Ted's review of Clapton: The Autobiography

Clapton: The Autobiography
by Eric Clapton

Ted's review

rating:

bookshelves: contemporay-nonfiction

status: Read in October, 2007

If you're a total Slowhand freak (and I am) this book is invaluable in that it comes right from the "horse's mouth." I've read a number of EC biographies, and, obviously, the main events of his life story are the same here as they are in the past (Cream still implodes, "Layla" still gets recorded, etc.). In that sense, there isn't much new information as there is the personal perspective and voice of Clapton himself.

Most revealing are the details of his youth growing up. Everyone knows about the illegitimacy issues and the resulting confusion, but there's an added poignancy when you get the details that EC provides himself.

You also get a taste of his experience in Hazeldon that you don't get anywhere else--again, with emotional depth that even an authorized biography can't touch.

Ironically, it's the happiness in EC's life that make the tail end of the book a bit anticlimactic. His apparently happy marriage and family life after a series of traumatic ...more If you're a total Slowhand freak (and I am) this book is invaluable in that it comes right from the "horse's mouth." I've read a number of EC biographies, and, obviously, the main events of his life story are the same here as they are in the past (Cream still implodes, "Layla" still gets recorded, etc.). In that sense, there isn't much new information as there is the personal perspective and voice of Clapton himself.

Most revealing are the details of his youth growing up. Everyone knows about the illegitimacy issues and the resulting confusion, but there's an added poignancy when you get the details that EC provides himself.

You also get a taste of his experience in Hazeldon that you don't get anywhere else--again, with emotional depth that even an authorized biography can't touch.

Ironically, it's the happiness in EC's life that make the tail end of the book a bit anticlimactic. His apparently happy marriage and family life after a series of traumatic (and sometimes bizarre) relationships and affairs are good news for those of us who wish him well, but don't make for page-turning reading.

For example, about halfway through the book, Clapton recounts the agonizing, epic love triangle among Pattie Boyd, George Harrison, and himself, along with the fall into addiction and the creation of the glorious "Layla" album.

Skip ahead 150 pages, and EC is describing the emotional turmoil that comes with deciding whether or not he (and his bank account) has it in him to purchase his own personal luxury yacht.

I'm glad for Clapton that his major source of soul-searching now is whether he's merely obscenely wealthy, or super-obscenely wealthy, but this isn't the sort of sturm und drang that created Layla.

But it's not fair to critique the man's life for not being sufficiently traumatizing to follow a traditional dramatic arc. He's simply telling it like it is.

The one thing I would have liked more of is some details about his approach to his craft. Musicianship is not a concept covered in any appreciable depth in the book, and that's ultimately what I'm most drawn to in Clapton. But then again, that's what the music itself is for.
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Ted's review of Clapton: The Autobiography

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