461 Ocean Boulevard by Eric Clapton

461 Ocean Boulevard, Eric Clapton's second solo album, rolled out on RSO in July 1974, right behind his hit take on Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff", a cover that helped push reggae into the mainstream. It was a comeback, too: Clapton had spent three years out of the studio in the grip of heroin addiction, and the title is the Golden Beach, Florida, address where he lived while making it.

Tom Dowd produced, and the mood is loose and sun-baked rather than the guitar-hero fireworks of the Cream days. Blues rock sits easy beside a reggae lilt, and Clapton sounds like a man who would rather sink into the groove than grandstand. People bought it in droves, sending it to the top of charts around the world and past two million copies. Once it was done, Clapton and RSO boss Robert Stigwood steered the Bee Gees to the same house and to Criteria Studios in Miami, where they made Main Course.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.