Tuesday, March 10, 2020

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.

3 comments:

  1. Great stuff. You should download MP3tag (it's free) and use it to tag your albums with the cover art. It's very simple to use and having the cover art embedded in the files themselves is nice when playing them on a player which shows the cover art. Especially when you are doing your own covers for these made up albums, might as well show them off!

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  2. minor mistake it's Gary Brooker not Booker...keep up the great work, love what you do

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