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.