ERIC CLAPTON: A GOD, OF SORTS
In the case of Eric Clapton, one is tempted to say that his reputation superceded his ability to deliver.
Our story begins in 1964 in London, where the Yardbirds were forming. Among their members was guitarist Eric Clapton. Technically speaking, this was Clapton’s third group, having played for the Roosters and Casey Jones and the Engineers— about two week with each band. The Yardbirds, then, was Clapton’s first band of any stature. He would stay with them for about a year-and-a-half, long enough for one album and the start of Yardbird/guitarists legend, although he would not remember his tenure with particular fondness. “1 was fooled into joining the group,” he would recall within five years. After leaving the group he intended to quit the music business as well.
Within three or four years, ‘‘CLAPTON IS GOD" would be a commonly-seen scrawl in London. Obviously, quite a bit happened to Eric Clapton during those years.
According to Clapton—barely 19 years old when the Yardbirds formed —what happened is that he began to take music seriously. “I was playing what they wanted me to play,” he said about the Yardbirds, and —as he was later to show—what he wanted to play was probably somewhat more interesting.