Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton - The Bottom Line, New York City, 5-9-1989

We're very lucky to have this recording. In 1989, Eric Clapton joined Carl Perkins for a bunch of songs in concert. I looked it up at a comprehensive Clapton fan site, and believe that's the only time that happened. Yet somehow a soundboard recording leaked to the public.

The first half or so of this is just Perkins and his usual band. That's quite nice all by itself, with this sound quality. But track 11 introduces Clapton, and he stayed on stage for the rest of the concert. It seems like they planned this in advance and may even have practiced some, because Clapton was quite involved and seemed to know what he was doing, including joining in on backing vocals a lot. He even sang lead for part of the song "Matchbox."

If anyone know more about this concert, and how it came to be professionally taped but then not officially released, please let me know.

This album is 50 minutes long. The portion with Clapton is the last 30 minutes.

01 The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise (Carl Perkins)
02 talk (Carl Perkins)
03 Dixie Fried (Carl Perkins)
04 talk (Carl Perkins)
05 Born to Rock (Carl Perkins)
06 talk (Carl Perkins)
07 The Birth of Rock and Roll (Carl Perkins)
08 Your True Love (Carl Perkins)
09 talk (Carl Perkins)
10 Put Your Cat Clothes On (Carl Perkins)
11 talk (Carl Perkins)
12 Mean Woman Blues (Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton)
13 talk (Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton)
14 Matchbox (Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton)
15 talk (Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton)
16 Roll Over Beethoven-Maybellene-Slippin' and Slidin'-I'm Walkin'-Whole Lotta Shakin'-Hound Dog (Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton)
17 talk (Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton)
18 Blue Suede Shoes (Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton)
19 Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad (Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16039160/CarlPerk_1989_TheBottmLneNwYrkC__5-9-1989_atse.zip.html

We're very lucky that I managed to find one photo from this exact concert, showing Perkins and Clapton together. Unfortunately, it was only in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Palette program.

3 comments:

  1. Eric also joined with Carl Perkins for a stunning tv show called Carl Perkins and friends... with Ringo and George Harrison. Awesome show!

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  2. Carl joined Eric on stage on another ocassion, setlist can be found here and it was released under different names. While the one you posted will be more familiar to Perkins fans, the other one will be more familiar to Clapton Fans.
    Interestingly, their focus, of course, doesn't lie on Perkins and I guess they just "take notice". The Guildford show doesn't seem to be widely known amongst Perkins Fans.
    I myself was quite surprised about the tracks and just found them, when I got into Claptons music. Here the setlist:

    https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/eric-clapton/1985/guildford-civic-hall-guildford-england-6bda7af2.html

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