Derek & the Dominos – Devil Road - Non-Album Tracks (1971)

Derek and the Dominos were a great band, and the peak of Eric Clapton’s career. Unfortunately, they didn’t last long, and there attempt at a second album in mid-1971 fizzled out. I’ve created a double album of what might have been, about the same length as the great Layla album.

A few tracks came out on Clapton’s Crossroads box set. There are a few other good still unreleased outtakes. Additionally, keyboardist Bobby Whitlock was working on a solo album at the same time. Some of the tracks on this album (also called Bobby Whitlock), plus one that was held over to his next album (Raw Velvet), essentially featured Derek and the Dominos, including Clapton. I’ve included those, as well as a solo Whitlock song that doesn’t feature Clapton, Dreams of a Hobo, to end the album on a mellow note in the same way Whitlock’s Thorn Tree in the Garden ends the Layla album.

I could have used the same version of Got to Get Better in a Little While that appears on a Layla reissue, that had Whitlock’s voice and keyboards added in the 1990s. However, in my opinion, it’s not nearly as good as the version Derek and the Dominos played on the Johnny Cash Show in November 1970. That was a live track, but with excellent sound, so I carefully edited out the crowd noises to make it appear like a studio track.

The problem with the album I’d made is that it had lots of Whitlock-sung songs, and instrumentals, and not enough Clapton-sung songs. To fix that, I took a performance of Roll It Over from the Fillmore East done in slow style (as opposed to the fast style on a quickly withdrawn single), and also edited the crowd noise out to make it sound like a studio track. Then I did the same thing to Motherless Children, a live track from the Electric Factory Theatre in Philadelphia in October 1970. It has pretty much the exact same arrangement as the song does on Clapton’s 1974 album. I also added a full band version of Mean Old World , an outtake from the Layla album.

But the highlight of the album for me is Devil Road. Derek and the Dominos was the backing band for this song for a planned solo album by the relatively obscure singer Renee Armand. It’s a bit odd to hear Armand’s female vocals, but that doesn’t matter much, because it’s a 13 minute long song, and the vast majority of it is Clapton going off with one of the best solos of his career.

The final result is seven songs sung by Clapton, five sung by Whitlock, one sung by Armand (that’s mostly instrumental), and three instrumentals. So it’s a bit odd, compared to the great Layla album, but what we have to work with is very limited, due to the recording sessions fizzling out early. I think it  holds together as a good listen.

Here’s the song list:

01 Got to Get Better in a Little While (Derek & the Dominos)
02 Hello L.A., Bye Bye Birmingham (Derek & the Dominos)
03 Roll It Over (Derek & the Dominos)
04 Back in My Life Again (Derek & the Dominos)
05 Evil (Derek & the Dominos)
06 Moody Jam [Instrumental] (Derek & the Dominos)
07 One More Chance (Derek & the Dominos)
08 Where There's a Will, There’s a Way (Derek & the Dominos)
09 Mean Old Frisco (Derek & the Dominos)
10 Snake Lake Blues [Instrumental] (Derek & the Dominos)
11 The Scenery Has Slowly Changed (Derek & the Dominos)
12 Got to Get Better in a Little While [Instrumental Version] (Derek & the Dominos)
13 Motherless Children (Derek & the Dominos)
14 Mean Old World (Derek & the Dominos)
15 Devil Road (Derek & the Dominos with Renee Armand)
16 The Dreams of a Hobo (Derek & the Dominos)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15110090/DereknDom_1971_DevilRoadSecondAlbumSessions_atse.zip.html

Note that the album cover was made with the help of PJ from Alums I Wish Existed. An Internet search found a photo that evoked the "Devil Road" concept. The never got close enough to finishing the album to come up with a name or cover art.