Mr Showbiz by Stephen Dando-Collins

Author:Stephen Dando-Collins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
Published: 2017-03-16T04:00:00+00:00

In the spring of 1970, Delaney & Bonnie & Friends folded, and Eric Clapton invited three American members of the band, Carl Radle, Bobby Whitlock and Jim Gordon, to come jam with him. They moved into Hurtwood Edge, and each day melted into the next as the four played and played, fuelled by a cocktail of brandy, vodka, sleeping tablets and cocaine. Clapton was in seventh heaven.

George Harrison frequently visited. During this period Clapton and the Americans played on several tracks on George’s All Things Must Pass, a triple album pulled together by legendary American producer Phil Spector. The trusting Harrison was blissfully unaware that his friend Clapton was courting his wife, Pattie, behind his back, although Pattie was resisting. One night, after a visit to Pattie while George was away, Clapton had rolled his new Ferrari Dino in a country lane, then abandoned it. Investigating police failed to discover that he’d never possessed a driver’s licence.

One Sunday night in June, Clapton, Radle, Whitlock and Gordon played a charity concert at London’s Lyceum, in the Strand. Ashton, Gardner and Dyke were the opening act, and when Clapton’s friend Tony Ashton learned that the group didn’t have a name, he suggested they call themselves Del and the Dominos, because Ashton always called Clapton ‘Del’. When Ashton subsequently introduced the new band as Derek and the Dominos, the name stuck.

A few weeks later, Clapton and George Harrison were both at one of Stigwood’s Old Barn parties. There, unable to contain his guilt, Clapton blurted his secret to Harrison. ‘I’m in love with your wife.’

Although, on the surface, George treated the admission as a joke, Clapton felt sure he could see hurt in his friend’s eyes, and suspected he already knew. Stigwood, now also learning of the as yet unrequited love affair, decided to keep Clapton’s mind occupied and convinced him to tour. Wanting none of the Cream or Blind Faith hype, Clapton only agreed on condition the tour take in small venues, with the identities of the members of Derek and the Dominos kept secret.

During this period, Clapton wrote the songs for the Derek and the Dominos album Layla, beginning with the single of the same name, a love song to Pattie. Flying to Miami, and joined by Allman Brothers guitarist Duane Allman, the band put the LP down at Criteria under the guiding hand of Tom Dowd. Back in the UK, the group resumed touring as the album hit the record shops. To Clapton’s astonishment, the album didn’t sell. Like a successful novelist who releases a book under a nom de plume expecting it to sell on its own merits, Clapton had refused to allow any promotion for Layla.

After Stigwood and Ertegun eventually talked him into allowing them to send ‘Derek is Eric’ badges out to the media, Clapton agreed that the band would actively promote the album as they toured. But it was too little, too late. Clapton was losing heart, and falling deeper and deeper into the grip of hard drugs.

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