Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John - Tokyo Dome, Tokyo, Japan, 11-2-1988

In the late 1980s, lead guitar legends Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler performed many concerts together. They actually first played in concert together in 1985 while Mark Knopfler was still leading his band Dire Straits. But then Dire Straits was disbanded for a few years, and Knopfler didn't had a band until the Notting Hillbillies in 1990 and then a Dire Straits reunion in 1991. In 1987 and 1988 especially, the two of them did entire tours together. They were basically Eric Clapton concerts, but with Knopfler adding lead guitar to every song and singing one or two songs as lead vocalist.

Things got even more interesting when their joint tour stopped by Japan in 1988. Elton John joined them there, and the three of them headlined four concerts together. One of them, in Tokyo, was broadcast on TV and radio in Japan only. This got bootlegged, naturally, and it makes for an excellent recording, with soundboard quality sound. That's what this is here.

The first portion of the concert only featured Clapton and Knopfler. Clapton sang most of the songs, but one of his female backing vocalists sang lead on "Can't Find My Way Home" and Knopfler sang lead on his huge Dire Straits hit "Money for Nothing." Then Elton John joined them for the rest of the concert. Most of the songs from that point on were John's hits, but Clapton sang three more, and Knopfler did one more Dire Straits song, "Solid Rock." John naturally played keyboards even on the songs he didn't sing.

So all in all this is a really nice and very rare collaboration between three rock superstars. It wasn't the last time the three of them did this, however. They also played together during the Knebworth Festival in 1990. I have posted that already, which you can find here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2024/05/knebworth-festival-knebworth-house_50.html

This album is two hours and 13 minutes long.

01 Crossroads (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
02 White Room (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
03 I Shot the Sheriff (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
04 Lay Down Sally (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
05 Wonderful Tonight (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
06 Tearing Us Apart (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
07 After Midnight (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
08 Can't Find My Way Home (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
09 Money for Nothing [Edit] (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
10 Candle in the Wind (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
11 I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
12 I Don't Wanna Go On with You like That (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
13 I'm Still Standing (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
14 Daniel (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
15 talk (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
16 Cocaine (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
17 Layla (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
18 Solid Rock (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
19 Saturday Night's Alright [For Fighting] (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
20 Sunshine of Your Love (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
21 Percussion Solo (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
22 Sunshine of Your Love (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)

https://www.imagenetz.de/e2iJV

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/873KARqh

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/yKoZ6ps2xz0RPgG/file

The cover image was very hard for me to make. It is of this exact concert, right after the end of the final song of the encore. However, I couldn't find any photos of them together, so I had to resort to taking a screenshot from a video of this concert I found on YouTube. But the video was so low-res and blurry that I had to rewatch that section of the video to even figure out Knopfler was holding something (a towel) in his hands. 

The reason this cover looks like it does is due to the free Krea AI program. I ran the screenshot through that program, giving prompts identifying who was in the image. It was a little bit better, but not much. Then I ran that version through the program. Again, some improvement, but still rough. I did it four times in all! Finally, it ended up like this. To show you how drastically things changed, here's the screenshot I started from. Frankly, I'm kind of amazed at what the AI technology is capable of. Yeah, there's a lot of change there, it's not entirely true to reality, but I think the final version looks a hell of a lot better than the screenshot does.

Knebworth Festival, Knebworth House, Knebworth, Britain, 6-30-1990, Part 6: Eric Clapton, Dire Straits & Elton John

The sixth performance at the 1990 Knebworth Festival was a rather unusual collaboration between Eric Clapton, Dire Straits, and Elton John.

Collaboration between these three famous musical forces was rare, but not unprecedented. In particular, Mark Knopfler, leader of Dire Straits, and Eric Clapton became good friends in the late 1980s and toured together a lot in 1987 to 1989. Elton John joined them for at least one full concert, in Tokyo, Japan, in 1988. 

Meanwhile, Dire Straits broke up in 1986, at the conclusion of the tour to promote their 1985 album "Brothers in Arms." They got back together for about five shows in 1988 and 1989, mostly benefit concerts, and usually with Clapton included. Then they did this festival, their only performance of 1990. A full reunion followed, leading to the band's final album, "On Every Street," in 1991. This concert didn't actually include all of Dire Straits. Mark Knopfler, John Illsey, and Alan Clark took part, but Guy Fletcher was missing. Instead, the band was rounded out by Clapton, Ray Cooper, and Phil Palmer. But still, it was considered a Dire Straits reunion.

The first four songs were sung by Clapton. Then Dire Straits joined in. One song played, "Think I Love You Too Much," was an original that never made it onto a Dire Straits (or Mark Knopfler) album, despite being a good song that got played a lot on the Dire Straits world tour in 1991 and 1992. This was the first time it was performed in concert. Elton John joined in for the last four songs, three of which were sung by him.

I don't recall any wind noise trouble with this performance. Also note that it's the longest set of the festival, because it was basically three big acts put together.

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long.

01 talk by Dave Dee (Eric Clapton)
02 Pretending (Eric Clapton)
03 Before You Accuse Me (Eric Clapton)
04 Old Love (Eric Clapton)
05 Tearing Us Apart (Eric Clapton)
06 Solid Rock (Eric Clapton & Dire Straits)
07 talk (Eric Clapton & Dire Straits)
08 I Think I Love You Too Much (Eric Clapton & Dire Straits)
09 Money for Nothing (Eric Clapton & Dire Straits)
10 talk (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
11 Sacrifice (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
12 Sad Songs [Say So Much] (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
13 Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
14 Sunshine of Your Love (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HoBf13LZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/4oHFJrfaG2Kgn1R/file

For the cover, I wanted a photo of Clapton, Knopfler, and John together at this concert. I couldn't find any, since they were spread out on stage. However, I did find one of Clapton and John.

Eric Clapton - Acoustic Versions: 1989-1999

This is kind of a supplement to the Eric Clapton stray tracks albums from the 1990s that I've been posting. These are all stray tracks too, in the sense that none of them appeared on his studio albums in this era, at least not in these arrangements. And, as you can guess from the album title, they're all acoustic versions.

Note that "at least not in these arrangements" comment I just made. A few of these songs do appear on other stray tracks albums I've made, such as "Tears in Heaven" and "Change the World." But not many, and generally they are done quite differently here. For instance, "Tears in Heaven" is stripped way back from the studio version, with just Clapton's voice and acoustic guitar.

All but three of the performances here are unreleased. The three released ones are "Mississippi Blues" (which comes from an album by another musician), "(I) Get Lost" (from a movie soundtrack) and "Danny Boy" (from a B-side).

There are 12 unreleased songs. Seven of them come from concert bootlegs. For all of those, I used the MVSEP audio editing program to get rid of the crowd noise, so they'd fit in with all the studio tracks. The remaining five didn't come with crowd noise in the first place. They're generally from concert rehearsals, although one, "'The Van' Title Theme," is from a movie or TV show that never had a soundtrack.

I think this makes for a nice listen. Clapton's acoustic performances are underrated, in my opinion.

01 Standing Around Crying (Eric Clapton with Pete Townshend)
02 Tears in Heaven (Eric Clapton)
03 Circus (Eric Clapton)
04 Ain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do (Eric Clapton)
05 Come On in My Kitchen (Eric Clapton)
06 Malted Milk (Eric Clapton)
07 Motherless Child (Eric Clapton)
08 Mississippi Blues [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton & Timothy Duffy)
09 How Long (Eric Clapton with Dr. John)
10 'The Van' Title Theme [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton)
11 Broken Hearted (Eric Clapton)
12 Change the World (Eric Clapton)
13 Driftin' Blues (Eric Clapton)
14 [I] Get Lost (Eric Clapton)
15 Danny Boy [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/16368818/ERCCLPTN1989-1999AcustcVrsons_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken at the Royal Albert Hall in London some time in 1998.

https://www.upload.ee/files/16368818/ERCCLPTN1989-1999AcustcVrsons_atse.zip.html

Eric Clapton - Black Cat Bone - Non-Album Tracks (1994-1996)

On one hand, I'm still annoyed, maybe permanently annoyed, at Eric Clapton's idiotic comments and behavior about the Covid pandemic. But on the other hand, he's done a lot of great music, and I have a ton of albums I've prepared from even before the Covid crisis. So I'm gonna try to move faster on posting them. This is another stray tracks album.

Around this time, Clapton was going through a particularly bluesy phase, culminating with his all blues album "From the Cradle" in 1994. 

One partial exception is the song "Change the World," which was a big hit in the U.S. in 1996, reaching the Top Five of the singles chart, and one of the most played songs on the radio that year. It has a much more poppy sound that the others, including a hint of hip hop. But at the same time, Clapton said the song still has "one foot in the blues, even if it's subtly disguised."

"Change the World," released only as an A-side and on a movie soundtrack, is one of four officially released songs here. The others are "Ain't Gone 'N' Give Up on Love," from a live Stevie Ray Vaughan tribute album, "Every Day I Have the Blues," from a "Live at Hyde Park" DVD, and "Low Tide," an instrumental from another movie soundtrack.

The other songs are all blues songs from concert bootlegs. With Clapton bootlegs being very popular, I had no problem sourcing all of them from soundboard boots. Note that I ran them through the MVSEP audio editing program filter to remove the crowd noise, so they'd fit in with the studio tracks. I also boosted the lead vocals on a few tracks that needed it.

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 I Can't Judge Nobody (Eric Clapton)
02 Forty-Four (Eric Clapton)
03 Ain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do (Eric Clapton)
04 Black Cat Bone (Eric Clapton)
05 I'm Gonna Cut Your Head (Eric Clapton)
06 Blues All Day Long [Blues Leave Me Alone] (Eric Clapton)
07 I Got My Mojo Working (Eric Clapton)
08 Ain't Gone 'N' Give Up on Love (Eric Clapton)
09 Change the World (Eric Clapton)
10 Every Day I Have the Blues (Eric Clapton)
11 Low Tide [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16326559/ERCCLPTN1994-1996BlckCtBne_atse.zip.html

All I know about the photo used for the cover is that it's from 1996. The little picture of the cat in the top right corner I added on a whim, after doing an image search for the phrase "black cat bone."

Eric Clapton - Tears in Heaven - Non-Album Tracks, 1992-1994

The last two times I posted an Eric Clapton album, I commented that I've lost a lot of my enthusiasm for his music due to his idiotic public stance about the Covid vaccine. But I've made my point there, so I'll just move on and post more of his music, since I created a bunch of stray tracks albums and other people might want to hear them. Sadly, there are lots of great musicians who have unfortunate beliefs or personal lives.

This album contains Clapton's big hit "Tears in Heaven," which was emotionally fueled by the tragic death of one of his children at a very young age. The song was a Top Ten hit in many countries, including the U.S. and Britain. But many more people got it by buying the live version on the album "Unplugged," which ended up selling nearly 30 million copies! 

However, the studio version appeared on a different album, the soundtrack to the movie "Rush." This is an odd album, because almost all of the songs are instrumentals written and performed by Clapton, plus "Tears in Heaven," plus the poppy sounding Clapton song "Help Me Up," and a long blues jam sung by Buddy Guy. I ultimately only included three songs from this album: "Tears in Heaven," "Help Me Up," and what I considered the best of the instrumentals, "Tracks and Lines." If you like that one, you should listen to the whole album. 

"Loving Your Lovin'" is from another movie soundtrack. "Stone Free" and "You Must Believe Me" are from tribute albums.

That leaves the unreleased tracks. Tracks 5, 6, and 7 are all Bob Dylan songs that Clapton planned to perform for the 30th Anniversary Concert in 1992 that celebrated 30 years of Dylan's music career. However, instead of being the live versions released on the official album of that concert, these are rehearsal versions that lucky have excellent sound quality. Also, the duet with Dylan on the song "t Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" only happened in the rehearsal, not the actual concert.

Finally, "Tell Me Mama" is from a concert bootleg. "Born Under a Bad Sign" is from a rehearsal for a blues themed concert.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Help Me Up (Eric Clapton)
02 Tears in Heaven (Eric Clapton)
03 Tracks and Lines [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton)
04 Loving Your Lovin' (Eric Clapton)
05 Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (Eric Clapton)
06 It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Bob Dylan & Eric Clapton)
07 Love Minus Zero-No Limit (Eric Clapton)
08 Stone Free (Eric Clapton)
09 Tell Me Mama (Eric Clapton)
10 You Must Believe Me (Eric Clapton)
11 Born Under a Bad Sign (Eric Clapton)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16073488/EricC_1992-1994_TarsinHeavn_atse.zip.html

The cover is largely based on the cover art for the single of "Tears in Heaven." However, I made some changes in Photoshop, like moving and/or resizing some of the text, and getting rid of some other text.

Eric Clapton - Hoodoo Man - Non-Album Tracks (1988-1992)

It's been a year since I last posted an Eric Clapton stray tracks album. I have to admit that I still have lost a lot of enthusiasm for his music ever since he came out strongly against the Covid vaccine. But I have a bunch more of these stray tracks albums by him, so I might as well keep posting them.

Five of the songs here have been officially released. "This Kind of Life" is from a Brendan Croker album. "That Kind of Woman" was actually written by George Harrison, but never recorded by him. Clapton did it for a charity benefit album called "Nobody's Child." "Border Song" was done for "Two Rooms," a tribute album to Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Finally, "The Stilt House" went on the "Lethal Weapon 2" soundtrack and "Runaway Train" went on the "Lethal Weapon 3" soundtrack. 

That leaves five unreleased songs. "Forever" is a studio outtake. The other four are from concert bootlegs. Generally speaking, their sound is very good.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 A Remark You Made [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton)
02 Forever (Eric Clapton)
03 This Kind of Life (Brendan Croker & Eric Clapton)
04 The Stilt House [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton, David Sanborn & Michael Kamen)
05 That Kind of Woman (Eric Clapton)
06 Bad Boy (Eric Clapton)
07 Sweet Home Chicago (Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Steve Tyler & Others)
08 Border Song (Eric Clapton)
09 Hoodoo Man (Eric Clapton)
10 Runaway Train (Elton John & Eric Clapton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1Dczg8u9

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/v7Z7Py8ZEd2zVv0/file

The cover photo seems to be from a promo photo shoot taken around 1989.

Live Aid - JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, PA, 7-13-1985, Part 5: Neil Young, the Power Station, the Thompson Twins, Eric Clapton, and Phil Collins

This is the fifth part of the Philadelphia portion of the 1985 Live Aid concert. Two more Philadelphia parts will follow.

First up in this part was Neil Young. As I mentioned previously, he would later play a set as part of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, but first he did this solo set. He did the first couple of songs truly solo, with just his acoustic guitar, but he was in full electric band mode by the last song.

The Power Station was a side band by some members of Duran Duran, with Robert Palmer as the singer. In addition to this set, Duran Duran had their own set later in the concert.

There's not much to say about the Thompson Twins set, except that it's worth noting Madonna joined them on backing vocals on one song, while they also helped with backing vocals on one of the songs in Madonna's set.

Eric Clapton was up next. I watched Live Aid as a kid, and I remember being excited that he played "White Room," which he originally did as part of Cream in the 1960s. He almost never played the song as a solo artist until earlier in 1985.

The final artist on this album was Phil Collins. He played a set early in the Live Aid concert in London, then rushed to a helicopter, flew a Concorde to the U.S., then took another helicopter to the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia, where he played this set. That made him the only person to play both Live Aid shows. He was a busy guy, because he also played drums for Eric Clapton in the set before this one, then later played drums as part of the Led Zeppelin reunion. Unfortunately though, the two songs he played in his solo set in Philadelphia were the same ones he played in London. Apparently this was because he played alone on piano, and those were the only two songs he knew in that format.

Once again, I was able to find some introductions, and only missed the intro for Neil Young this time. Actor Don Johnson introduced the Power Station. Actress and singer Bette Midler introduced the Thoimpson Twins. Music promoter Bill Graham introduced Eric Clapton. Actor Jack Nicholson assisted Midler in introducing Phil Collins.

This album is an hour and eleven minutes long.

097 Sugar Mountain (Neil Young)
098 The Needle and the Damage Done (Neil Young)
099 Helpless (Neil Young)
100 Nothing Is Perfect (Neil Young)
101 Powderfinger (Neil Young)
102 talk (Bill Graham)
103 talk (Don Johnson)
104 Murderess (Power Station)
105 talk (Power Station)
106 Get It On [Bang a Gong] (Power Station)
107 talk (Bill Graham)
108 talk (Bette Midler)
109 Hold Me Now (Thompson Twins)
110 talk (Thompson Twins)
111 Revolution (Thompson Twins with Madonna, Steve Stevens & Nile Rodgers)
112 talk (Bill Graham)
113 White Room (Eric Clapton)
114 She's Waiting (Eric Clapton)
115 Layla (Eric Clapton)
116 talk (Jack Nicholson & Bette Midler)
117 Against All Odds [Take a Look at Me Now] (Phil Collins)
118 talk (Phil Collins)
119 In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15724528/LveAidJFKStdiumPhladlphiaPA__7-13-1985_Part5.zip.html

As with most of the other parts in this series, I divided the cover art into four photos taken at the concert. Neil Young is on the top left, the Thompson Twins are on the top right, Eric Clapton is on the bottom left, and Phil Collins is on the bottom right.

Eric Clapton - Rainbow Theatre, London, Britain, 1-13-1973, Early Show

First off, I want to make clear that Eric Clapton performed two concerts in one day, January 13, 1973, at the Rainbow Theatre in London. The late show was released as the album "Eric Clapton's Rainbow Concert" later in 1973. Then an expanded version of that was released in 1995. But what I'm posting here is the early show, in soundboard quality that sounds just as good as the official album. So you may want to have this, even if you have the late show.

These two concerts were pivotal for Clapton's music career and his life in general, so a little history in needed. He fell into a bad heroin addiction after his classic album "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs" was released in 1970. He didn't play in concert or release any new music in 1971 or 1972, with the exception of participating in the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971. Pete Townshend of the Who heard of Clapton's addition problem, and even though Townshend didn't know Clapton that well, he knew Clapton was a major music talent and he wanted to help him recover from his addition and get back on his feet. Townshend helped gather a band of excellent musicians just for these two shows. Many in the band were current or former members of Traffic, such as Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Rick Grech, and Rebop Kwaku Baah. But Townshend and Ronnie Wood also played guitar. 

This band practiced for ten days, and put on a good show. Clapton was still addicted to heroin at the time, but he sang and played lead guitar surprisingly well, considering his condition. More importantly, the concerts did give him a kick in the pants. He merely had been hanging around his house, watching TV and getting high, but this got him back into music. He quit heroin over the course of the next year, in part due to working on a farm to get back in shape. Then he released the album "461 Ocean Boulevard" in 1974, which was a big success and lead to a long and successful solo career. He later said that seeing the faith that Townshend and the other musicians had in him gave him the confidence to overcome him addiction.

Unfortunately, Townshend didn't leave much of a musical mark in the concerts. He didn't sing any songs, and it seems he only stuck to playing rhythm guitar. However, he seemed to have been the band leader, as well as the emcee, doing most of the talking between songs. Steve Winwood though, had a larger musical role. Clapton sang nearly all the songs, but Winwood sang lead on "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out," Presence of the Lord," and the Traffic song "Pearly Queen." So the concert was a bit like a reunion of Blind Faith, the 1969 band led by Clapton and Winwood. However, since Clapton hadn't released any new music since 1970, most of the songs were from the "Layla" album and Clapton's 1970 solo album "Eric Clapton."

As far as the recording goes, this is another bootleg I found that had been improved by the person nicknamed Captain Acid. I then made more changes to his version. I boosted the volume of the lead vocals for all the songs. But I especially boosted the vocals for the talking bits between songs, which were really low. I also cut out some guitar tuning and other dead air between songs.

Note that not all of the songs performed here are officially unreleased. The 1995 version of the official album contains 14 songs. Ten of them are from the late show, and four are from the early show. Two of those from the early show, "After Midnight" and "Bell Bottom Blues," were included because they were only done in the early show. Two others, "Layla" and "Little Wing," were played in both shows, but for some reason the early show versions were chosen. By the way, I read the liner notes to the 1995 version, and it weirdly implies there was only one concert. So I had to dig pretty deep to find which songs were from which show.

This concert is an hour and 30 minutes long.

01 talk (Eric Clapton)
02 Layla (Eric Clapton)
03 Badge (Eric Clapton)
04 Blues Power (Eric Clapton)
05 talk (Eric Clapton)
06 Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out (Eric Clapton)
07 Roll It Over (Eric Clapton)
08 Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad (Eric Clapton)
09 talk (Eric Clapton)
10 Little Wing (Eric Clapton)
11 talk (Eric Clapton)
12 Bottle of Red Wine (Eric Clapton)
13 After Midnight (Eric Clapton)
14 Bell Bottom Blues (Eric Clapton)
15 talk (Eric Clapton)
16 Presence of the Lord (Eric Clapton)
17 Tell the Truth (Eric Clapton)
18 talk (Eric Clapton)
19 Pearly Queen (Eric Clapton)
20 Let It Rain (Eric Clapton)
21 Crossroads (Eric Clapton)

https://www.imagenetz.de/mo9SJ

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xkC9cgzX

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/jg3Efr0vehjxRo0/file 

The cover photo comes from one of these two Rainbow shows, but I'm not sure which one. From right to left, that's Ronnie Wood, Eric Clapton, Rick Grech, and Pete Townshend. Grech and Townshend were further to the side, but I used Photoshop to move them closer to Clapton.

Eric Clapton - Fight the Good Fight - Non-Album Tracks (1986-1988)

It's hard for me to get psyched about Eric Clapton these days. This is a stray tracks album for him, and the last time I posted one from him was in June 2020. What happened between then and now? The Covid pandemic, and Clapton's reaction. He released anti-mask and anti-vaccine songs, and generally acted like a jerk, putting the "right" to get paid for performing concerts over the health concerns of society at large.

So yeah, that's annoyed me. But famous musicians often are difficult people. If I didn't listen to any musicians who acted like jerks in one way or another, I'd have to throw out half of my music collection, at least. What he did isn't beyond the pale awful, like, say, R. Kelly or Bill Cosby. So I'm going to keep posting the rest of the albums I have prepared for him, especially since I made these albums long before the pandemic started.

Getting to the music here, the late 1980s were a strange time for Clapton. On one hand, he went for a slick, commercial sound with his 1986 album "August." But on the other hand, he still loved traditional blues. So this album has a mix of both sounds. His bluesy side is boosted by collaborations with Otis Rush, Chicken Shack, and Chuck Berry.

Five of the ten songs here are officially unreleased (tracks 1 and 3 through 6). "It's My Life Baby" and "Lady of Verona" are studio outtakes. The three others come from concert bootlegs. "Fight the Good Fight," a collaboration with the Bee Gees, comes from an obscure album for a children's animated TV series ("The Bunbury Tails"). The two instrumentals are from a movie soundtrack. The new version of "After Midnight" is from the "Crossroads" box set.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 It's My Life Baby (Eric Clapton)
02 Fight the Good Fight (Eric Clapton with the Bee Gees)
03 Lady of Verona (Eric Clapton)
04 All Your Love [I Miss Loving] (Eric Clapton & Otis Rush)
05 Long Distance Call (Eric Clapton & Chicken Stack)
06 Sweet Sixteen [Edit] (Eric Clapton & Chicken Shack)
07 Wee Wee Hours (Eric Clapton & Chuck Berry)
08 Ruby [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton)
09 After Midnight [Crossroads Version] (Eric Clapton)
10 Travelling East [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15101756/EricC_1986-1988_FightGoodFght_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken in Tokyo, Japan, in November 1987.

Eric Clapton - One Step Ahead of the Storm - Non-Album Tracks (1984-1985)

Boy, do I have a lot of Eric Clapton music to post. He's had a long and prolific career, and I've only made it to the mid-1980s as I move forward chronologically. So here's the next in my stray tracks album series for him.

The time period here roughly corresponds with his 1985 album "Behind the Sun." That was a success for him, mostly due to the inclusion of the hit "Forever Man." It had a mixed reaction critically, though. His record company didn't think it was commercial enough, so they had him add three songs by an outside songwriter. One of those was "Forever Man," so they had a point. But it meant there was an uneasy mix of commercial songs and bluesy songs.

It's pretty much the same story with these stray tracks. Some have a mid-1980s poppy sound, and others are pure blues. Personally, I much prefer the bluesy songs, like "Too Bad." But I've included the others for the sake of completeness. I'm especially not keen on "Jail Bait" - the lyrics get more cringe inducing the older Clapton gets. I reluctantly included it, but I edited it down, since it was nearly six minutes long.

Furthermore, around this time, Clapton started to experiment with instrumental music meant for film soundtracks. In 1985, he released the "Edge of Darkness" EP with six instrumental songs on it. I've only included two. As this series goes along, I'm going to be similarly selective of his soundtrack-styled instrumentals, since they only have limited appeal for me.

Three of the songs are officially unreleased. But two of those are clear studio versions, and the last one comes from a soundboard bootleg, so the sound quality is uniformly excellent.

01 One Jump Ahead of the Storm (Eric Clapton)
02 You Don't Know like I Know (Eric Clapton & Phil Collins)
03 Jail Bait [Edit] (Eric Clapton)
04 The Hit [Instrumental] (Roger Waters & Eric Clapton)
05 Who's Loving You Tonight (Eric Clapton)
06 Heaven Is One Step Away (Eric Clapton)
07 Loving Your Lovin' (Eric Clapton)
08 Too Bad (Eric Clapton)
09 Edge of Darkness [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton)
10 Shoot Out [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton)
11 Mean Woman Blues (Carl Perkins & Eric Clapton)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15101755/EricC_1984-1985_OneJumpAheadStrm_atse.zip.html

The cover art is based on the cover for the 1985 single "She's Waiting," but I made some changes. Most obviously, I had to remove "She's Waiting" from the bottom and replace it with my own text. I also found the exact photo used and pasted in a different copy, both for better photo quality and also so I could make it bigger.

Eric Clapton - Sad Day - Non-Album Tracks (1980-1983)

This is the next Eric Clapton stray tracks album. If you liked the previous ones, you should enjoy this one too.

The first few years of the 1980s weren't good for Clapton, either personally or musically. Although he had quit heroin in the 1970s, he became a severe alcoholic. By 1982, he was at the end of his rope and almost suicidal. But he checked into a rehab clinic, quit alcohol, and started to turn his life around.

Given all that personal turmoil, perhaps it's not surprising that he doesn't have many stray tracks from this era. For most of the 1970s, I was able to make an album a year. But this album covers four years. That said, the songs on here are as good as the songs on the previous stray tracks albums I've made for him, in part because I've been choosy.

In 1979, he fired all but one member of the band he'd had for most the 1970s, Albert Lee. Then he hooked up with Gary Booker, the keyboardist and lead vocalist for Procul Harum. Clapton, Booker, and Lee recorded an album in 1980 called "Turn Up Down." It was to be billed as another Clapton solo album, but in reality Lee and Booker had large roles, singing and writing some of the songs on it.

Unfortunately for Clapton, his record company rejected the album. They wanted a proper Clapton solo album, and they didn't like the Booker or Lee songs. Also, the general tone of Clapton's songs on it were mellow, often even more mellow than his already laid-back 1970s solo style. So Clapton took a few of the songs from it and rerecorded them, plus he came up with more songs. That turned into the 1981 album "Another Ticket."

I've been selected with the "Turn Up Down" tracks, only including five of them here. I didn't include any of the Booker or Lee-led songs, in part because I don't think they fit well on a Clapton album, but also because I don't think most of them are very good. I also didn't include the Clapton songs that eventually showed up on "Another Ticket" (such as "Rita Mae," "Catch Me If You Can," and "Hold Me Lord." Although the "Turn Up Down" versions are different, they're not special, in my opinion. I also didn't include a couple of Clapton songs that I just didn't think were that good.

The remaining six songs are a motley bunch from 1981 to 1983. Only one of them, a live guitar duet with Jeff Beck, has been officially released. The rest mostly come from concert bootlegs, though one, "Say Hello to Billie Jean," is a good outtake from the "Another Ticket" album.

The album ends with, "Sweet Little Lisa," a song that sung by Clapton's second guitarist, Albert Lee. Although I didn't like Lee's "Turn Up Down" tracks, I do like this one. Clapton's guitar can be heard on it, and it was performed in lots of Clapton concerts around this era, always sung by Lee. Chronologically, it fits at the end, which works well, because you can include it or not, depending if you think it fits, since it's more of a Lee song than a Clapton one.

01 There Ain't No Money (Eric Clapton)
02 Freedom (Eric Clapton)
03 Games Up (Eric Clapton)
04 Oh How I Miss My Baby's Love (Eric Clapton)
05 I'd Love to Say I Love You (Eric Clapton)
06 Cause We've Ended as Lovers [Instrumental] (Jeff Beck & Eric Clapton)
07 Stay Away from My Baby (Eric Clapton)
08 Say Hello to Billie Jean (Eric Clapton)
09 Goodnight Irene (Eric Clapton)
10 Sad, Sad Day (Eric Clapton)
11 Sweet Little Lisa (Albert Lee & Eric Clapton)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15835868/EricC_1980-1983_SadDy_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo features Clapton in concert in 1983.

Eric Clapton - Cryin' - Non-Album Tracks (1978-1979)

It's been a while since I've posted an Eric Clapton stray tracks album, so here's another one from him. This one deals with 1978 and 1979.

Clapton's solo career really began in 1974 (even though he put out a solo album in 1970). For the first couple of years, he did a great many songs that never appeared on his studio albums at the time. But as the 1970s went on, the number of such songs steadily went down. I'd been able to post at least one stray tracks album for each calendar year so far, but this one covers two years.

I'm guessing that lack of song variety was a result of his increasing drug and/or alcohol habits. That said, the songs he does here are still up to his usual standards. Three of the songs, "To Make Somebody Happy," "Cryin'," and "Water on the Ground," are Clapton originals, which is a bit surprising since he never was a prolific songwriter, and those didn't get released until decades later.

Most of the songs were released on either the "Blues" or "Crossroads 2" albums. Three were not. "Fool's Paradise" is one of those. All through the 1970s, at least, Clapton usually had at least one spot in his concert set lists where one of his female backing vocalists could sing lead. This is one such song. Normally, I haven't included them because Clapton usually wasn't very engaged, or even left the stage altogether. But on this one he sings prominent backing vocals himself, and also plays some nice lead guitar.

The other two unreleased songs are the last two, "Tipitina" and "Standing Around Crying." The latter is a duet with blues great Muddy Waters recorded in concert a few years before Waters died. Unfortunately, the sound quality for these two is a lot rougher than all the others on the album. I hope you'll put up with it though, especially for the historic collaboration between Clapton and Waters.

Clapton recorded two versions of the blues classic "Before You Accuse Me" in the late 1970s, an acoustic version and an electric version. I've only included the acoustic version here because the electric one is very similar to the version he did for his 1989 album "Journeyman."

01 Before You Accuse Me [Acoustic Version] (Eric Clapton)
02 Kind Hearted Woman (Eric Clapton)
03 Fool's Paradise (Eric Clapton & Marcy Levy)
04 Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever (Eric Clapton)
05 To Make Somebody Happy (Eric Clapton)
06 Cryin' (Eric Clapton)
07 Water on the Ground (Eric Clapton)
08 Tipitina (Eric Clapton)
09 Standing Around Crying (Eric Clapton & Muddy Waters)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/YX8ewS2P

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/HTg0mEBA16x6Zp7/file

The album cover uses a photo of Clapton from Japan in November 1979.

Various Artists - ARMS Benefit Concert, Reunion Arena, Dallas, TX, 11-28-1983

This looks a heck of a lot like my last post, and for good reason. But there enough differences that it's worth listening to both.

In short, in September 1983, some big-name musicians led a concert to benefit ARMS, a charity helping to find a cure for multiple sclerosis. The main stars were Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page (all lead guitarists for the Yardbirds in the 1960s), plus Steve Winwood. At first, the concert was meant to be a one-night only, in London. But it was such a success that it was decided to continue with a short US tour later that year. I believe nine more concerts were played.

Most of the same musicians appeared for the US shows, including Clapton, Beck, and Page. But Winwood couldn't make it, due to other commitments. So he was replaced by Joe Cocker. Also, Winwood sang the songs with vocals in Page's set. He was replaced by Paul Rodgers, former lead vocalist for Bad Company.

These personnel changes mean many of the songs were different. Most noticeably, one-fourth of the concert are Joe Cocker songs, in which Clapton plays all the lead guitar. He also sings "With a Little Help from My Friends" as one of the encores. I don't know if there's been any other time when Clapton played so many songs with Cocker.

The involvement of Paul Rodgers is even more interesting in terms of musical history. Page had pretty much been at loose ends since Led Zeppelin came to an end in 1981. Similarly, Rodgers had been looking for something new after Bad Company ended in 1982. Their collaboration for these ARMS concerts led to them forming the band The Firm, which was fairly successful, with two albums released in 1984 and 1985. The last song in their set, "Midnight Moonlight," appeared on the first Firm album, but originally started as an unreleased Led Zeppelin song.

Clapton's set, while nice, has almost the exact same setlist as the London show. The only major difference is the addition of "Sad Sad Day." For Beck's set, half of the songs are different. For the concert as a whole, I'd say about half of the songs are different from the London show. It's fairly different from after the Clapton set.

In terms of sound quality, I chose the Dallas show out of the nine US dates because it has the best sound. It sounds professionally recorded. I think it was played on the radio at the time. Unlike the London show, I didn't have any problems finding missing songs from different sources.

01 talk (Eric Clapton)
02 Everybody Oughta Make a Change (Eric Clapton)
03 Lay Down Sally (Eric Clapton)
04 Wonderful Tonight (Eric Clapton)
05 Rita Mae (Eric Clapton)
06 Sad Sad Day (Eric Clapton)
07 Have You Ever Loved a Woman - Ramblin' on My Mind (Eric Clapton)
08 Cocaine (Eric Clapton)
09 Don't Talk to Me (Joe Cocker with Eric Clapton)
10 Watching the River Flow (Joe Cocker with Eric Clapton)
11 Worried Life Blues (Joe Cocker with Eric Clapton)
12 You Are So Beautiful (Joe Cocker with Eric Clapton)
13 Seven Days (Joe Cocker with Eric Clapton)
14 Feelin' Alright (Joe Cocker with Eric Clapton)
15 talk (Eric Clapton)
16 Star Cycle [Instrumental] (Jeff Beck)
17 The Pump [Instrumental] (Jeff Beck)
18 Definitely Maybe [Instrumental] (Jeff Beck)
19 Blue Wind [Instrumental] (Jeff Beck)
20 People Get Ready (Andy Fairweather Low with Jeff Beck)
21 Going Down (Andy Fairweather Low with Jeff Beck)
22 talk (Jimmy Page)
23 Prelude [Instrumental] (Jimmy Page)
24 talk (Jimmy Page)
25 Who's to Blame (Paul Rodgers with Jimmy Page)
26 City Sirens (Paul Rodgers with Jimmy Page)
27 talk (Paul Rodgers with Jimmy Page)
28 Boogie Mama (Paul Rodgers with Jimmy Page)
29 talk (Paul Rodgers with Jimmy Page)
30 Midnight Moonlight (Paul Rodgers with Jimmy Page)
31 talk (Jimmy Page)
32 Stairway to Heaven [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck & Jimmy Page)
33 Layla (Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck & Jimmy Page)
34 With a Little Help from My Friends (Joe Cocker with Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck & Jimmy Page)
35 talk (Ronnie Lane with Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck & Jimmy Page)
36 Goodnight Irene (Ronnie Lane with Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck & Jimmy Page)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Rxyys7a2

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/bVfiMx1F2qWJN9u/file

I deliberately made the cover similar to the cover for the London ARMS concert, since I consider the two of them closely related. The photo only shows some of the musicians involved, but it gets most of the big names. From left to right: Kenny Jones, Joe Cocker, Chris Stainton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Ronnie Lane, Eric Clapton, and Bill Wyman.

Various Artists - ARMS Benefit Concert, Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 9-20-1983

Do you like "guitar heroes?" Then you should love this. By the early 1980s, Ronnie Lane, former member of the Faces, essentially had to give up his solo career because he had multiple sclerosis, and it was steadily getting worse. In 1983, many of his musical friends got together for a benefit concerts for the charity group ARMS - Action into Research for Multiple Sclerosis. Originally, there was only one concert planned, in London, England, and this is the recording of it. But it was such a success that nine more concerts followed in the US, with a slightly different group of musicians.

So that's the basics. But the main reason these concerts was celebrated is that it's the only time the three former lead guitarists for the Yardbirds - Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page - were prominently featured at the same concerts, with each of them playing their own sets. I especially like the one London show, because it also prominently featured Steve Winwood, who also played his own set, singing and playing keyboards while Clapton helped him on lead guitar. He also sang a couple of songs during Page's set. (For the US concerts, due to a scheduling conflict, he was replaced by Joe Cocker.)

Those are four very big names in music. Many other prominent musicians took part in the various supporting bands, including Andy Fairweather Low, James Hooker, Bill Wyman, Chris Stainton, Ray Cooper, Kenny Jones, and Charlie Watts. Ronnie Lane himself made a guest appearance at the end, singing a couple of songs. In addition to playing their own sets, Clapton, Beck, and Page also played a few songs together at the end.

Strangely, this concert seems largely forgotten today. I didn't even find many recordings of it on-line, and none of them were complete. I think that's largely because no album of it (or the following US shows) was ever released, so if you weren't there in person, you missed it. A video recording was eventually released, but it wasn't the full show, and it seems like it hasn't gotten around that much either.

I've attempted to compile the complete London show. The main basis is the audio of the video recording. It's very good sound quality, basically the same as a professionally recorded live album. But, as I said, it wasn't complete, so I tracked down the remaining songs. Here are all the ones I had to get from different sources:

Wonderful Tonight - Eric Clapton
Ramblin' on My Mind - Have You Ever Loved a Woman - Eric Clapton
Rita Mae - Eric Clapton
Hound Dog - Steve Winwood with Eric Clapton
The Best That I Can - Steve Winwood with Eric Clapton
Stairway to Heaven (Instrumental) - Jimmy Page
Wee Wee Baby - Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page & Jeff Beck

(On the other bootlegs that I've found, some of the other song titles were also mislabeled, especially the instrumentals.)

The good news is that most of these sound as good as the songs sourced from the video recording. The only trouble spots are "Hound Dog" and "The Best That I Can." Hound Dog" sounds a bit rougher. "The Best That I Can" sounds rougher than that. Worse, that sound isn't actually from the concert in question. But I've included it here for a couple of reasons. One is that the same group of musicians also performed one more concert, just one night later, also in London, but benefiting a different charity (the Prince's Trust Rock Gala). It's a far less known concert because no really good audio or video recording has emerged from it. The second reason I've included that song is because it's a Steve Winwood original that he apparently has never released in any form. If you don't like the sound quality, or the fact that it's from the next night, just remove it.

I really like this concert. It's really like four concerts in one. One can argue who is the better guitarist, Clapton, Beck, or Page, and which one played the better show. But I personally really like the Winwood set, because he played several cover versions he's never done before or since, and Clapton did all the guitar soloing on a bunch of songs he almost never played. The end of the show when all three famous lead guitarists came together is very nice too, although I wish they'd played more together. (For the US shows, the three guitarists would also play together on the instrumental version of "Stairway to Heaven," but for this show, it's just Page.)

01 talk (Eric Clapton)
02 Everybody's Got to Change (Eric Clapton with Steve Winwood)
03 Lay Down Sally (Eric Clapton with Steve Winwood)
04 Wonderful Tonight (Eric Clapton with Steve Winwood)
05 Ramblin' on My Mind - Have You Ever Loved a Woman (Eric Clapton with Steve Winwood)
06 Rita Mae (Eric Clapton with Steve Winwood)
07 Cocaine (Eric Clapton with Steve Winwood)
08 Man Smart, Woman Smarter (Andy Fairweather Low with Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood)
09 Hound Dog (Steve Winwood with Eric Clapton)
10 The Best That I Can (Steve Winwood with Eric Clapton)
11 [I'm A] Road Runner (Steve Winwood with Eric Clapton)
12 Slowdown Sunrise (Steve Winwood with Eric Clapton)
13 Take Me to the River (Steve Winwood with Eric Clapton)
14 Gimme Some Lovin' (Steve Winwood with Eric Clapton)
15 talk (Jeff Beck)
16 Star Cycle [Instrumental] (Jeff Beck)
17 The Pump [Instrumental] (Jeff Beck)
18 Goodbye Pork Pie Hat [Instrumental] (Jeff Beck)
19 talk (Jeff Beck)
20 Led Boots [Instrumental] (Jeff Beck)
21 People Get Ready (Jeff Beck with Andy Fairweather Low)
22 Hi Ho Silver Lining (Jeff Beck)
23 Prelude [Instrumental] (Jimmy Page with James Hooker)
24 Who's to Blame (Jimmy Page with Steve Winwood)
25 City Sirens (Jimmy Page with Steve Winwood)
26 Stairway to Heaven [Instrumental] (Jimmy Page)
27 Tulsa Time (Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page & Jeff Beck)
28 Wee Wee Baby (Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page & Jeff Beck)
29 talk (Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page & Jeff Beck)
30 Layla (Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page & Jeff Beck)
31 talk (Ronnie Lane)
32 Bomber's Moon (Ronnie Lane)
33 talk (Ronnie Lane)
34 Goodnight Irene (Ronnie Lane with Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page & Jeff Beck)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/M4nGr64n

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/2KKlOV1nQNGZvYW/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/fZDA7

For the cover art, I'm glad to say I found a photo from the actual concert. From left to right, that's Andy Fairweather Low, Chris Stainton, Eric Clapton (at the microphone), Jimmy Page, Bill Wyman, and Jeff Beck.

Eric Clapton - Looking at the Rain - Non-Album Tracks (1977)

Here's the next in my long series of Eric Clapton stray tracks albums. This one just deals with the year 1977.

Four out of the seven songs are bonus tracks from his 1977 album "Slowhand." But it's the three other songs that I think are the most interesting. "Call It Stormy Monday" has been officially released, and is a 12-minute long blues guitar solo workout. "Blues with a Feeling" is unreleased, but from a high quality soundboard bootleg, and is 10-minute long guitar blues solo workout. Finally, "Mama Told Me" is a soul type of song that I think was only played once in concert. It's sung by Marcy Levy, a back-up singer in his band, but it does feature him soloing at the end. It too comes from a high quality soundboard bootleg. Unfortunately, it fades out at the end, in mid-solo. That was definitely not my doing.

Altogether, the songs make for a 40-minute long album.

01 Looking at the Rain (Eric Clapton)
02 Call It Stormy Monday (Eric Clapton with Marcy Levy)
03 Alberta (Eric Clapton)
04 Greyhound Bus (Eric Clapton)
05 Stars, Strays and Ashtrays (Eric Clapton)
06 Mama Told Me (Eric Clapton & Marcy Levy)
07 Blues with a Feeling (Eric Clapton)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15101529/EricC_1977_LooknattheRain_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is of Clapton in concert in 1977.

Eric Clapton - Last Night - Non-Album Tracks (1975-1976)

There was a big flurry of Eric Clapton playing new songs at the start of his solo career in 1974 and 1975. By 1976, that slowed down a lot. So this album still has some stray tracks from 1975, while the latter half comes from 1976.

Clapton has never been a prolific songwriter. I believe all the songs here are cover versions. About half of the songs are officially released, and the rest are from bootlegs. But even most of the unreleased songs were recorded in the studio, so the sound quality is excellent.

With these stray tracks collections, I don't want to include any songs on the studio albums of the time. But I have a version of "Carnival" here, which is also on Clapton's 1976 album "No Reason to Cry." That's because this version is a collaboration between Clapton and the Rolling Stones, and thus is significantly different than the one on that album.

01 Drifting Blues (Eric Clapton)
02 Carnival [Stones Version] (Eric Clapton & the Rolling Stones)
03 So Many Roads, So Many Trains (Eric Clapton)
04 Eyesight to the Blind (Eric Clapton)
05 Last Night (Eric Clapton)
06 Blues [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton)
07 Big River (Eric Clapton with Bob Dylan & the Band)
08 Right Now (Eric Clapton & Billy Preston)
09 Won't Somebody Tell Me (Eric Clapton)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15101527/EricC_1975-1976_LstNight_atse.zip.html

The cover art uses a photo of Clapton in concert in 1975.

Eric Clapton - Misty Roses - Non-Album Tracks (1975)

In 1974, Eric Clapton started his solo career for real, after a brief attempt in 1970. He played so many non-album songs that year, in the studio and on stage, that I had to make two albums to catch them all. By 1975, things settled down a bit. But there's still enough for a satisfying single album of stray tracks.

The first two songs here are the A- and B-side of a single, "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." It didn't do very well (barely scraping into the bottom of the top 40 in Britain and not charting at all in the US), probably because Bob Dylan's version of his own song was very well known from just two years earlier. Three more songs here are studio outtakes that were later released on the "Crossroads" box set.

The other four songs are still officially unreleased. Two more of them are studio outtakes. The remaining two are from concert bootlegs.

Not surprisingly, most of the songs here are based in the blues. However, two of the studio outtakes are collaborations with reggae star Peter Tosh. That makes sense, considering Clapton had a number one hit with a reggae song ("I Shot the Sheriff") the year before. And one other song is a version of "Misty Roses," a folky song by Tim Hardin.

All in all, this is a solid collection of songs. It's not great, but I think it stands up fairly well with the studio album he released that year, "There's One in Every Crowd."

01 Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Eric Clapton)
02 Someone like You (Eric Clapton)
03 Milk Cow Blues - When You've Got a Good Friend (Eric Clapton)
04 I Found a Love (Eric Clapton)
05 What'cha Gonna Do (Eric Clapton with Peter Tosh)
06 As Years Go Passing By (Eric Clapton)
07 Burial (Eric Clapton with Peter Tosh)
08 Misty Roses (Eric Clapton)
09 It Hurts Me Too (Eric Clapton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/EraKEPWj

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/2FprWxIxQycNOVl/file

For the cover art, I've used a photo of Clapton playing in the studio in 1975. It's a bit blurry, but I think it's worth using because it's very rare to find any good photos of Clapton in the studio in the 1970s.

Eric Clapton - Smile - Live Rarities (1974)

I just posted an album of Eric Clapton stray tracks from 1974. I mentioned that I had two albums' worth of stray tracks from 1974. This is the second album.

There are major differences between the album I just posted ("Walkin' Down the Road") and this one. That one is entirely made of studio recordings, and all but one of them have been officially released. For this album, all the songs were recorded live in concert, and all of them are officially unreleased. It's a lucky break for me that I managed to find exactly an album's worth of music of these two types.

The reason this album exists is because in 1974 Clapton was essentially starting his solo career after many years of being in bands. (He put out a solo album in 1970, just called "Eric Clapton," but he didn't do any touring for it, and joined Derek and the Dominos to make the classic "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs" album with them later that same year.) In 1974, not only did Clapton put out his first album since 1970 ("461 Ocean Boulevard"), but he started playing concerts around the time the album came out, and stayed busy touring for the rest of the year (and beyond).

While he was playing all those concerts, apparently he was still trying to figure out which songs he liked playing the best and which ones worked well with audiences. As a result, there are a lot of songs he played only a few times that year and never played again, and even some that he only played once.

Most of these songs are blues classics. One exception is "Smile," which was written by the famous comedian Charlie Chaplin, believe it or not. Clapton played it in most of his 1974 concerts, but never put it on a live or studio album at the time. (Eventually, a live version was included on some archival releases, but I chose a bootleg version due to it having good sound plus almost no crowd noise overlapping with the music.)

I've also included "Mean Old World." This is another blues classic. But the reason I mention it is because it was done by Derek and the Dominos in both acoustic and full-band versions. However, neither version was included on the famous "Layla" album. But the reason I included it here is because, in my opinion, this version is arranged and performed in a significantly different way than either Derek and the Dominos version.

Sometimes, I arrange songs by my feelings on a musical flow. But in this case, I decided to put them in the chronological order of the concerts they're from, since they're mostly blues songs and thus all fit together reasonably well anyway.

Luckily, Clapton's solo career was very successful from the very start, due to all his great reputation from his 1960s work, plus his number one 1974 hit "I Shot the Sheriff." As a result, there are lots of bootlegs of his 1974 concerts, including a surprising number of excellent sounding bootlegs. That means the sound is excellent for most of these songs, though some of them do some from audience bootlegs.

01 Don't Have to Hurt Nobody (Eric Clapton)
02 Bright Lights, Big City (Eric Clapton)
03 Smile (Eric Clapton)
04 Mean Old World (Eric Clapton)
05 You Don't Love Me (Eric Clapton)
06 Every Night about This Time (Eric Clapton)
07 Honey Bee (Eric Clapton)
08 Little Queenie (Eric Clapton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/omAiJG5n

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/i1wcsMpWMOoRvws/file

Since this is a live album, it makes sense to have an album cover of Clapton playing guitar in concert. But because I decided to name this album "Smile," I figured it would be even more fitting to use a photo of Clapton smiling. Luckily, I was able to find a good one of him doing that from 1974.

Eric Clapton - Walkin' Down the Road - Non-Album Tracks (1974)

I've found two albums of Eric Clapton stray tracks material from 1974 alone. Here's the first one.

These days, it's popular to make fun of Clapton as safe and bland "dad rock." I'll agree that some parts of his solo career has been disappointing. Sometimes, he's lacked inspiration, and veered in an "adult contemporary" direction. But it's interesting that when it comes to his stray tracks, while are extremely extensive (I have about 20 albums' worth!), that's usually not the case. Maybe when he puts out official albums, he feels obliged to do what he thinks is popular, and what the record company wants. Whereas with his stray tracks, which are mostly officially unreleased (though less so on this album), he more does just want he wants and want he feels inspired about. Generally speaking, most of it is blues, more so than his typical solo albums.

To understand this album, we have to look at where Clapton was at in his life in 1974. He'd had a very successful career in the 1960s, culminating in the 1970 Derek and the Dominos album "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs." But after that came out, he developed a heroin addiction so bad that he effectively stopped making music for three years. (Pete Townshend tried to lure him out of retirement by helping him stage a concert at the Rainbow Theatre in London in 1973, but I'm not sure how much that helped, since he didn't do much for another year after that.)

So 1974 was a fairly dramatic "reboot" of Clapton's personal life and his music career. The album he put out that year, "461 Ocean Boulevard," set the pattern of the kind of music he'd play for the rest of his solo career, with more emphasis on his singing and less on flashy guitar playing, plus more of a mellow sound overall. Personally, I think that album is his best of his solo career, and a lot of people agree. For instance, "Rolling Stone" magazine has put it on their list of the 500 best albums of all time.

The 1974 stray tracks here are very much in keeping with the sound of "461 Ocean Boulevard." And there are a lot of stray tracks from that year, because he was still working on finding his new sound, and he was doing a lot of experimenting. He's never been a prolific songwriter to begin with, and he only half two and a half songwriting credits on "461." So it's not surprising that most of the songs here are covers. Plus, many are instrumentals. In fact, five of the ten songs are instrumentals, including one instrumental version of a song on "461." (The few originals are basically instrumental jams.)

All but one of the songs here have been officially released. That one, an instrumental version of the Rolling Stones hit "Paint It, Black," sounds just as good as the others. I've edited one song, a version of the blues classic "Meet Me (Down in the Bottom)." The officially released version is seven minutes long, and I've cut it down to three minutes. It's been a long time since I did that, but I guess I just thought it went on way too long without much happening.

In short, if you like the sound of "461 Ocean Boulevard," you'll like this. But it's more bluesy and has a lot more of Clapton's guitar solos, due to all those instrumentals.

By the way, as I mentioned above, one song here is an instrumental version of a song on "461," "Give Me Strength," where Clapton shows off his dobro playing. Another song here, "Please Be with Me," is also a version of a song on "461." But on that album he plays the song with his band, whereas this version is just him and an acoustic guitar. I've put those two at the end of the album. If you eliminate them, you still have a nice album that's 42 minutes long.

01 Boogie Funk [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton & Freddie King)
02 Lonesome Road Blues [Walkin' Down the Road] (Eric Clapton)
03 Ain't That Lovin' You, Baby (Eric Clapton)
04 B Minor Jam [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton)
05 Meet Me [Down at the Bottom] [Edit] (Eric Clapton)
06 Paint It, Black [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton & Leon Russell)
07 Fools like Me (Eric Clapton)
08 Getting Acquainted 2 [Too Late] [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton)
09 Please Be with Me [Acoustic Version] (Eric Clapton)
10 Give Me Strength [Instrumental Version] (Eric Clapton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gLYCcTwN

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Ews2uNhPwuK04jz/file

For the official cover of the "461 Ocean Boulevard" album, Clapton took part in a photo shoot of him posing all over the house at the address near Miami that is the title of that album. The photo I've used as the cover art here is an outtake from that photo session.

Eric Clapton - Acoustic Blues - Non-Album Acoustic Tracks (2001-2006)

"Unplugged" is Clapton's biggest selling album by far, with sales of 26 million. So you'd think that he would have released something in a similar vein in all the years since then, but he hasn't. And Clapton's great musical love is the blues, so it would make perfect sense for him to put out some kind of acoustic blues album.

Even though he hasn't done that, he usually plays at least a few acoustic songs in his concerts. So I've gathered up a bunch of those from the early 2000s to make the acoustic blues album that he still should put out someday.

I got the idea because his 2004 album "Sessions for Robert J" has four acoustic songs on it. That was nice, but four is way too few. Then I discovered that there were a couple more on a DVD extra with the album. That still wasn't enough, so I went looking for other acoustic versions from around that time period and found some in high quality sound. Virtually all of the others are from concerts, but I edited out the crowd noise, as I usually do with albums like these.

There are a small number of songs where there are other musicians playing, most notably the first one, "Bell Bottom Blues." I love that song so much that I couldn't leave it off the album, since it is done in a semi-acoustic style. But the vast majority of songs are just Clapton with an acoustic guitar.

This album may not have much in the way of blistering solos, but it's great mood music. (Studies actually show that listening to sad music such as the blues helps cheer people up.)

01 Bell Bottom Blues (Eric Clapton)
02 Key to the Highway (Eric Clapton)
03 Me and the Devil Blues (Eric Clapton)
04 From Four until Late (Eric Clapton)
05 Stones in My Passway (Eric Clapton)
06 Love in Vain (Eric Clapton)
07 Ramblin' on My Mind (Eric Clapton)
08 Terraplane Blues (Eric Clapton)
09 Broken Hearted (Eric Clapton & John Mayer)
10 Back Home (Eric Clapton)
11 Outside Woman Blues (Eric Clapton)
12 Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out (Eric Clapton)
13 I Am Yours (Eric Clapton)
14 When You Got a Good Friend (Eric Clapton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/b8jjPSo7

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/EqAYtaQup2wsrjl/file

The cover is of a photo of Clapton playing a custom Martin acoustic in 2004.