Eric Clapton
E.C. Was Here
Polydor 1975
Review Published Apr 15, 1999
Artist Spotlite on Eric Clapton
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Track Listing
- Have You Ever Loved A Woman
- Presence Of The Lord
- Drifting Blues
- Can't Find My Way Home
- Rambling On My Mind
- Further On Up The Road
EB Rating - 4.5
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So you think that From The Cradle is the only heavily blues oriented album
Eric Clapton has cut since his early days with John Mayall, Cream and Derek & The Dominos?
Well, think again. E.C. Was Here is loaded with Clapton blues guitar. The CD features
extended versions of four blues standards and a couple of spiritual flavored tunes. Presence Of The Lord
is the only Clapton original.
This is a collection of live cuts, but the liner notes make no mention of where the songs were recorded. Although there are
only six songs, they are all long ones. The longest, Drifting Blues,
clocks in at 11:31. That's quite long, but this cut is actually a medley of Drifting Blues/Rambling On My Mind.
This rendition of Rambling is quite different from the version that appears later
on the CD, so there's no redundancy. Total time for the whole package is over 46 minutes.
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Clapton's vocals are on, and his guitar playing inspired and prominent throughout most of the CD, especially
so on Have You Ever Loved A Woman, Rambling On My Mind, and
Further On Down The Road. The two spiritual/gospel songs,
Presence Of The Lord and Can't Find My Way Home
are for the most part much more laid back, and the latter doesn't feature much guitar. Because of this they're not overly exciting to me.
They are well done, however, and I'm sure many listeners will enjoy these songs as well.
I'm quite surprised that in over a year of running this website, no one had submitted a rating for this album.
It features some excellent blues by
Eric Clapton, something there's not an overabundance of despite his 30+ years of high regard
as a blues guitar player. Plus, this CD is one of Polygram's "Super Saver" series, which means you can pick it up new for
$10-$12 at your local music store. If you wish you had more EC blues guitar in your collection, this is a great CD to pick up.
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