Recently, many rock and rollers and also a few rappers have been drawing much-deserved flak for flouting COVID restrictions and speaking out against COVID vaccines. And even though folks like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and now Nils Lofgren have had their music pulled off Spotify to protest the streaming service's commitment to airing Joe Rogan's podcast, it's the anti-vax stars who continue to and will continue to get the big headlines. And no anti-vax rocker has gotten more press than Eric Clapton.
Clapton has spoken out against vaccines after feeling side effects from the AstraZeneca shot, and he's campaigned vigorously against vaccine requirements and restrictions on live performances during the worst of the COVID pandemic. He's even suggested that those who follow COVID guidelines are victims of "mass formation hypnosis," a theory proposed by Belgian psychologist Mattias Desmet that says that manipulative leaders use their power and influence to make people to do their bidding to gain control over them.
Since Clapton is an alcoholic, I have to wonder if he's drinking again.
Clapton is hardly alone here. He's teamed up with Van Morrison to protest against COVID restrictions and vaccine requirements in Britain, and other rock and rap stars have spoken out against restrictions elsewhere - among them Nicki Minaj, Jim Corr of the Irish band the Corrs, and also Meat Loaf, who died a few days ago of what was most likely COVID. But Clapton's case - which includes bankrolling an anti-vaccine musicians' organization in Britain - is especially troubling, revealing his predilection for conspiracy theories and distrust of the government, which led rock fans to recall his most infamous moment ever. At a 1976 concert in Birmingham, England, an inebriated Clapton, fearful of foreigners taking over Britain and driving down job wages for native-born Britons, bashed the country's immigration policies and used racial epithets to describe the West Indian and Pakistani immigrants entering the United Kingdom. He also declared his support for rabid right-wing anti-immigration politician Enoch Powell. For rock fans aware of Clapton's debt to the blues and for his appreciation for black musicians, it was a slap in the face. His music was no longer heard as a tribute to black American blues but as a form of cultural colonialism.
Which is ironic, as Clapton in the mid-seventies was beginning to water down his sound, eventually becoming content to offer bland ballads like "Wonderful Tonight" and pop ditties like "I Can't Stand It."
Clapton's outburst led to Rock Against Racism concert festivals in both Britain and America in the late seventies, and though his Birmingham incident was eventually played down or forgotten, it's since come back to haunt him. Not that Clapton cares; he continues to double down on his anti-COVID-restriction, anti-vaccine stand, offending even his own wife and daughters while leaving rock fans with their mouths agape. His guitar skills don't excuse him. As noted surgeon Ben Carson proved, you can be good with your hands while still having emptiness in your head.
I have two Clapton solo albums on cassette, and because my cassette player is on the blink yet again, I can't play them. Since cassette players are so unreliable, I think I'll just replace as many albums on cassette as I can with CDs, but I can't afford to replace all of them, so some of those titles will have to be culled from my record collection. The Clapton albums are two of those titles on my cull list. Because even though Clapton's boneheaded conspiracy theories and virulent racism have hardly interfered with his status as a legend, he's lost fans - including me - he will never get back.
Ahh, Jimi Hendrix was a better guitarist anyway. So was Duane Allman. And so is Stephen Stills.
It was on this day in 1968 that the Rolling Stones filmed their television special "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus," an extravaganza of some of the best performers in sixties rock (and Yoko Ono) that would not be aired for twenty-eight years.
The Stones, like the Beatles, had not toured since 1966, and concluded as the Beatles had done that for as long as they were unable or unwilling to return to the concert stage, television was the most immediate vehicle on which to perform. Mick Jagger came up with the idea of combining rock and roll performances with circus acts in tandem with Pete Townshend of the Who and Ronnie Lane of the Small Faces, whose respective bands were both to be part of the special. (The Small Faces ultimately bowed out.)
Up to this point, rock and roll specials had had mixed results. A year earlier, the Beatles had bombed with their Magical Mystery Tour film on the BBC, which led NBC in the United States to cancel its American airing, whereas Elvis Presley had just made a miraculous comeback with his Christmas special in America (relax, I'll get to that), which, in an ironic twist, aired on NBC. The Stones' show, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, was superior to the Beatles' movie and was also on par with Elvis' TV special in terms of excitement and energy. Alas, a good deal of that energy did not come from the Stones themselves.
The TV-special film that finally got out is in fact an edited, one-hour document of the evening's best performances. Jethro Tull begins the festivities with "Song For Jeffrey," from their debut album, and though Ian Anderson's vocal is the only live element of an otherwise mimed performance - they were the only band in "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" that did not play live - Anderson's idiosyncratic stage persona makes their appearance memorable. (The guitarist here is future Black Sabbath member Tony Iommi, a stand-in for Mick Abrahams, who had quit Tull and would be permanently replaced by Martin Barre.) Then the Who (below) perform an explosive rendition of their mini-opera "A Quick One While He's Away" to an enthusiastic studio audience.
Marianne Faithfull, who performs Barry Mann and Gerry Goffin's "Something Better" to music on a backing tape, rises to the occasion with a heartfelt delivery, while a performance of "Ain't That a Lot of Love" from bluesman Taj Mahal (the only American on the bill) just plain rocks. But not as much as a performance from the one-off supergroup John Lennon had assembled, the Dirty Mac (below), which was comprised of Lennon and Eric Clapton on guitars, Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience on drums, and the Stones' Keith Richards on bass. Their rendition of Lennon's Beatles song "Yer Blues" is a blistering, crunchy rock performance, and their jam with Israeli violinist Ivry Gitlis is good. Well, it could have been great, actually, if not for Yoko Ono crashing it and vocalizing all over the place. In between all this are special circus acts, with the odd clown (including Stones bassist Bill Wyman in a clown suit) popping up here and there.
The Rolling Stones close the show with a massive set of songs from their latest LP release, Beggars Banquet, as well as "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and an early and pointed version of "You Can't Always Get What You Want," culminating with a fiery take on "Sympathy For the Devil." (They say good night with a take on "Salt Of the Earth.") But the set was deemed inferior to what had come before, with the Who's appearance remaining the best performance of the night. The long delay in getting the show set up between acts - filming took fifteen hours into the following morning - had sapped the energy of the Stones, and the pathetic performance of a thoroughly stoned Brian Jones didn't help matters any. When the Stones saw the result of their efforts, they shelved the whole project rather than risk disappointing their fans as much as the Beatles had with Magical Mystery Tour. They didn't want to be seen being outdone by the Who on their own special.
Lindsay-Hogg returned to the project in the early nineties, but it wasn't until footage thought to be lost was discovered by director Michael Gochanour and producer Robin Klein, who were able to complete the film. Shown at the 1996 New York Film Festival in October of that year, "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" was aired in America on the cable music channel VH-1.
Watching it years after it was made, "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" holds up rather well, capturing the essence and the headiness of late-sixties rock culture, at a time when the music was dominated by the British but still deeply rooted in black American blues. (The circus acts featured have their charms too, and a little intrigue - top model Donyale Luna, who was in competition with Naomi Sims at the time for laying claim to being the first top black fashion model, served as the fire eater's assistant.) As Rolling Stone writer David Dalton wrote in the film's opening titles, "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" was from a time when it seemed that rock and roll would "inherit the earth." In 1996, with most of the film's participants having become less relevant and rock itself having begun its long, steady post-grunge decline (still in progress in 2018, with VH-1 having since gone hip-hop), the spirit and the commitment the Rolling Stones and their guests had to the music came through (and they still do).
And yes, the Rolling Stones may have been sub-par compared to the Who or John Lennon, but, good grief, it's still the Stones as we know them - which, as Dave Marsh wrote, is no small thing. Their set shows a band ready to get back on the road and prove themselves as the great live performers they knew they could be. The Stones in fact were beginning their ascent to their peak of live performance, with their best and most exciting shows yet to come. For all of their war-weariness, the Stones look determined to pick up where they left off after drug busts and studio isolation forced them off the concert stage and after their poorly received album Their Satanic Majesties Request cast doubt in their abilities. Remember, the Stones made this film to support Beggars Banquet; they were more ready to rock than they realized. Janet Maslin of the New York Times summed up their fighting spirit by praising the "sleek young Stones in all their insolent glory presiding over this uneven but ripely nostalgic show." But their fighting spirit would sadly exact a price - their decision to fire group founder Brian Jones, who would drown in his own swimming pool seven months later.
If the Stones are to be faulted for anything, perhaps it's for trying too hard. Ian Anderson offered this interesting observation years later: "I was there, and they were pretty good when they were rehearsing. But they just did too much, and I think Mick Jagger sang himself out. When it came to the crunch, the Who just came in and did a few songs, did what they normally do and - crash, bang - the Stones, who had been rehearsing and working at it for ages, felt perhaps a little overshadowed by the energy of the Who." But all of that work still seems noble when looking back from today, when so much pop music is not so much played as it is manufactured. "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" represents an incredible period of music, live performance, and attitude that will likely never be replicated.
George Harrison came into his own as a songwriter on the Beatles' White Album, and - probably not so coincidentally - his four songs on this album were the first of his songs published by his own song publishing company, Harrisongs, which he'd founded in 1964. (He had been a contracted writer to the Lennon-McCartney song publishing company Northern Songs until March 1968.) But even with more room on a double album, he had to be patient before John Lennon and Paul McCartney would let him present a song for consideration. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was the first Harrison composition the group recorded for the White Album.
George had been inspired to write this song after reading the I Ching, or "The Book of Changes," which argues that everything is relative to everything else and there is no such thing as coincidence. He chose to write a song based on this idea of relativism by writing around the first words he saw in print, and what he did is actually the oldest trick for any writer - look for something to prompt you to write. He took a book from a bookcase while at his parents' house, opened it, saw the words "gently weeps" on a page, and he began to write. (The title of the book he selected has long since been forgotten.)
The song he came up with is one of the best songs on the White Album. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is a lament to the failure of humankind and its descent into barbarism. George can only show sorrow for a world diverted from its spiritual base, unable to manifest the power to love, and corrupted by hatred and violence.
George first recorded "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" in July 1968 at EMI Studios during the White Album sessions, taping a first take in which he accompanied himself on acoustic guitar with an organ from Paul McCartney added at the end. It's a beautiful rendition, available on the Beatles' Anthology 3 collection and featuring a third verse George eventually dropped: "I look from the wings at the play you are staging / While my guitar gently weeps / As I'm sitting here, doing nothing but aging / Still my guitar gently weeps." But as lovely as this first take of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is, it only served as a demo. George had a different arrangement for it in mind - a heavier, tougher blues-based style. And no guitarist was better suited to playing lead on such a track than Eric Clapton.
Then in the power trio Cream, Clapton had been friends with George since his days in the Yardbirds, and his mastery of blues-style playing made him a logical choice for the job to give "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" the feel George wanted for the song. Clapton was reluctant to play on the song when George suggested the idea - because only faceless session musicians, not big-name guest stars, played on Beatles records.
"So what?" George replied. "It's my song!"
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" begins, curiously enough, with a piano, but the guitars take over soon enough to usher in George's sorrowful vocal, with Clapton's leads taking center stage. Clapton's guitar doesn't weep, it howls like a banshee, and it's anything but gentle. His solo in the middle eight brings out the world-weariness of George's music brilliantly. The fade-out that follows the final verse is taken over by Clapton, with some punitive riffs and more incessant wailing. Clapton has since said that "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" conveyed George's "spiritual isolation" within the Beatles, as neither John nor Paul took much of an interest in what he came up with, not even in this case; Old Slowhand himself was the best person to help George get that spiritual isolation across. (Clapton later asked that his solo be electronically altered to give it more of a Beatles sound and make it sound less "typically Clapton." It was put through an oscillator to achieve the desired effect.)
While the LP credits on the White Album's lyric sheet acknowledge many people, including producer George Martin, engineers Chris Thomas and Ken Scott, tape operator John Smith, portrait photographer John Kelly, art director Richard Hamilton, Beatles assistant Mal Evans, and even Kevin (Kevin?) and everyone who helped assemble "Revolution 9," Eric Clapton is not one of them. This could have been because, although both George and John wanted more boldface-name rockers - "heavies," as John called them - to make guest appearances on Beatles records, Paul was adamantly opposed to the idea. More likely, though, it was because Cream recorded for Polydor Records, while the Beatles recorded for EMI (which was now distributing their Apple label). Back in 1968, record companies frowned on any of its artists going off to work with artists who recorded for another record company. By the end of the seventies, record companies would routinely lend out their talent to work with artists recording for the competition (hence, credits like "Peter Frampton appears courtesy of A&M Records," for example). But in 1968, the only way for a rock star to appear on the record of a fellow rock star contracted to a different record company was to appear uncredited or under a pseudonym. (When George Harrison, in fact, returned Clapton's favor by playing rhythm guitar on the Cream song "Badge," which Clapton and Harrison wrote together, he was credited as "L'Angelo Misterioso.") If Cream had been an EMI act, Clapton would likely have gotten a credit for his White Album appearance.
Ironically, Cream disbanded within a week after the White Album's release. It wasn't long, though, before people came to learn who played lead guitar on this song.
Despite the popularity of George's two Abbey Road songs, "Something" (which became the Beatles' third-bestselling single in America) and "Here Comes the Sun," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" remains his signature Beatles song. It was famously performed for his posthumous induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 as a solo artist, with Prince, also an inductee that year, joining Tom Petty and two members of his band the Heartbreakers, Jeff Lynne, Steve Winwood, and George's son Dhani and taking over from everyone with a blistering solo that people still talk about today.
George Harrison himself (below, in 1968) had an obvious affinity for his own song, having performed it live on many occasions - some of which included Clapton, of course - and he even produced a sequel song in 1975, titled "This Guitar (Can't Keep From Crying)". Indeed, the song made him a major player among rock and roll songwriters; his guitar may have wept, but George had the last laugh on anyone who thought he was inferior to Lennon and McCartney.
George Martin later admitted to having been "beastly" to Harrison and having given him little support, but even he came to realize his talent. It seems wholly appropriate that Martin's last Beatles production, in 2006, was an overdub of a string section on the original Take 1 of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" for the soundtrack of the Beatles-based stage show Love by the Cirque de Soleil, a performance group George Harrison loved and whose plans for a Beatles show he championed. It was as wonderful a tribute from Martin as Harrison could ever possibly receive.
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