Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton, born in 1945 and hailing from Ripley, England, has spent his career chasing the blues from one band to the next. He did time in the Yardbirds from 1963 to 1965, then with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, and then came Cream, the power trio with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce where he stretched blues licks into long, sustained improvisations. After 4 albums, Cream fell apart in November 1968.

Blind Faith, with Baker, Steve Winwood and Ric Grech, managed one album and one tour. Clapton then hit the road with Delaney & Bonnie, cut his first solo album in 1970, with the easy-rolling "After Midnight" and the soaring "Let It Rain", and put together Derek and the Dominos with Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon. That band also made just one album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, but its title track is the song his name is chained to.

The solo years that followed are looser and more relaxed, and the better for it. 461 Ocean Boulevard, in 1974, turned Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" into a laid-back hit that helped carry reggae to a mass audience. Slowhand, in 1977, has a country streak running through it: the tender, unhurried "Wonderful Tonight", the shuffling "Lay Down Sally", the slinky, menacing "Cocaine" and the brawny "The Core". This is a guitar hero who has figured out that the notes he leaves out matter as much as the ones he plays.

He kept going: Another Ticket, Behind the Sun with "Forever Man", the glossy pop rock of August in 1986, and Journeyman. After his son Conor died in 1991, he poured the grief into "Tears in Heaven", which reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and turned up on his Unplugged album. "Change the World" followed in 1996, and in 1998 he founded the Crossroads Centre on Antigua, a treatment facility for people recovering from addiction, as he was himself. He has won 18 Grammys, was made a CBE in 2004, and is the only artist inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 3 times: with the Yardbirds, with Cream, and on his own in 2000.

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