Clapton: The Autobiography | Eric Clapton

Clapton: The Autobiography | Eric Clapton | Awesome!

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Clapton: The Autob...

	Clapton: The Autobiography Eric Clapton Broadway, 2008 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 322 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Fascinating Story

After reading some of the negative reviews written on this site, I delved into EC's autobiography with some skepticism. What I found was a most fascinating story covering 40 years of one of the greatest icons in the history of music. Expecting to find an egotistical tale of success(from someone actually dubbed "God"), I instead found Clapton to be an extremely humble, insecure and naive man, despite all his fame and fortune. He candidly tells his most inward thoughts and reveals many mistakes along the way.
The book begins in his early childhood when he learns his parents and brother are really his grandparents and uncle, and that his young mom wants little to do with him. This would leave any child feeling vulnerable and insecure, and Clapton is no exception. He believes this to be the cause of much of his erratic behavior and to his many poor choices of failed relationships throughout his life.
We follow him through swinging London in the '60s as he joins, and leaves, several legendary bands. Clapton explains how Cream was doomed before they even began; how he just wasn't into Blind Faith as much as he should have been; his lack of confidence was what kept him from going solo for so many years.
Clapton is painfully honest about his severe heroin and alcohol addictions, his botched suicide attempt and his obsession with Pattie Boyd. He describes how awkward it was to be good friends with George Harrison, all the while trying to steal his wife.

What I really enjoyed about this book was the humor as Clapton laughs at himself in retrospect at his naivete regarding his bizarre behavior. He discusses how he frequently brought derelicts home to his estate because he thought they might be more "real" than anyone else, but instead found them to be "barking mad and talking gibberish", with poor Pattie having to cook dinner for them all. There's the hilarious story of his being conned by a crazy woman from New York into performing spells and incantations in an attempt to win back Pattie's affections.

With this honest autobiography, Clapton has dared to lower himself from the pedestal and join the ranks of the "everyday" man who struggles to get by each day. This may be the best autobiography I have ever read.

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Awesome!

This book is so good.....what a page turner...it is full of interesting
insight and lots of industry names etc....Eric Clapton is really open.

one man's soul journey

A lively read for the first two-thirds of "Clapton". The early parts of the book cover Clapton's emotional baggage when he learns of his bastard status; the years as an art student; and most interesting, the genesis of his music and his resonation with the blues. The way Clapton talks of his "calling" leads one to the conclusion that some musicians, like Dylan and Neil Young, just fit into their destinies like a gloved hand.

There are plenty of British phraseologies and slang that tend to throw speed bumps into the narrative flow however; you have to second guess what he's talking about if not familiar with Briticisms, which I suspect many of us are not. Still, the book moves along well until the last third, when Clapton opens up about his recovery from alcoholism; his family life; the Cream reunion concerts, and finally his last world tour. It feels like this last part of the book was rushed and actually written by someone else. It comes dangerously close to imploding.

Also the humility does come across as pretty selective, while we're filled in on all the estates, houses, cars, guitars, watches (what am I forgetting?) that his wealth has provided in the acquiring of these possessions. Yes, Mr. Clapton is a full-on materialist; but, giving the man his due, he certainly worked hard over his forty year career and he's entitled to enjoy the fruit of his labors like anyone else would be. It just feels like a strange contrast when he talks about the spiritual part of his life that his recovery has made possible, while we learn about the vast amount of possessions he owns.

In "Clapton", we do have a front row seat as we witness EC's obsessions and addictions: women, especially Patti Boyd; heroin and alcohol; and his magpie tendencies to acquire worldly things. But he does come across as being forthright, even if some of the juicier details of his career have been omitted. We do have to remember that his brain was impaired for many years and he would not recall details of this adventurous life that others in his life would and could. Some of the other reviewers seem to self-righteously gloss over this fact with some real inappropriate judgments.

Anyway, having prevailed through a long wake of wreakage and heartache, this man Clapton has shown much faith and courage to recreate his life, and thus come to terms with himself in his later years. That is the real message that comes across in this book; one only needs to read past the narrative in the lines to get the more fundamental narrative of this man's soul journey.

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