ERIC CLAPTON: Return Of The Reluctant Hero

There was once a movie actor who, having made his name as a heavy, took to playing the romantic lead. But no matter how often he wore a white hat or rode into the sunset, he was always the heavy.

For many rock fans, Eric Clapton remains the guitar hero, a memory from the 60’s, not flesh and blood, almost as if he had died, not Hendrix. The role was one he played reluctantly even then, a piece of type-casting he has endeavored for years to live down.

As long ago as 1970 he told a reporter, “I don’t think guitar playing is enough. It’s very hard for me to see why anyone would laud a cat who just plays guitar. It’s really not enough somehow.” Not for him maybe, but it satisfied a legion of fetishistic fans.

Such feelings of personal dissatisfaction date from further back. He had tired of deification and abdicated for Hendrix at least two years earlier, even before his frustration within Cream’s triangular confines had been chronically intensified by his introduction to the Band and Music From Big Pink.