“Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs”, the wound that Eric Clapton turned into an album with a completely unknown band

A November 9, 1970 came to light Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs of Derek and the Dominosand although from the proper names nothing could indicate that this album would be a success, no one knew that the mind behind it was Eric Claptonone of the most talented musicians of all time.

The British guitarist, who has three doors open to the Rock and Roll Hall of Famewas in a dark time of his life when he came across what would be his next band.

The creation of Derek and The Dominos, the short-lived band that Clapton created

“Slowhand” (“Slow hand”), which came from putting an end to Cream already Blind Faithhad released his first album as a solo artist. However, he wanted to withdraw from the center of the stage to take on the role of guitarist on a tour with friends. In that group was the keyboardist Bobby Whitlockwho with Clapton had just finished a tour with Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, the drummer Jim Gordon and the bassist Carl Radle.

Without much more than that, it was born Derek and the Dominosa band that ran through jam sessions and it was completely stripped of egos. Another important musician who participated was Duane Allmanwho was recording The Allman Brothers Band’s second album. As he was recording in the same studio and with the same producer as The Dominos, Clapton invited him to record and Allman ended up playing on 11 of the 14 songs that make up the album.

The sessions of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs They ran from late August to early October 1970. Clapton and Whitlock wrote nine of the songs, either separately, together or with other songwriters, while the rest of the songs were covers of classics such as It’s Too Late by Chuck Wills and Little Wing of Jimi Hendrix.

“Layla”, the centerpiece of the album

The first word of the album is the title of the project’s most important cut. Layla It became the centerpiece of the work and Clapton’s driving force to follow the conceptual thread that the album proposed. And Layla was actually Pattie Boydthe wife of whom Clapton fell madly in love in 1969 and wife of many years George Harrisona close friend of the musician. The way he fought those feelings was with heroin and music.

Thus was born one of the best songs in the entire repertoire of Slowhandwho turned that wound into the basis to build a simple but powerful narrative: unrequited love. In this way, Clapton navigates sadness, heartbreak and pain through songs like Bell Bottom Blues, Nobody Knows You (When You’re Down And Out), Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad?, Have You Ever Loved A Woman and of course Layla.

Repercussions of the album, the end of the band and the lives of its members

The album did not achieve great popularity. It stalled at number 16 in the United States and did not chart at all in the United Kingdom, partly because it was not under Clapton’s name, but rather a strange and unknown pseudonym. the song Layla It was reissued and managed to reach the Top 10, although the rest of the album did not gain greater recognition.

Derek and The Dominos performed a tour of the United States for a few weeks in late 1970including Allman, who joined them on stage for three dates. And when everything seemed to indicate that a second album would be recorded, what Clapton feared most happened; drugs, alcohol and egos took away what was an unknown and quality project that he was beginning to value.

The guitarist He sank back into a drug addiction from which he had a hard time getting out.. He appeared in public again at a Concert for Bangladesh with George Harrison in 1971, in which he fainted on stage.

Three years later, his life was straightened out, as he released his successful second solo album, 461 Ocean Boulevardand above began a relationship with Pattie Boyd, the person responsible for Layla, whom she married five years later. Boyd’s influence on music is a case study, as he was also the inspiration for somethingthe song that Harrison composed for the album Abbey Road with The Beatles and one of the best-known love anthems in the history of music. In other words, Boyd is the ultimate muse.

eric clapton pattie boyd.avif

The fate of the other members of the band was not the same. Radle He played with Eric Clapton until his death in 1980. Gordon He had a nervous breakdown in 1983 and murdered his motherfor which he spent the rest of his life in a mental facility, where he died in March 2023. And Allman died in a motorcycle accident in 1971. Whitlockfor his part, would not perform with Clapton again until 2003.