Eric Clapton - Slowhand (1977)

Eric Clapton's restlessness in the sixties and early seventies - he was a member or leader of no fewer than five different bands - and his subsequent withdrawal from the public and his addiction to heroin before his 1973 comeback led to a solo career that found him striking a balance between his passion for the blues and a yearning for stability in his career.  The result was a sound that initially veered from straight rock to what his old partner Jack Bruce once described as "pleasant middle-of-the-road music."  While Clapton would later succumb to overproduced album-radio banality in the eighties, the seventies found him managing to keep his music interesting even when his material wasn't.

Slowhand, from 1977, was typical of Clapton's work of the time.  An album that always seems to be the one Clapton title available in the record departments of discount marts across America, Slowhand pretty much encapsulates Clapton's seventies style - a heavier side suitable for FM rock with some light tunes that were compatible with AM hit radio.  Whatever the track is, the focus is always on Clapton's guitar, a clear signal of how he and producer Glyn Johns approached the music.  Clapton had long since become a competent vocalist who could deliver a lyric with pure soul and conviction, but no one ever bought an Eric Clapton record to hear his singing.  Nor did anyone ever buy one to appreciate his songwriting - the weakest numbers here are written entirely by Clapton.  But I'll still take Clapton playing mediocre material on his guitar over a lesser guitarist performing excellent material.

"Wonderful Tonight," which Clapton wrote about his live-in girlfriend (later wife) Pattie Boyd, was somewhat embarrassing as a song.  Inspired by interminably waiting for Pattie to get ready to leave for a party and having to assure her that she looked perfectly fine for a night out, "Wonderful Tonight" is as frustrating to listen to as it must have been for Clapton to wait for her.  The soporific tempo and the mundane lyrics would make us leave the party early if not for drummer Jamie Oldaker's consistent thump of a beat. "Next Time You See Her," another Clapton original, has a slightly quicker tempo, but the sound of Slowhand himself crooning that he "will surely kill" a rival for a woman's affections make him sound like a bully who can't even scare a butterfly off a flower.  In both songs, though, Clapton offers some steady, low-key guitar passages that sear the air mildly, showing that even his pleasant MOR can smolder with the blues.

So, imagine what Clapton can do with a real song.  If you hear Slowhand, you won't have to - his unsettling, tightly arranged take on J.J. Cale's drug anthem "Cocaine" and his biting riffs on Arthur Crudup's "Mean Old Frisco Blues" demonstrate his ability to make a cover song his own.  "The Core," his songwriting collaboration with singer Marcy Levy, includes a sharp guitar riff and crackles with fireworks from his supporting players - Levy's solo vocals (Clapton also sings lead here), Carl Radle's consistent bass, and a blistering saxophone solo from Mel Collins.  Country and western, not a Clapton forte, is a work in progress here; he's merely competent on Don Williams' ballad "We're All the Way," but he makes Scottish singer/songwriter John Martyn's "May You Never" sound like it came straight out of Nashville.

The big hit from the record, "Lay Down Sally," finds Clapton (who wrote the song with Marcy Levy and his support guitarist George Terry) gently picking out notes to a country shuffle, and it's the most revealing track on the Slowhand album.   It sounds carefree and casually thrown in to the mix, much like the sounds that emanted from the skiffle craze in Britain twenty years earlier.  Here Clapton is able to forget that he's a guitar  god - no, God Himself (if you believe all that graffiti that was scrawled all over London in the sixties) - and just lays back, relaxes, and plays nonchalantly for the fun of it, just anyone in a fifties skiffle band could pick up a guitar and have a good time.  By 1977, mainstream rock had gotten too professional and too calculated, thus fueling the punk revolt.  It figures that a guitar hero known for his innovative solos, who never asked to be a hero in the first place, would find enjoyment in an inconsequential song that asks a woman - and the listener - to take it easy.  In the end, it's all about the music for Clapton, as well as the pleasure he gets from playing it, whether it's fast or slow, rock or pop, blues or not - it's whatever works. Clapton's shimmering blues guitar on the instrumental "Peaches and Diesel," which closes  Slowhand, rests the case perfectly.  For the time being, at least, he was happy.