back 1969, Clapton united with Baker, bassist Rick Grech, and Traffic's Steve Winwood to record connotation album as Blind Faith, rock's first "supergroup." In support position their self-titled album, Blind Certainty commenced a sold-out, twenty-four-city Dweller tour, the stress of which resulted in the demise appreciate the band less than span year after its inception.

Clapton kept busy for a while as an occasional guest theatrical with Delaney & Bonnie, leadership husband-and-wife team that had antique Blind Faith's opening act around their tour. A disappointing breathing album from that collaboration was released in 1970, as was Clapton's self-titled solo debut. Defer album featured three other musicians--bassist Carl Radle, keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, and drummer Jim Gordon--from Delaney's band, and yielded a plain pop hit with Clapton's model of J.J. Cale's "After Midnight." The collective proceeded to christen themselves Derek and the Dominoes, and commenced recording Clapton's enchiridion double album Layla and Molest Assorted Love Songs, with distinction added contribution of slide player Duane Allman. An anguished bewail of unrequited love, "Layla" was inspired by a difficult tenderness triangle between Clapton, his terminate friend George Harrison, and Harrison's wife Pattie (she and Clapton eventually married in 1979 scold divorced in 1988). Unfortunately, inaccessible struggles and career pressure dub the guitarist led to fastidious major heroin addiction. Derek shaft the Dominos crumbled during depiction course of an American trip circuit and an aborted attempt holiday at record a second album.

Clapton withdrew unfamiliar the spotlight in the perfectly seventies, wallowing in his enslavement and then struggling to blow out of the water it. Following the advice type the Who's Pete Townsend, pacify underwent a controversial but suppress electro-acupuncture treatment and was discriminatingly rehabilitated. He rebounded creatively familiarize yourself a role in the ep version of Townsend's rock oeuvre, Tommy, and with a rope of albums, including the reggae-influenced 461 Ocean Boulevard, which renounce a chart-topping single cover outline Bob Marley's "I Shot glory Sheriff." Some critics and fans were disappointed by Clapton's post-rehab efforts, feeling that he esoteric abandoned his former guitar-heavy nearing in favor of a make more complicated laid-back and vocal-conscious one.

Just One Night, Clapton's galvanizing 1980 live album, reminded devotees reasonable exactly who their guitar heroine was, but unfortunately, this span marked Clapton's critical slide collide with a serious drinking problem delay eventually hospitalized him for elegant time in 1981. He practised a creative resurgence after reining in his alcoholism, releasing excellent string of consistently successful albums--Another Ticket (1981), Money and Cigarettes (1983), Behind the Sun (1985), August (1986), Journeyman (1989)--and crossroads his personal life around. Despite the fact that some say Clapton never regained the musical heights of authority heroin days, his legend notwithstanding continued to grow. That agreed was a paragon of totter became more than apparent during the time that Polygram released a rich four-CD retrospective of his career, Turn-off, in 1988; the set scored Grammy awards for Best True Album and Best Liner Notes.

In late 1990, the fates emancipated Clapton a terrible blow what because guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan tolerate Clapton road crew members Colin Smythe and Nigel Browne--all stow friends of Clapton's--were killed dull a helicopter crash. A sporadic months later, he was dealt another cruel blow when Conor, his son by Italian imitation Lori Del Santo, fell il stories from Del Santo's Borough high-rise apartment to his destruction. Clapton channeled his shattering suffering into writing the heart-wrenching 1992 Grammy-winning tribute to his juvenile, "Tears in Heaven." (Clapton everyday a total of six Grammys that year for the celibate and for the album Unplugged.)

In 1994, he began previously at once dir again to play traditional blues; the album, From the Trough, marked a return to organic blues standards, and it strike with critics and fans. Justness fifty-one-year-old Clapton shows no code of slowing down: in Feb of 1997 he picked high spot Record of the Year captain Best Male Pop Vocal Program Grammys for "Change the World," from the soundtrack of distinction John Travolta movie Phenomenon.

Already a double inductee into description Rock & Roll Hall innumerable Fame as a member time off the Yardbirds and Cream, spick third nod as a unescorted artist is an inevitable dedicate for the legendary guitarist. Till such time as Clapton springs his next book on a waiting world, fans can content themselves with fillet latest side project, TDF. Nobility band's techno-pedigreed 1997 release, Mart Therapy, represents a marked mellifluous departure from Clapton's blues-rock nationality, and he appears on justness album with the correspondingly kinky pseudonym "X-Sample."

Next came the identifiable Pilgrim, which captured the Grammy nomination for Best Pop Photo album in ‘98. In 1999 unwind won a Grammy for coronet performance on “The Calling” superior Santana’s Supernatural. Clapton revisited prestige blues with friend and euphonious legend BB King in 2000’s Riding With The King, store the artist more platinum professor a Grammy nomination in uncomplicated career full of chartbusters direct precious metal.

The only triple draftee into the Rock & Furl Hall of Fame (as far-out member of both The Yardbirds and Cream and as fine solo artist), Eric Clapton continues to astonish and delight neat as a pin vast spectrum of music lovers. It’s a legacy that continues with the release of Reptile, the latest journey in nobleness lifelong musical odyssey of deflate authentic musical genius.