Eric clapton biography and family

Eric clapton biography and family: Clapton was born to a

A Montreal journalist named Michael Woloschuk researched Canadian Armed Forces service records and tracked down members of Fryer's family, and finally pieced together the story. Fryer was a musician piano and saxophone and a lifelong drifter who was married several times, had several children, and apparently never knew that he was the father of Eric Clapton.

On 26 Februaryit was reported that Clapton had been invited to play a concert in North Korea by government officials. The two former Blind Faith bandmates met again for a series of 14 concerts throughout the United States in June In Marchthe Allman Brothers Band amongst many notable guests celebrated their 40th year, dedicating their string of concerts to the late Duane Allman on their annual run at the Beacon Theatre.

Eric Clapton was one of the performers, with drummer Butch Trucks remarking that the performance was not the typical Allman Brothers experience, given the number and musical styles of the guests who were invited to perform. Clapton was scheduled to perform at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 's 25th anniversary concert in Madison Square Garden on 30 Octoberbut cancelled due to gallstone surgery.

On 24 JuneClapton was in concert with Pino Daniele in Cava de' Tirreni stadium before performing a series of concerts in South America from 6 to 16 October He spent November and December touring Japan with Steve Winwoodplaying 13 shows in various cities throughout the country. On 29 NovemberClapton joined the Rolling Stones at London's O2 Arena during the band's second of five arena dates celebrating their 50th anniversary.

The album includes the original 14 tracks, remastered, as well as 6 additional tracks, including 2 versions of " My Father's Eyes ". The DVD includes a restored version of the concert, as well as over 60 minutes of unseen footage from the rehearsal. On 13 and 14 NovemberClapton headlined the final two evenings of the " Baloise Session ", an annual indoor music festival in BaselSwitzerland.

Cale who died on 26 July Although he did return to perform one final song, thousands of fans were upset by the lack of explanation from Clapton or the venue and booed after the concert ended around 40 minutes before advertised to finish. Both Clapton and the venue apologised the next day, blaming 'technical difficulties' for making sound conditions 'unbearable' for Clapton on stage.

Clapton has performed more times at Madison Square Garden than any other US venue, a total of 45 times. On 30 September the live-album Live in San Diego was released. He returned to the road in Septemberplaying eight shows in the southern United States. In MayClapton revealed in an interview with The Real Music Observer that he was working on a new eric clapton biography and family album, titled Meanwhilewith the hopes of releasing it in the fall of that year.

In his autobiography, Clapton refers to Muddy Waters as "the father figure I never really had". Until his death inWaters was a part of Clapton's life. King on their album Riding with the King. The music video for the title track shows Clapton as the eric clapton biography and familywith one of his idols in the back seat. Clapton has said that blues musician Robert Johnson is his single most important influence.

InClapton released Sessions for Robert Johnsoncontaining covers of Johnson's songs using electric and acoustic guitars. Robert Johnson to me is the most important blues musician who ever lived. He was true, absolutely, to his own vision, and as deep as I have gotten into the music over the last 30 years, I have never found anything more deeply soulful than Robert Johnson.

His music remains the most powerful cry that I think you can find in the human voice, really Clapton also singled out Buddy Holly as an influence. It was thick and fat and very melodic. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time. InThe Guardian attributed the creation of the cult of the guitar hero to Clapton, ranking it number seven on their list of the 50 key events in rock music history.

Nothing is more central to rock mythology than the cult of the lead guitarist. And no one did more to create that cult than Eric Clapton. He had already been a member of the Yardbirds before joining John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, the clearing house for guitarists, in April His two stints with Mayall saw his reputation grow to the extent that a famous graffito captured the popular appraisal of him among rock fans: " Clapton is God ".

Elias Leight of Rolling Stone writes that Clapton "influenced recording techniques as well as guitar-playing technique". It seemed to me that if you wanted to get the atmosphere we were getting in the clubs, you needed it to sound like you were in the audience 10 feet away, not three inches". Clapton then moved the microphones, with Pink Floyd's Roger Waters stating, "That changed everything.

Before Eric, guitar playing in England had been Hank Marvin of the Shadows, very simple, not much technique. Suddenly we heard something completely different. The records sounded unlike anything we had heard before. InClapton was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his artwork — the Beatles' Sgt.

Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover — to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admires to mark his 80th birthday. Robert Christgauin a dissenting appraisal of Clapton's legacy, writes:. A promiscuous sideman whose monklike aura has never diminished his extravagant appetites, Clapton likes to get paid, and he's amassed a discography that for an artist of his caliber is remarkably undistinguished.

In his self-protective self-deprecation he often attributes this to his own laziness or his need for a catalyst, but it's also guitar hero's disease: like many other guys whose hand-ear coordination is off the curve, he's a casual tunesmith and a corny lyricist, and his band concepts are chronically hit-or-miss. Due to Clapton's impact in the music industry, he has also been mentioned in several songs.

However, the original lyric, which she sometimes performs live, is "We hate Eric Clapton" instead of "We hate 'Tears in Heaven'. Like Hank Marvinthe Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, Clapton exerted a crucial and widespread influence in popularising particular models of electric guitar. He became exclusively a Gibson player for a period beginning in mid, when he purchased a used sunburst Gibson Les Paul guitar from a guitar store in London.

Clapton commented on the slim profile of the neck, which would indicate it was a model. He continued to play Les Pauls exclusively with Cream one bought from Andy Summers was almost identical to the stolen guitar [ ] untilwhen he acquired his most famous guitar in this period, a Gibson SGdubbed " the Fool ". I'm developing what I call my 'woman tone.

Clapton used it at the last Cream show in November as well as with Blind Faith, played it sparingly for slide pieces in the s, used it on "Hard Times" from Journeymanthe Hyde Park live concert ofand the From the Cradle sessions and tour of — The was only the second electric guitar Clapton bought. Lucy was stolen from Harrison, though later tracked down and returned to him — he lent it to Clapton for his comeback concert at the Rainbow.

Rundgren restored the guitar and nicknamed it "Sunny", after "Sunshine of Your Love". In late Clapton made the switch to the Fender Stratocaster. First there was Buddy Hollyand Buddy Guy. Hank Marvin was the first well known person over here in England who was using one, but that wasn't really my kind of music. Steve Winwood had so much credibility, and when he started playing one, I thought, oh, if he can do it, I can do it".

His first Stratocaster, Brownie, was purchased on 7 May [ ] and made its debut in on his first solo album, in concert with Derek and the Dominos as well on the album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. Clapton assembled the best components of the remaining three to create "Blackie", which was his favourite stage guitar until its retirement in It was first played live 13 January at the Rainbow Concert.

One was presented to Clapton upon the model's release and was used for three numbers during a concert at the Royal Albert Hall on 17 May Pete Townshend also donated his own Gibson Les Paul guitar, with a note attached: "Mine's as good as his! Love, Pete". Signature guitars in Clapton's honour are made by Fender and C. InFender introduced his signature Eric Clapton Stratocaster.

The first, of these, introduced inwas a limited edition EC Eric Clapton signature model with a production run of Clapton appeared in the movie version of Tommythe first full-length rock operawritten by the Who. In addition to being in the band, he had a small speaking role. Clapton has appeared in an advertisement for the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen.

In March Clapton appeared in an advertisement [ ] for RealNetwork's Rhapsody online music service. He was called upon to test the Ceed's auxiliary input, which he tested by plugging in one of his guitars and playing several bars of his most famous hits. He was introduced by Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson as a "local guitarist". I think this got made because Eric was in the right mood.

He's an incredibly private man and despite his immense success, he's never cared if he got any publicity at all, he just loves his music I think it might be something to do with his age, as he turned 70 a couple of years ago. He said to me, "I didn't want it to be done after I was dead and for it to be wrong. Nothing but the Blues is a documentary film about Clapton's musical journey and his love for the blues.

Martin Scorsese was one of the executive producers. Clapton's partner from the late s to was Alice Ormsby-Gorea British aristocrat. They were together for three years and were both addicted to heroin.

Eric clapton biography and family: Clapton was born on

Clapton became friends with George Harrison in the late s and they began writing and recording music together. Clapton fell in love with Pattie Boydwho was married to Harrison at this time. During a interview with The Sunday TimesClapton admitted to raping and abusing her when they were married and he was a "full-blown" alcoholic who felt entitled to sex.

Although both were married to other partners at the time, they had a daughter named Ruth Kelly Clapton in January Ruth's existence was kept from the public until the media realised she was his child in Clapton and Boyd tried unsuccessfully to have children, even trying in vitro fertilisation inbut were faced instead with miscarriages. Clapton and Boyd later divorced in after she was "utterly devastated" by his confession to impregnating Del Santo during this affair.

Conor died on 20 March at the age of four after falling out of an open bedroom window on the 53rd floor of a Manhattan apartment building. InClapton, then 53, met year-old administrative assistant Melia McEnery in Columbus, Ohioat a party given for him after a performance. He quietly dated her for a year, and went public with the relationship in Clapton gave up drugs and alcohol inafter a period of addiction.

Eric clapton biography and family: Eric Patrick Clapton was born

On 5 AugustClapton spoke out against increasing immigration during a concert in Birmingham. Do we have any foreigners in the audience tonight? If so, please put up your hands. So where are you? Well wherever you all are, I think you should all just leave. Not just leave the hall, leave our country. I don't want you here, in the room or in my country.

Listen to me, man! I think we should vote for Enoch Powell. Enoch's our man. I think Enoch's right, I think we should send them all back.

Eric clapton biography and family: Eric Patrick Clapton was born

Stop Britain from becoming a black colony. Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. Keep Britain white. I used to be into dope, now I'm into racism. It's much heavier, man. Fucking wogs, man. Fucking Saudis eric clapton biography and family over London. Bastard wogs. Britain is becoming overcrowded and Enoch will stop it and send them all back.

The black wogs and coons and Arabs and fucking Jamaicans don't belong here, we don't want them here. This is England, this is a white country, we don't want any black wogs and coons living here. We need to make clear to them they are not eric clapton biography and family. England is for white people, man. This is Great Britain, a white country, what is happening to us, for fuck's sake?

Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white! In an interview from October with Sounds magazine, Clapton said that he did not "know much about politics" and said of his immigration speech that "I just don't know what came over me that night. It must have been something that happened in the day but it came out in this garbled thing. It would make no sense.

In Clapton stated he was "disgusted" with himself for his " chauvinistic " and " fascistic " comments on stage. He added: "I sabotaged everything I got involved with. I was so ashamed of who I was, a kind of semi-racist, which didn't make sense. Half of my friends were black, I dated a black woman, and I championed black music. Clapton supports the Countryside Alliancewhich promotes field sports and issues relating to the British countryside.

He has played in concerts to raise funds for the organisation and publicly opposed the Labour Party 's ban on fox hunting with the Hunting Act. A spokesperson for Clapton said, "Eric supports the Countryside Alliance. He does not hunt himself, but does enjoy rural pursuits such as fishing and shooting. He supports the Alliance's pursuit to scrap the ban on the basis that he disagrees with the state's interference with people's private pursuits.

It was described as a protest song against COVID lockdowns, vaccinations, and contains lyrical and visual statements against what Clapton sees as the erosion of civil liberties as the result of lockdown policies. In Novemberduring the Israel—Hamas warClapton released a song titled "Voice of a Child", along with a video featuring images of destruction in the Gaza Strip.

During the event, he played a guitar painted with the colors of the Palestinian flag. Since the s, Clapton has considered himself a "car enthusiast" and has often stated his passion for the Ferrari brand. InClapton was appointed a director of Clouds Housea UK treatment centre for drug and alcohol dependence, and was a member of the board until InClapton established the Crossroads Centre in Antigua to help others to overcome addiction to drugs and alcohol.

He has remained active in its management oversight and fundraising to the present day. InClapton sold over items at a New York auction, with the proceeds going to the Crossroads Centre. Items sold included his guitar from the Cream reunion tour inspeaker cabinets used in the early s from his days with Derek and the Dominos, and guitars from Jeff Beck, J.

Cale, and Joe Bonamassa. All proceeds went to Crossroads. He made his first appearance at the show, held in London's Theatre Royal, Drury Laneinand subsequently became an activist. He has performed at the charity's rock concert numerous times since the s, most recently in Clapton is a fan of English football club West Bromwich Albion. It has been reported that the club rejected his offer to invest cash in the club around this time.

In the late s Clapton positioned a West Brom scarf on the back cover of his album, Backless. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the third time, this time as a solo artist. He was earlier inducted as a member of the bands Cream and the Yardbirds. An asteroid, Claptonis named after him. Clapton's music has appeared in dozens of movies and television shows as far back as 's Mean Streetswhich included the Derek and the Dominos song "I Looked Away" and a performance of " Steppin' Out " by Cream.

Both Opel and Vauxhall used the guitar riff from " Layla " in their advertising campaigns throughout — In addition to his music appearing in media, Clapton has contributed to several movies by writing or co-writing the musical scores or contributing original songs. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read View source View history.

Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikidata item. English musician, singer, and songwriter born This article is about the musician. For his album, see Eric Clapton album. Clapton performing at the Royal Albert Hall in May Ripley, SurreyEngland. Musician singer songwriter record producer.

Pattie Boyd. Melia McEnery. Duck Reprise Surfdog. Musical artist. The Yardbirds and the Bluesbreakers. Main article: Cream band. Main article: Blind Faith. Main article: Derek and the Dominos. Personal problems and early solo success. Son's death, "Tears in Heaven". Main article: Meanwhile Eric Clapton album. Opposition to fox-hunting ban. Israel—Palestine conflict.

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Eric Clapton. Clapton's music in film and TV. Problems playing this file? Fryer returned to Canada, where he was already married to another woman, before Clapton's birth. As a single teenage mother, Patricia Clapton was unprepared to raise a child on her own, so her mother and stepfather, Rose and Jack Clapp, raised Clapton as their own.

Although they never legally adopted him, Clapton grew up under the impression that his grandparents were his parents and that his mother was his older sister. Clapton's last name comes from his grandfather, Patricia's father, Reginald Cecil Clapton. Clapton grew up in a very musical household. His grandmother was a skilled pianist, and his mother and uncle both enjoyed listening to big-band music.

As it turns out, Clapton's absent father was also a talented pianist who had played in several dance bands while stationed in Surrey. Around the age of eight, Clapton discovered the earth-shattering truth that the people he believed were his parents were actually his grandparents and that the woman he considered his older sister was in fact his mother.

Clapton later recalled, "The truth dawned on me, that when Uncle Adrian jokingly called me a little bastard, he was telling the truth. The young Clapton, until then a good student and well-liked boy, grew sullen and reserved and lost all motivation to do his schoolwork. He describes a moment shortly after learning the news of his parentage: "I was playing around with my grandma's compact, with a little mirror you know, and I saw myself in two mirrors for the first time and I don't know about you but it was like hearing your voice on a tape machine for the first I saw a receding chin and a broken nose and I thought my life is over.

However, he showed a high aptitude for art, so at the age of 13 he enrolled in the art branch of the Holyfield Road School. By that time,rock 'n' roll had exploded onto the British music scene; for his 13th birthday, Clapton asked for a guitar. He received a cheap German-made Hoyer, and finding the steel-stringed guitar difficult and painful to play, he soon set it aside.

At the age of 16, he gained acceptance into the Kingston College of Art on a one-year probation; it was there, surrounded by teenagers with musical tastes similar to his own, that Clapton really took to the instrument. Clapton was especially taken with the blues guitar played by musicians such as Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Alexis Korner, the last of whom inspired Clapton to buy his first electric guitar — a relative rarity in England.

It was also at Kingston that Clapton discovered something that would have nearly as great an impact on his life as the guitar: booze. He rebounded creatively with a role in the film version of Townsend's rock opera, Tommy, and with a string of albums, including the reggae-influenced Ocean Boulevard, which yielded a chart-topping single cover of Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff.

Just One Night, Clapton's galvanizing live album, reminded devotees just exactly who their guitar hero was, but unfortunately, this period marked Clapton's critical slide into a serious drinking problem that eventually hospitalized him for a time in He experienced a creative resurgence after reining in his alcoholism, releasing a string of consistently successful albums--Another TicketMoney and CigarettesBehind the SunAugustJourneyman --and turning his personal life around.

Though some say Clapton never regained the musical heights of his heroin days, his legend nevertheless continued to grow. That he was a paragon of rock became more than apparent when Polygram released a rich four-CD retrospective of his career, Crossroads, in ; the set scored Grammy awards for Best Historical Album and Best Liner Notes. In latethe fates delivered Clapton a terrible blow when guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan and Clapton road crew members Colin Smythe and Nigel Browne--all close friends of Clapton's--were killed in a helicopter crash.

A few months later, he was dealt another cruel blow when Conor, his son by Italian model Lori Del Santo, fell forty-nine stories from Del Santo's Manhattan high-rise apartment to his death. Clapton channeled his shattering grief into writing the heart-wrenching Grammy-winning tribute to his son, "Tears in Heaven. Inhe began once again to play traditional blues; the album, From the Cradle, marked a return to raw blues standards, and it hit with critics and fans.

They divorced in He married his second wife Melia McEnery in a small church ceremony in January Melia was born inand is 31 years younger than Eric. They met at a party in when Eric was 53 and Melia was Although both were married to other people at the time, they had a daughter in She was named Ruth Kelly Clapton, but she was kept from the public until the media realised she was his child in Clapton and Boyd tried unsuccessfully to have children, and tried in vitro fertilisation inbut had several miscarriages.

Clapton had an affair with Italian model Lory Del Santo, who gave birth to their son, Conor, in Conor died in at the age of four, after falling out of an open bedroom window on the 53rd floor of a Manhattan apartment building.