Music Industry Forum: Clapton: The Autobiography

Clapton: The Autobiography has been out just over a year [six months in paperback]. It's a deep rich tale of a complicated life: his mother's early rejection, well documented drug use, affairs and the heartbreaking loss of his son, Conor, in 1991. If you haven't read this book yet, you should. If you have, buy another copy and gift it as a gift this holiday season to the music lover on your gift list.

Here's a round up of reviews:

Entertainment Weekly

In the charming and surprisingly candid Clapton: The Autobiography, rock's most beloved ax-wielder does come off as a man of deep and profound feelings — in the moments of clarity that accidentally transpire before he can get back to the smack (in the early '70s) or another bottle of booze (mid-'70s through the late '80s) or another gorgeous British bird (all of the above eras and then some). He's equal parts sexual aggression and emotional passivity, dogging a reluctant Boyd for years and then, once she succumbs, resenting her for the next decade-plus. (At a party celebrating their wedding, he hid in a cupboard, waiting to spring out and seduce one of his new bride's friends...but passed out and spent the night there.) Passages dealing with the tragic 1991 death of his son, Conor — who was memorialized in the hit ''Tears in Heaven'' — are less harrowing than you'd expect, if only because Clapton seems a little too detached in his then-new sobriety to deal much with his grief. Finally, after noting that he made a bed for the first time in his life in the '80s at the rehab center Hazelden, Clapton allows that he never had to grow up till fairly recently, and you sigh with relief: He does get what we've understood for the last 300 pages.

Curl Up and Read:

There have been dozens of books written about legendary guitar master Eric Clapton, and there is little left that is unknown about his life. That's precisely why this self-written reveal has been so anticipated by fans and followers. But it fails to deliver. What comes across is an individual who has experienced unbelievable popularity as an artist, and someone who has been able to hide behind that facade. For all that he tells us - and that's now much - there is obviously so much more that he holds back. In fact, you can learn more about the man from the abovementioned books already out.
Clapton was an illegitimate child (common knowledge), and he does talk about that. Actually, he blames most of his later troubles like alcoholism and drug abuse and infidelity on this early wrinkle. He takes us through his childhood and being reared by grandparents and his gradual realization of music. That is interesting but not profound.

Salon:

This isn't unusual in rock, where age does not always bring majesty. But for fans whose interest in rockers' lives is pretty much confined to carved-in-Mount-Rushmore figures like the Beatles and Bob Dylan, the new Clapton autobiography thus starts out at a considerable disadvantage, one that can uncharitably be summed up as, "Who cares?" Clapton did gain personal notoriety for his tormented relationship with George Harrison's wife Pattie, for beating alcoholism and drug addiction, and for the tragic death of his young son. But is the life story of a former rock legend turned artistic B-lister really worth reading?
The answer turns out to be yes. "Clapton" is really two stories in one, and he tells them both pretty well. On the one hand, it's a classic rocker's autobiography, a big bag of buttered celebrity popcorn, filled with inside dish about famous musicians, drunken, stoned escapades and abortive relationships. But it's also a redemption narrative, in which a wastrel is saved by grace after hitting bottom.

This may not sound like a promising combination. Rock autobiographies can be superficial, gossipy and dumb. And redemption narratives are frequently marred by psychobabble and after-the-fact moralizing. Fortunately, though Clapton's perspective is that of a survivor, he neither flagellates himself nor tries too hard to justify his screw-ups. Mostly, he simply presents his misadventures with a kind of no-nonsense wryness. It's true that he does posit some self-help-tinged explanations for why he kept screwing up, which sometimes verge on the canned. But even canned self-analysis can contain truth. In the end, Clapton ended up cleaning up his own mess, and you'd have to be cynical indeed not to be moved by his tale of redemption.

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Thanks for the marvelous posting! I quite enjoyed reading it, you will be a great author.I will make sure to bookmark your blog and definitely will come back from now on. I want to encourage that you continue your great job, have a nice morning!

Posted by: adult chat rooms | May 28, 2011 at 02:37 AM