Artist · chart history · #412 in indie & aaa artist polls
Derek and the Dominos
Band London United States Active 1970–1971
Derek and the Dominos formed in 1970 in London, United States and was active until 1971. Derek and the Dominos has 183 chart appearances on 133 radio countdowns from 41 stations on RockLists, spanning 1976–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Layla”, which appears on 132 lists with a best position of #2. The station that charted Derek and the Dominos most often is 100.7 WZLX (Boston, MA), with 21 appearances.
Derek and the Dominos came together in London in the spring of 1970, and it's Eric Clapton's band, whatever the name on the sleeve pretends. Clapton sings and plays guitar, with Bobby Whitlock on keyboards and vocals, Carl Radle on bass and Jim Gordon on drums, four players who had all been through Delaney & Bonnie and Friends together. Dave Mason added lead guitar on their earliest sessions, and their first work as a unit came in the studio for George Harrison's All Things Must Pass.
Their one album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, is a double set produced by Tom Dowd, and Duane Allman's lead and slide guitar are all over it, locking horns and twining around Clapton's. It's raw, aching and sometimes desperate: "Bell Bottom Blues" is heartsick, "Key to the Highway" loose and rolling, "Little Wing" thunders, and "Layla" itself, a song of unrequited love inspired by Clapton's feelings for Harrison's wife, Pattie Boyd, is one long howl of longing. It sold slowly at first and radio mostly ignored it, but critics came round, and in March 1972 "Layla" finally reached the top 10 in the US and the UK.
The band was done by 1971. Radle died in 1980, Gordon in 2023 and Whitlock in 2025, leaving Clapton the last of the four.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Derek and the Dominos on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Layla#23 of all time | 132 | #2 | – | – | |
| 2 | Bell Bottom Blues | 38 | #112 | – | – | |
| 3 | Little Wing | 3 | #64 | – | – | |
| 4 | Why Does Love Have to Be so Sad | 2 | #619 | – | – | |
| 5 | Key To The Highway | 1 | #123 | – | – | |
| 6 | Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad | 1 | #542 | – | – | |
| 7 | Why Does Love Got to B | 2 | #939 | – | – | |
| 8 | Keep On Growing | 1 | #1501 | – | – | |
| 9 | Have You Ever Loved A Woman | 2 | #891 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
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