One of the great rock 'n' roll and blues guitarists of all time, Eric Patrick Clapton and singer-songwriter. He is a CBE (The most excellent order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding, contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organization established on 4th June 1917 by King George V) and only the three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of fame as a solo artist. Eric Clapton is known for his contributions to The Yardbirds and Cream, as well as such singles as "Tears in Heaven" as a solo artist. He was honored by the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award as a member of cream in 2006. He was also honored by made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to music, as part of the 1995 New Year Honours list. He has done plenties of solo singles and collaborated with several artists.
What is Eric Clapton famous for?
- Eric Clapton became a prominent member of The Yardbirds and Cream before achieving success as a solo artist.
- One of the greatest rock'n'roll and blues guitarists of all time.
- Known for such classic songs as "Layla", "Crossroads" and "Wonderful Tonight".
- Clapton was considered 'God' because people thought he was the best guitarist of his generation. Alvin Lee was very fast. That was his entire thing as a guitar player, and it's why he's not much listened to now.
- He is a great guitarist for several reasons.
- Winner of 18 Grammy Awards in several years.
Source: @pinterest
Where is Eric Clapton From?
A great guitarist of all the time Eric Clapton was born on March 30, 1945, in Ripley, Surrey, England. He is of English Ethnicity. Clapton's mother, Patricia Molly Clapton, was only 16 years old at the time of his birth; his father, Edward Walter Fryer, was a 24-year-old Canadian soldier stationed in the United Kingdom during World War II. Fryer returned to Canada, where he was already married to another woman, before Clapton's birth. As a single teenage mother, Patricia Clapton was unprepared to raise a child on her own, so her grandmother and stepfather, Rose and Jack Clapp raised Clapton as their own. Although they never legally adopted him, Clapton grew up under the impression that his grandparents were his parents and that his mother was his older sister. Clapton's last name comes from his grandfather, Patricia's father, Reginald Cecil Clapton.
His grandmother was a skilled pianist, and his mother and uncle both enjoyed listening to big-band music. As it turns out, Clapton's absent father was also a talented pianist who had played in several dance bands while stationed in Surrey. Around the age of eight, Clapton discovered the earth-shattering truth that the people he believed were his parents were actually his grandparents and that the woman he considered his older sister was in fact his mother. Eric Clapton has no siblings but until he was nine years old, the woman Eric Clapton thought was his sister was actually his mother.
He went to Hollyfield school for education and In 1961, in Surbiton. Eric Clapton studied at the Kingston College of Art but was dismissed at the end of the academic year because his focus remained on music rather than art. His guitar playing was so advanced that, by the age of 16, he was getting noticed. He is Aries by the Zodiac sign and he is of Christianity religion.
Social Media Presence
He has big fan followers on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Twitter: @EricClapton and has 70.5k followers
Instagram: @ericclapton and has 343K followers
Facebook: Eric Clapton and has 8.9M followers
Source: @bestclassicbands
Eric Clapton Career Timeline
By that time, 1958, rock 'n' roll had exploded onto the British music scene; for his 13th birthday, Clapton asked for a guitar. He received a cheap German-made Hoyer, and finding the steel-stringed guitar difficult and painful to play, he soon set it aside. At the age of 16, he gained acceptance into the Kingston College of Art on one-year probation; it was there, surrounded by teenagers with musical tastes similar to his own, that Clapton really took to the instrument. Clapton was especially taken with the blues guitar played by musicians such as Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and Alexis Korner, the last of whom inspired Clapton to buy his first electric guitar—a relative rarity in England.
It was also at Kingston that Clapton discovered something that would have nearly as great an impact on his life as the guitar: booze. He recalls that the first time he got drunk, at the age of 16, he woke up alone in the woods, covered in vomit and without any money. "I couldn't wait to do it all again," Clapton remembers. Unsurprisingly, Clapton was expelled from school after his first year.
Already one of the most respected guitarists on the West End pub circuit, in October 1963 Clapton received an invitation to join a band called The Yardbirds. With The Yardbirds, Clapton recorded his first commercial hits, "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" and "For Your Love," but he soon grew frustrated with the band's commercial pop sound and left the group in 1965. The two young guitarists who replaced Clapton in The Yardbirds, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck, would also go on to rank among the greatest rock guitarists in history.
Later in 1965, Clapton joined the blues band John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, the next year recording an album called The Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton, which established his reputation as one of the great guitarists of the age. The album, which included songs such as "What'd I Say" and "Ramblin' on My Mind," is widely considered among the greatest blues albums of all time. Clapton's miraculous guitar-playing on the album also inspired his most flattering nickname, "God," popularized by a bit of graffiti on the wall of a London Tube station reading "Clapton is God." Performing highly original takes on blues classics such as "Crossroads" and "Spoonful," as well as modern blues tracks like "Sunshine of Your Love" and "White Room," Clapton pushed the boundaries of blues guitar. On the strength of three well-received albums, Fresh Cream (1966), Disraeli Gears (1967), and Wheels of Fire (1968), as well as extensive touring in the United States, Cream achieved international superstar status. Yet they, too, broke up after two final concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall, citing clashing egos as the cause.
Source: @britannica
In December 1964, Clapton made his first appearance at the Royal Albert Hall, London, with the Yardbirds. 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".
Song "For your Love" written by Graham Gouldman was a major hit for Clapton and Yardbirds in 1965. Clapton joined John Mayall & the Bluestakers in April 1965 and after few months he quit and was invited with Jimmy page recorded a number of tracks credited to the Immediate All-stars.
Eric gained world game for his playing on the influential album Blue Breakers-John Mayall with Eric Clapton.
One of his admirer in Islington in 1967 wrote spray-painted "Clapton is God" and he mentioned about, "I always wanted to be the greatest guitar player in the world but that's an idea, and I accept it as an ideal".
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.
He has done a performance with newly formed Cream at the central London polytechnic on 1 October 1966 and first visited the United States while touring with Cream in March 1967. They performed a nine-show stand at the RKO Theater in New York.
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 emphasize musical virtuosity and lengthy jazz-style improvisation sessions. They had great US singles include "Sunshine of Your Love", "White Room", "Crossroads" and "Cross Road Blues" (which is the live version of Robert Johnson) and since Cream hailed as one of the greatest group of its day.
The involvement of drugs and alcohol escalated tension between the three members and split the trio's demise after the second US tour.
Clapton's solo career began in the 1970s, where his work bore the influence of the mellow style of J. J. Cale and the reggae of Bob Marley.
Clapton finally kicked his drug habit and reemerged onto the music scene in 1974 with two concerts at London's Rainbow Theater organized by his friend Pete Townshend of The Who. Later that year he released 461 Ocean Boulevard, featuring one his most popular singles, a cover of Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff." The album marked the beginning of a remarkably prolific solo career during which Clapton produced notable album after notable album.
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.
Eric Clapton formed again another group named Blind Faith in 1969 and a member of Cream drummer Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood of Traffic and Ric Grech of Family. The debut in London's Hyde Park in front of 100,000 fans on 7 June 1969. The song Can't Find my way home was one of the super hit songs. 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. On 15 December that year, Clapton performed with Lennon, Harrison, and others as the Plastic Ono Supergroup at a fundraiser for UNICEF in London.
He has won 18 Grammy Awards and a BAFTA for his work on the Edge of Darkness soundtrack. He is the only triple inductee in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Yardbirds, Cream, and as a solo artist. Eric has also been inducted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Derek and the Dominos were the final names combined from Del and Eric. The band was called "Eric Clapton and Friends" originally but the "Del and the Dynamos" were misread as Derek and Dominos since then. In 1970 the album Layla(inspired by the classical poet of Persian literature, Nizami Ganjavi's The story of "Layla and Majnun" and Other assorted love songs are there in the album. 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.
In 1987, with the help of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, Clapton finally quit drinking and has remained sober ever since. Being sober for the first time in his adult life allowed Clapton to achieve the kind of personal happiness he had never known before. In 1998, he founded the Crossroads Centre, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility, and in 2002, he married Melia McEnery. Together they have three daughters, Julie Rose, Ella Mae, and Sophie.
Clapton, who published his autobiography in 2007, was ranked the second greatest guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone in 2015. An 18-time Grammy Award winner and the only triple inductee of the Rock and Roll of Fame (as a member of The Yardbirds, as a member of Cream and as a solo artist), he continued to record music and tour through his 60s, while also performing charity work.
In March 2001, Clapton released the album "Reptile". Clapton appeared at the Concert for New York City one month after the 11 September attacks. Clapton performed "Layla" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" at the party at the Palace concert in the ground of Buckingham Palace in June 2002. In 2004, Clapton released two albums of covers of songs by bluesman Robert Johnson, Me and Mr. Johnson, and Sessions for Robert J. Guitarist Doyle Bramhall II worked on the album with Clapton (after opening Clapton's 2001 tour with his band Smokestack) and would join him on his 2004 tour.
On 22 January 2005, Clapton performed in the Tsunami Relief Concert held at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, in aid of the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Concert recordings were released on CD and DVD.
He did a collaboration with guitarist J.J. Cale, "The Road to Escondido" (released on 7 Nov 2006) and with B.B.King "Riding with the King" in 2000.
He has done 23 solo albums from 1974 to 2018 some of his hit albums are "Eric Clapton"(1970), "No Reason to Cry"(1976), "Behind the Sun" (1985), "Reptile"(2001), "I Still Do"(2016), "Happy Xmas"(2018).
Source: @ericclapton
Eric Clapton Awards and Honors
His dedication and hardworking comes out with a big great results. He won 18 Grammy awards in different categories and honored with various titles. He has also won American Music Awards, MTV Movie Awards, Billboard Music Awards, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Golden Globes USA, World Music Awards. With more than 50 years of touring under his belt, Eric has played in excess of 3,000 concerts. He has given concerts in 58 countries across six continents and played to over 2 billion people. Since 1964, he has appeared at London’s Royal Albert Hall more than 200 times.
He has won Grammy Awards for Album of the Year"The Concert for Bangladesh" shared with George Harrison, Ravi Shanker, Bob Dylan, Leon Russel in 1973. He has won Best Rock Vocal Performance-Male for "Bad Love" in 1991, Best Rock Song for "Layla" with Jim Gordon in 1993, Best Rock Rock Vocal Performance-Male and Album of the Year, Song of the Year "Tears in Heaven", Record of the Year "Tears in Heaven" in 1993. Best Pop Vocal Performance-Male for "Change the World" in 1997 and song of the Year for the same in 1997. He has won Best Rock Instrumental Performance for "The Calling" in 2000. He has also won the Best Contemporary Blues Album for "The Road to Escondido" in 2008 and Nominated Best Music Film for "A Life in 12 Bars" in 2019.
Clapton delivered one of the most emotionally compelling performances in GRAMMY history at the 35th GRAMMY Awards show in 1993 when he performed "Tears In Heaven," a song written after the tragic death of his young son.
He was honored and awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award as a member of Cream in 2006.he was also Promoted to Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), receiving the award from Princess Royal at Buckingham Palace as part of the 2004 New Year Honours list in 2004.
and Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the third time, this time as a solo artist. He was earlier inducted as a member of the bands Cream and the Yardbirds in 2000. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to music, as part of the 1995 New Year Honours list in 1995.
His music was featured in dozens of movies and in television shows. His music played in The Great movies like Lethal weapon 2(Knockin' On Heaven's Door), Goodfellas ("Layla" and "Sunshine of Your Love"), Friends episodes "The ONe with Proposal Part 2"("Wonderful Tonight").
Eric Clapton Charitable Works
Eric Clapton served on the board of directors for The Chemical Dependency Centre from 1994 until 1999. Clapton was appointed a director of Clouds House in 1993, it's a treatment center for drug and alcohol dependence. He served there till 1997. Both charities were merged to become Action on Addiction in 2007.
He established the Crossroads Centre in Antigua to help others overcome their addictions to drugs and alcohol in 1998. He organized the Crossroad Guitar Festival in 1999, 2004, 2007, 2010, and in 2013 to raise funds for this center. He has kept his guitar collection which was donated by his famous friends in an auction held on 24 June 2004. The revenue gathered by this auction was estimated at approx. of USD 7.5Million.
Political View of Eric Clapton
Clapton would encounter the Christian faith of others–performers or missionaries–and it seemed to have an effect on him, but for so much of his early and mid-career, Clapton’s religion was hedonism.2 Finally, in 1987, Clapton checked into a rehab clinic in a last-ditch attempt to sober up–and there he found Jesus for real. He recounts his experience after realizing he had hit rock bottom. Clapton is a supporter of the Countryside Alliance, which promotes field sports and issues relating to the British countryside. He has played in concerts to raise funds for the organization and publicly opposed the Labour Party's ban on fox hunting with the 2004 Hunting Act.
Controversy over remarks on Immigration
An announcement on the stage for his support of controversial political candidate Enoch Powell became the controversy against increasing immigration during a concert in Birmingham. The statement was "I think Enoch's right, I think we should send them all back. Stop Britain from becoming a black colony. Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. Keep Britain white".In a December 2007 interview with Melvyn Bragg on The South Bank Show, Clapton told Bragg that he was not a racist but still believed Powell's comments were relevant.
Eric Clapton Health Issues
In June 2016, Clapton said that he's now “struggling” to play guitar because of damage to his nervous system. Clapton was recently diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy, a condition that occurs when nerves carrying messages to and from the brain and spinal cord to the rest of the body are damaged or diseased.
In early 2018, he admitted in an interview that he was also dealing with tinnitus, a ringing in the ears caused by noise-induced hearing loss. Despite the ailments, the guitar legend said he intended to continue performing that year.
Source: @insidehook
Who is Eric Clapton married to?
Eric Clapton is a married man and his sexual orientation is straight. Eric Clapton and Pattie Boyd (She had previously been married to Clapton's friend George Harrison from 1966 to 1977) married on 27 March 1979 in Tucson, Arizona. and had no children together. Clapton's songs 'Layla' and 'Wonderful Tonight' were inspired by her. They divorced in 1988.
He married his second wife Melia McEnery in a small church ceremony in January 2002. Melia was born in 1976 and is 31 years younger than Eric. She works as a Senior Clinical Advisor for Crossroads Centre Antigua. They met at a party in 1999 when Eric was 53 and Melia was 22.
n 1984, Clapton began a relationship with Yvonne Kelly, the manager of AIR Studios Montserrat. Although both were married to other people at the time, they had a daughter in 1985. She was named Ruth Kelly Clapton, but she was kept from the public until the media realized she was his child in 1991.
Clapton had an affair with Italian model Lory Del Santo, who gave birth to their son, Conor, in 1986. Conor died in 1991 at the age of four, after falling out of an open bedroom window on the 53rd floor of a Manhattan apartment building. The song 'Tears in Heaven' was inspired by this tragedy.
Eric and Melia have three daughters: Julie Rose (born 2001), Ella May (born 2003), and Sophie Belle (born 2005).
Source: @usatoday
How Tall is Eric Clapton?
Eric has an average body structure. He is 1.77m (5ft 9.5inch)tall and weight of 84kg (185lbs). His eye color is Blue and Brown is his hair color.
What is the Net Worth of Eric Clapton?
As we all know that he is a great musician, singer, songwriter. He has been ranked as the #53 on Rolling Stone's Top 100 Artists Of All Time. Clapton began his career when he was 17 years old, and he joined his first band called “The Roosters”. As of 2020, Eric Clapton's net worth is roughly $300 Million dollars, making him the 18th richest rock star in the world.
Eric Clapton is a fanatical classic car collector, most notably of Ferraris. For someone who already reached superstardom, his dream was to have a classic car collection. He’s owned numerous cars throughout his lifetime, some of them gifted to him by a friend and fellow-superstar George Harrison of The Beatles, and some bought by himself. For whatever reason, Ferrari is the company that Eric Clapton has been drawn to the most. It’s a bit surprising that “Slowhand” would love cars that are so fast and aggressive and exotic, but that just shows the two very different sides of the English rocker. In 2012, Ferrari honored Clapton with the one-off special project car, the Ferrari SP12 EC.
