Customer Reviews

Clapton Chronicles - The Best of Eric Clapton

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As the 1980's opened, Clapton seemed more tuned into the mainstream without sacrificing any of his vital bluesy guitar and his throaty vocals. The Clapton Chronicles pick up where Cream of Clapton leaves off.

The engaging radio-friendly "Forever Man" from the Phil Collins-produced Behind The Sun continued Clapton's run on the pop charts, with his signature wailing blues guitar in full form. However, it turned out to be his last Top 40 hit for a while. Also from that album was "She's Waiting" with its pounded out synths in the chorus. It ends interestingly with frenzied accompaniment by some female backing singers, snare drum and piccolo.

"It's In The Way that You Use It," from the Color of Money soundtrack and also on his August album, was the first solo song I heard from him thanks to MTV, still with the full sound of guitars, synths, saxes, and brass. Other tracks from August not on here that I enjoyed were "Run," the ballad "Holy Mother," and his duet with Tina Turner, "Tearing Us Apart," so 1986 wasn't a bad year for him.

Next he released Journeyman (1989), which critics showed as a return to form, and even his best album since Slowhand, as seen with Bo Diddley's righteous "Before You Accuse Me," which is simply marvelous pure blues, and where he gets help from Robert Cray. This album was produced by Russ Titleman, who had revitalized Steve Winwood's career with Back In The High Life and Roll With It and indeed, "Pretending" could've fit on Roll With It. Chaka Khan helps with backing vocals here, ironic as she did the same for Winwood's "Higher Love." "Bad Love" gets a boost from Phil Collins on drums and backing vocals. There's less of the synths and more traditional rock instrumentation, which explains Journeyman's reputation as Clapton's best 80's album.

Then came 20 March 1991, when his four-year old son Conor was killed in a fall. Following an extended absence, he came out with the heart-wrenching "Tears of Heaven," sung in a delicate falsetto, from the Rush soundtrack. With "Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven" and the resolve of "I must be strong and carry on/'cause i know i don't belong here in heaven" the reference is more than clear. This gave him the first of two Grammies for Best Record. The version here is the original studio version.

From the Grammy-winning Unplugged, there is the considerably slowed down version of "Layla." Its tempo is indeed a reminder of its blues roots. This peaked at #12, two positions below of its studio counterpart peak. The live version of "Running On Faith" originally from Journeyman, is also included.

His second Grammy came with the Babyface-produced "Change The World" from the Phenomenon soundtrack. This Top Five ballad had a notably more romantic and theme, albeit mellowed, and with a more with a nice pop-soul backing vocal troupe.

A handful of the songs here denote how much Clapton was sobered by his tragedy, reminded perhaps of mortality in general. "Blue Eyes Blue" from the Runaway Bride soundtrack, shows a more subdued Clapton: "it was you who put the clouds around me/It was you who made the tears fall down." "River of Tears" with its funereal airy synths by Simon Climie of Climie Fisher fame who co-produced the album Pilgrim, of a man trying to start over after a split-up, and the #16 single "My Father's Eyes," also from that album attest to that. On hearing "how could I lose him?" and "Through the distant clouds of tears/I'm like a bridge that was washed away" there is a sign that Clapton was still mourning and pouring it into these songs.

Where the 80's showed him holding steady, the 90s showed him winning more music recognition and glory, but at such a heavy price. Small wonder he was drowning in a river of tears.

Yikes! It's sad to think that this is what most people think of Eric Clapton as, a poppy Top-40 balladeer. Listen to this album, and you'll be befuddled as to why Clapton is considered an esteemed guitar god. Most people who buy this album probably don't even realize that Clapton is a guitarist! Sure, he's holding a guitar on the cover of Unplugged, but he probably just uses it as a prop like Elvis did. Right?

That's the impression that many people are probably getting about Eric Clapton nowadays. Very sad considering how great he once was. This is a guy that was once one of the greatest guitarists in the world, second only to Jimi Hendrix. A man whose playing launched a thousand hard rock and heavy metal bands. And thirty years later, THIS is the kind of drivel that people know him by??

In my humble opinion, the only great material on this CD are the songs from Unplugged. It would make much more sense just to buy the Unplugged album. On that CD, Clapton's playing (even on acoustic guitar) is stunning and firmly rooted in the blues. The Clapton Chronicles, however, manages the feature only the least bluesy and most pop-oriented songs on Unplugged. Go figure. The songs from Journeyman are pretty good too, but missing the excellent "Old Love" featuring Robert Cray on guitar. Journeyman was an oasis of quality in a desert of slick 80's pop. That album presents us with the closest thing that The Clapton Chronicles has to a blues song: the cover of Bo Diddley's "Before You Accuse Me.

There's no way around it: Clapton's contemporary material lacks the passion and excitement of his 60's and 70's work. Someone who loves and appreciates Clapton's best work will be bored to death by this CD, and rightly so. If you want to hear the best of Eric Clapton's 80's and 90's output, then you need to toss "The Clapton Chronicles" in the garbage can and buy three CDs: Unplugged (1992), From The Cradle (1994) and Riding With The King (2000). These three albums are really the only latter-day examples of Clapton's virtuosity. From The Cradle (Clapton's best and most intense album since the early 70's) has not even a single track on this collection! It's a glaring omission that suggests that the makers of this compilation sought to ignore Clapton's status as a blues player in favor of his more radio and mainstream-friendly fare. Consequently, they have turned him into a boring AOR hack. Clapton is still capable of great things, but when he panders to pop radio like this it's easy to forget the heights that he once soared to.

If you're one of the poor souls who has fallen victim to this one-sided portrayal of Eric Clapton, then here are the albums that you need to hear immediately:

"Five Live Yardbirds" - The Yardbirds (1964)
"Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton" - John Mayall's Bluesbreakers (1966)
"Fresh Cream" - Cream (1966)
"Disraeli Gears" - Cream (1967)
"Wheels of Fire" - Cream (1968)
"Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs" - Derek and the Dominos (1970)
"Eric Clapton's Rainbow Concert" - Eric Clapton(1973)
"Just One Night" - Eric Clapton (1980)
"From The Cradle" - Eric Clapton (1994)
"Riding With The King" - B.B. King/Eric Clapton (2000)

Those albums will give you a glimpse of what The Clapton Chronicles is sorely lacking. You will see what he is capable of when he is truly inspired, and you will never want to listen to an album like Pilgrim or August again.

A lot of people might say that the album has too much recycled stuff, and that might be true. Still, it contains some of Clapton's best recent work from Unplugged and Pilgrim (Plus some soundtrack stuff!), and is an excellent example of Clapton's deviation from his Yardbirds/Dominoes days. If you are missing one of the above albums, or better yet, both, this disc is a great buy.

I keep reading negative reviews from fans or former fans who want an artist to remain as they remember them in a certain time and place in their lives. Well, there's this concept called evolution; and guess what, artists like the rest of us change and move on. Yes, they evolve. Personally, I like ALL of Clapton's work. Whether it's his early stuff or his recent "balladeer" (some previous reviewer wrote that word) type music, I can still appreciate his superb and masterful guitar skills. He still writes superb music and the fact that he can still get an album recorded and sold after four decades in the business speaks volumes. If you don't appreciate evolution, just stay in the past or move on to another artist who plays the same stuff over and over again.

For starters, this cd doesn't contain the stuff that made Eric Clapton a legend. He is one of the greatest guitarists to ever live, but in my opinion, he was made to rock, not roll. Some of the songs on here are very good, namely Change The World, Running On Faith and Tears in Heaven, but the rest seem unctuous and forced. I'm just a kid and I have absolutely no real grounds to call this music banal, but I think my preferences may be similar to kids like me who would rather a collection made by a rocking legend, not a lachrymose geriatric. So for anyone expecting Mr. Clapton's classics fresh out of the oven, beware. These songs are frozen, not baked.

From what I've seen this album has recieved a lot of unwarranted criticism from several reviewers who've panned it as a sell out compilation of his post-70s commercial work. This album may not have the bluesy feel of his work with Cream, Blind Faith or D+Ds. But just as The Cream of Eric Clapton is an excellent collection of Clapton's first fifteen years, this is an excellent collection of the last twenty. To say that this album does not rock is the grossest understatement of the year. Songs like Bad Love, Pretending and Forever Man have his guitar playing at it's most blistering. Fiery enough to scrawl "Clapton is God" on the walls all over again. Also included are a bunch of favourites such as Tears in Heaven, My Father's Eyes, Change The World and the timeless unplugged rendition of Layla (though wholly incomparable to the original electric version).

This CD is absolutely essential to even the most basic discerning Clapton fan. The other, of course, is The Cream of Eric Clapton, which does not share a single common song (except for the electric version of Layla) with this CD. Clapton truly was, and still is, God.

Here is a second volume of Eric Clapton's very best. This collection covers Clapton's hits from 1985 to when this album was released in 1999. It could have used I GOT A ROCK AND ROLL HEART from 1983's MONEY AND CIGARETTES. BLUE EYES BLUE is an original track and was a hit. CHANGE THE WORLD is from the soundtrack album to the 1996 movie "Phenomenon". MY FATHER'S EYES and RIVER OF TEARS are from 1998's PILGRIM. TEARS IN HEAVEN is from the 1991 or '92 movie "Rush". It was written for his toddler son Conor who died after falling from a multi-story window(this happened on March 30,1991 which was Clapton's 46th birthday). LAYLA is live from 1992's UNPLUGGED,which was on hit parade the same year. The original version was recorded by Derek And The Dominoes in 1970 and appears on THE CREAM OF CLAPTON. Also from UNPLUGGED is a JOURNEYMAN track entitled RUNNING ON FAITH. From JOURNEYMAN is BAD LOVE,BEFORE YOU ACCUSE ME and PRETENDING. FOREVER MAN is a hard rocker so is SHE'S WAITING,the latter produced by Phil Collins. IT'S IN THE WAY THAT YOU USE IT is from 1986's AUGUST and the movie soundtrack to "The Color Of Money",released that same year. (I) GET LOST is an original track from the 1999 movie "The Story Of Us". That one is ideal for nightclubs and those who dance.

First of all, I agree with the prophets, Clapton is God. This Cd is good if your waiting for a new cd but it is definetly not his best by any means. If you want a more complete look at Clapton buy Unplugged, or Cream of Clapton

Eric Clapton over the years has actually become more popular.
In the 60's his music was more underground but today is more mainstream.
The psychedelic lead guitarist of Cream is now a household name that even wins Grammys.
Clapton has done some great work in the last 20 years including Tears In Heaven, If I Could Change the World, Running on Faith and a whole host of others.
If you are a Clapton fan you have heard these songs before.
One song of note that appears on this CD and appears nowhere else is Blue Eyes Blue. Blue Eyes Blue is another classic acoustic song in the tradition of Tears in Heaven among others.
The one song that does not appear here that should was the "B" side of If I Could Change the World. On that single he did a killer instrumental version of Danny Boy that only appears on the single. If you want some greatest hits or you want to introduce yourself to Clapton this is a great way to start

Clapton is simply the greatest guitarist who ever lived. I am 15 year-old guitarist and i have listened to hendrix. i am not impressed by his guitar work like i am by claptons. Claptons guitar work blows my mind every time i turn on one of his cd's. just because this cd does not have some of his more rockin songs (cocaine, shes gone, sunshine of your love, ect...) does not mean it is not a great cd. I like all of his cd's (pilgrim and reptile included).