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Eric Patrick Clapton was born on 30 March 1945 in
his grandparents' home at 1 The Green, Ripley, Surrey, England. He was the
illegitimate son of 16-year-old Patricia Molly Clapton (b. 7 January 1929, d.
March 1999) and Edward Walter Fryer (b. 21 March 1920, d. 1985), a
24-year-old Canadian soldier stationed in England. Before Clapton was born,
Fryer returned to his wife in Canada. Pat's parents, Rose and Jack Clapp*, cared
for young Eric. Eventually, Pat met another Canadian soldier, Frank McDonald.
After their marriage, they would move to Canada and Germany as McDonald
continued his military career. Pat would have three more children: Brian (b.
1948, d. 1974), Cheryl (b. 5 May 1953), and Heather (b. 27
September 1958). Clapton's grandparents never legally adopted him, but
remained his guardians until 1963.
Quiet and polite, Clapton was characterized as an
above-average student with an aptitude for art. From his earliest years in
school, he realized something was not quite right when he wrote his name as
"Eric Clapton" and his parents' names as "Mr. and Mrs. Clapp". At the age of
nine, Clapton's emotional world was shattered when Pat returned to England with
his six-year-old half brother for a visit. He had been raised under the illusion
that his grandparents were his parents and that his mother was his older sister,
ostensibly to protect him from the truth. This singular event would change
Clapton's personality and create a loss of identity. He became moody and distant
and stopped applying himself at school. Emotionally scarred by this event,
Clapton failed the all-important 11 Plus Exams. He was sent to St. Bede's
Secondary Modern School, and two years later, entered the art branch of
Holyfield Road School. In 1961, Clapton began studying at the Kingston College
of Art on a one-year probation. He was expelled at the end of that time for not
submitting enough work. The reason was that guitar playing and listening to the
Blues dominated his waking hours. Before turning to music as a career, he
supported himself as a laborer at building sites, working alongside his
grandfather.
Clapton was raised in a musical household. His
grandmother played piano and his mother and uncle both enjoyed listening to the
sounds of the big bands. (It is interesting to note that his father often made a
living by playing piano.) By 1958, Rock and Roll had exploded onto the world.
Typical of his nature, Clapton began exploring its roots in American Blues. The
blues meshed perfectly with his self-perception as an outsider and being
"different" from other people. For his 13th birthday, he asked for a guitar.
Finding it difficult to play, Clapton put the Spanish Hoya aside for a time. He
began playing again around the time he started college. Sometime in 1962, he
asked for his grandparents' help in purchasing a 100 pound electric double
cutaway Kay (a Gibson ES335 clone) after hearing the electric blues of Freddie
King, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, and others.
In early 1963, Clapton joined his first
band, The Roosters. Following the band's demise, he spent one month in the
pop-oriented Casey Jones and The Engineers. In October 1963, Keith Relf and Paul
Samwell-Smith recruited him to become a member of The Yardbirds because Clapton
was the most talked about player on the R&B pub circuit. It was with The
Yardbirds that Clapton made his first albums Five Live Yardbirds,
Sonny Boy Williamson and The Yardbirds, and the single, "Good Morning
Little Schoolgirl". During this time, he also earned his nickname, "Slowhand",
because whenever he would break a string on stage, he would change it to the
accompaniment of a "slow hand clap"  from the audience. His serious research into
the American Blues continued and when The Yardbirds began moving
towards a more commercial sound with the single "For Your Love", he quit the
band. His path in music was the blues.
In April 1965, John Mayall invited Clapton to join
his band, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. During his tenure with this
band, Clapton established his reputation as a guitarist. His time with the band
was turbulent and Clapton even left for a while to tour Greece with friends.
Upon his return, the album Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton was recorded.
In late 1966, he teamed up with Jack Bruce and
Ginger Baker to form Cream. Extensive touring in the U.S. and three
solid albums - Fresh Cream, Disraeli Gears, and Wheels of Fire -
brought the band worldwide acclaim. While a member of Cream, he cemented his
reputation as rock's premier guitarist. The band crumbled beneath the weight of
the member's egos and constant arguing. Following Cream's break-up in 1968,
Clapton founded Blind Faith - rock's first "supergroup" - with Steve
Winwood, Ginger Baker, and Rick Grech. Disbanding after one album and a
disastrous American tour, Clapton tried to hide from his growing fame by touring
as a sideman with Delaney & Bonnie. A live album from that tour was released
in 1970. Clapton's self-titled debut was also released in that year. In the
summer of 1970, he formed Derek and the Dominos with members from Delaney &
Bonnie's band. The Dominos would go on to record the seminal rock album,
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. A concept album, its theme revolved
around Clapton's unrequited love for George Harrison's wife, Patti**. The band
would drift apart following an American tour and a failed attempt at recording a
second album.
Hit hard by the break up of The Dominos, the
commercial failure of the Layla album and his unrequited love, Clapton
sunk into three years of heroin addiction. Although he and his girlfriend, Alice
Ormsby-Gore, emerged rarely from his Surrey Estate, he filled box upon box with
tapes of songs. Clapton kicked his drug addiction and relaunched his career in
January 1973 with two concerts at London's Rainbow Theater. In 1974, he would
reappear with a new style and sound with the now-classic album, 461 Ocean
Boulevard. Sadly, he replaced heroin with an addiction to alcohol.
Throughout the 70s and 80s, his life and studio work suffered because of it. In
1981, he was hospitalized for ulcers caused by a combination of pain killers and
prodigious quantities of brandy. In January 1982, he entered the Hazelden
Foundation, a rehabilitation facility for alcoholics. He would backslide, but
Clapton has remained sober since 1987 through membership in Alcoholics
Anonymous. In February of 1998, he announced the opening of Crossroads
Center, a rehabilitation facility in Antigua. One of its founding
principles is to provide subsidized care for some of the poorest people of the
Caribbean who could not afford to enter such a facility on their own.
On 26 August 1990, guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan and
Clapton road-crew members Colin Smythe and Nigel Browne were killed in a
helicopter crash following a performance at Wisconsin's Alpine Valley Music
Center. Rather than end the tour, Clapton and his band completed the final dates
as a tribute to their friends. Less than one year later, on 20 March 1991, his
son Conor (b. 15 August 1986) fell to his death from his mother's
Manhattan high-rise apartment. Clapton's grief would be expressed in the song
"Tears In Heaven", which would bring him worldwide accolades and a legion of new
fans, following its release on the album Unplugged. It is a tribute to
his resolve that Clapton did not return to drink or drugs following these
events. Since the early 1990s, he has developed a solid relationship with his
daughter, Ruth Kelly Clapton (b. 11 January 1985).
With each album subsequent to 461 Ocean
Boulevard, Clapton has reinvented himself musically. This practice has
continued to the present day. In 1985, Clapton found a new audience following
his performance at the worldwide charity concert, Live Aid. In the last years of
that decade, he reemerged as a musical force to be reckoned with. Clapton also
carved out a second career as the composer of film scores. Annual stands at the
Royal Albert Hall and successful albums like August, Journeyman,
Unplugged, and the Crossroads box set kept him well in the public
mind. Clapton returned to his blues roots with the 1994 release From The
Cradle. The album was Clapton's tribute to his musical heroes and contained
cover versions of Blues classics. The year 1997 brought an excursion into
electronica with the release of TDF / Retail Therapy with Clapton posing
as X-Sample. In 1998, Clapton released Pilgrim, his first album of all
new material in nine years.
Source:
http://www.guitarriffin.com/players/clapton.html
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