Facepainting By Cindy

In October of 1963, the buzz on the English R&B pub circuit was that Eric Clapton was the best guitar player around. So when the Yardbirds needed a new guitar slinger, he got the call. He joined The Yardbirds, a blues-influenced rock and roll band, and remained with them until March 1965. He was with them long enough to record the albums Five LiveYardbirds and Sonny Boy Williamson and The Yardbirds.

As far as the life of Eric Clapton, the important thing about his tenure with the Yardbirds is that it was sometime during this 18 month timespan that he got the nickname of "Slowhand". It came about because of his habit of changing his guitar strings on stage while the rest of the band played on without him. For some reason crowds began doing a kind of slow handclap during this process birthing the name slowhand. It was kind of like the crowd's way of entertaining itself until he was through and could start playing again. Just a trivial bit of Rock music history.

The Yardbirds played Chess/Checker/Vee-Jay blues numbers and attracted quite a large cult following eventually taking over the Rolling Stones' house job at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond. They went on tour throughout England with American bluesman Sonny Boy Williamson Eric had learned about the blues as a young boy and his preference for it's passion had not waned. Even though the band did record and play some blues tunes to his liking, such as “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl”, his idt wounterest in them waned when they recorded what would be their first hit song "For Your Love". Eric played guitar on the record but at that point it was clear to him that the band had decided to go in the more direction of a more commercial sound which conflicted with his love of traditional blues and he chose to leave the band at that point.

So Clapton parted ways with the Yardbirds recommending his friend and future Led Zepplin founder Jimmy Page as his repacement. Since Page didn't want to give up his lucrative work as a studio musician, he in turn recommended Jeff Beck. While the tri o of Beck, Page and Clapton would have made some historic music together, they were never in the band at the same time. With Clapton gone, the band carried on with Beck for a few more years finally breaking up for good in 1968.

When Eric left the Yardbirds, he didn't have a band to go and play with so he got a job working construction for a while, until in April of 1965, he ws invited by John Mayall to join his band the Bluesbreakers. Eric, who was a blues lover at heart jumped at the chance and took the gig. The Bluesbreakers were the leading British Blues band of the times and proved to be a complimentary match for his purist attitude towards hard core blues.

The single album he recorded with them, both returned him to the UK top of the charts on his own terms and perpetuated his reputation as the best guitar player around. While with the Bluesbreakers, Eric also worked with a studio band called Powerhouse, which also included his friend Steve Winwood, John Paul Jones and bass player Jack Bruce. Eric's Bluesbreaker tenure was at times turbulent causing him to abdicate his musical berth and tour Greece for awhile with some of his friends, including pianist Ben Palmer and other musicians forming the group The Glands.

A few months later in November of the same year, 1965, Eric was back with the Bluesbreakers. Even though the reunion wasn't for long, the album he recorded with the Bluesbreakers, Bluesbreakers John Mayall with Eric Clapton, brought him worldwide fame and perpetuated his growing reputation as the best guitarist in the world. As good as the album was, it was not released until after he left the group.

For all the guitar players listening, you might like to know that it was during this time when he left the Bluesbreakers that Clapton traded his Fender Telecaster and Vox AC30 amplifier for a 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar and a Marshall amp, the combination of which gave his unique blues sound more punch.

Clapton's unique and popular bluesy sound and playing inspired one fan to spray paint a well-publicised piece of graffiti that declared the famous slogan "Clapton is God". Even though the phrase was painted on by an admirer, on a wall in an Islington Underground station in the autumn of 1967, a local photographer captured the graffitti, along with a dog urinating on the wall. Clapton is said to have been really embarrassed by the slogan referring to him as a diety, causing him to say in an interview in 1987, "I never accepted that I was the greatest guitar player in the world. I always wanted to be the greatest guitar player in the world, but that's an ideal, and I accept it as an ideal". The phrase began to appear in other areas of Islington throughout the mid 1960s

John Mayall and his Bluesbreakers band for all intensive purposes served as somewhat of a musical finishing school for many blues rock musicians who would go on to perform with soon to be famous acts of the 1970's, including Peter Green and Jon McVie, both future Fleetwood Mac members, and Mick Taylor who would eventually land a job with the Rolling Stones, Aynsley Dunbar who would go on to play with Eric Burdon, Frank Zappa, Lou Reed, Jefferson Starship, Jeff Bdeck, David Bowie and Journey, Andy Fraser who would one day n\be a member of the band "Free" (All Right Now) and Jack Bruce who would go on to play with both Manfred Mann and with Clapton in Cream.

When Clapton finally left the Bluesbreakers for good in July 1966, for a while he worked with Led Zepplin guitarist Jimmy Page before enlisting bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker to create what many termed the first "Power Trio", Cream

Significant Facts About Cream:

• Produced just seven original studio and live albums, and three compilations, yielding sales of more than 35-million. By comparison, Styx, with 22 studio and live albums and six compilations also have sales of 35-million
• Performed more than 300 live shows in less than 30 months on tour
• Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993

Cream Career History:

On paper, Cream seems an odd lot for a rock band. Lead vocalist-bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker were primarily jazzmen. Eric Clapton played blues guitar. Prior to joining Cream, Baker and Bruce were in a group called the Graham Bond Organization. The friction between them sometimes erupted into sabotage of one another's equipment and onstage fights. The two managed to put aside their feud when Clapton and Bruce left John Mayall's Blues Breakers to form Cream, along with Baker.

A Little Cream Goes A Long Way:

Cream was one of the first “power” rock bands to use only guitar, bass, and drums. The band was noted for improvising both their set lists and their musical arrangements, sometimes jamming for as long as 20 minutes on one song. Clapton claims that he once stopped playing in the middle of one such jam, and that the other two played on without noticing. It was this loose style that led Clapton to leave the band, signalling its end just under three years from the time it was formed.

Cream Together Again:

The group performed a brief set during the 1993 ceremony in which they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Jack Bruce nearly died after a liver transplant in 2003. In May, 2005 the group reunited for a series of concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall, the same venue where they played their farewell concert in 1968. Another series of reunion concerts is booked at Madison Square Garden in New York City in October 2005.

It was 1969 and Eric Clapton was at his house doing some informal jamming with long time friend Steve Winwood. They were enjoying themselves as musicians often do and they thought it sounded pretty good so Steve suggested they invite drummer Ginger Baker over to give their new music some rhythm. So Steve called Ginger and then Eric called bassist Rick Grech and all of a sudden they had a new band. Because it now looked like things were getting serious, the guys rehearsed from February until June getting the band ready for recording an album and doing shows.

As Eric and Steve commenced talking about the new band and how to market it they both realized that expectations would be quite high considering the band's membership. They knew with their respective musical histories people would expect a lot.

Clapton's musical acheivements spoke for themselvese. He was obviously the arbest known and probably the most popular of the four of them. But the rest of them were no slouches. Winwood was a talented multi instrumentalist who had been a founding member The Spencer Davis Group and co-writer of their huge hits Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm a Man. He had tour with some of the greatest blues artists ever to hit any stage including Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, T-Bone Walker, Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Eddie Boyd, Otis Spann, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley.

Just 2 years before he had formed the group Traffic with Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason, bringing their brand of Beatle influenced psychedelic rock to the masses, incorporating jazz and improvisational techniques in their music. The four original members of Traffic would eventually be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 15 March 2004. Plus, just a year earlier Winwood had played the organ on the song "Voodoo Chile" on the Jimi Hendrix album Electric Ladyland. In 1972, Winwood would record the part of Captain Walker in the highly successful orchestral version of The Who's Tommy.

By the time Clapton and his friends formed Blind Faith, Ginger Baker had gained a reputation as the most influential percussionist of the 1960s. Many called him Rock's first superstar drummer. Even though Baker partilly modeled himself after the Who's Keith "Moon the Loon" Moon, he also played with a more restrained drumming style h British jazz e learned from drummers h heard during the late 1950s and early 1960s. He employed many of Moon's drumming techniques including fast, cascading rolls across his tom toms, busy double bass drum work and wild cymbal crashes.

Audiences loved and encouraged his flashy and sometimes lengthy drum solos, his most famous being the five minute drum solo "Toad" from Cream's debut album Fresh Cream (1966). His flamboyance, showmanship and use of his two bass drums would guarantee a (Warm) response from any crowd. Baker first began to garner attention during his tenure in the Graham Bond Organisation which led to his former partnership with Clapton in the band Cream.

Unlike other sometimes more well known drummers from popular hit making acts, Baker made his name entirely on his playing, initially as showcased in Cream, but far transcending even that trio's relatively brief existence. Until Cream came along, his only semi high echilon musical position was as was the de facto leader the Graham Bond Organization.

What is music? According to Webster's II: New Riverside University Dictionary, music is "the art of arranging tones in an orderly sequence so as to produce a unified and continuous composition". In reality, music does not have any one concrete meaning. Music has different meanings for different people. Music is unique in each person's life. To a musician, music is their life. They eat, breathe, and live music. Music is their passion. For others, music is a hobby, a pastime. Music is something that arouses interest and is pleasurable. The casual fan may learn about music, how to read music, how to sing, or how to play a musical instrument, but they do not have the all encompassing passion a musician possesses. Music is a means of relaxation for some, while others simply enjoy listening to the sounds, melodies, and rhythms that music brings to their ears, minds, and hearts.

ny all at once and with the most exact control of time.

Music is mathematical

It is rhythmically based on the subdivisions of time into fractions which must be done, not worked out on paper.

Music is a foreign language

Most of the terms are in Italian, German, or French; and the notation is certainly not English &endash; but a highly developed kind of shorthand that uses symbols to represent ideas. The semantics of music is the most complete and universal language.

Music is history

Music usually reflects the environment and times of its creations, often even the country and/or racial feeling.

Music is physical education

It requires fantastic coordination of finger, hands, arms, lip, cheek, and facial muscles, in addition to extraordinary control of the diaphragmatic back, stomach, and chest muscles, which respond instantly to the sound the ear hears and the mind interprets.

Music is all of these things, but most of all

Music is art

It allows a human being to take all these dry, technically boring (but difficult) techniques and use them to create emotion. That is one thing science cannot duplicate: humanism, feeling, emotion, call it what you will.

The following definitions are taken from an article that defines music according to different perspectives.

Music is science

It is exact, specific; and it demands exact acoustics. A conductor's full score is a chart, a graph which indicates frequencies, intensities, volume changes, melody, and harmony all at once and

Music is mathematical

It is rhythmically based on the subdivisions of time into fractions which must be done, not worked out on paper.

Music is a foreign language

Most of the terms are in Italian, German, or French; and the notation is certainly not English &endash; but a highly developed kind of shorthand that uses symbols to represent ideas. The semantics of music is the most complete and universal language.

What is music? It’s what comes out of the speakers when we play a CD

on our stereo. It’s what we hear on the radio. Music is singers singing and

musicians playing. Music is a sound that we enjoy hearing.

Is this a proper answer to the question “What is music?”?

If I asked “What is a car?”, you could answer by pointing at a large

object moving up the street and saying “It’s one of those.” But this may

not be a satisfactory answer. A full explanation of what a car is would

mention petrol, internal combustion engines, brakes, suspension, transmission

and other mechanical things that make a car go. And we don’t just want to

know what a car is; we also want to know what a car is for. An explanation

of what a car is for would include the facts that there are people and other

things (like shopping) inside cars and that the purpose of cars is to move

people and things from one place to another.

By analogy, a good answer to the question “What is music?” will say

something about the detailed mechanics of music: instruments, notes, scales,

rhythm, tempo, chords, harmony, bass and melody. This matches up with

the mechanical portion of our car explanation. It’s harder to answer the

“What is it for?” part of the question. A simple answer is that music is

enjoyable—it makes us “feel good”. We could expand on this a bit and say

that music creates emotions, or interacts with the emotions we already feel

and, sometimes, it makes us want to dance.

2.2 The Biology of Feeling Good

The “feel good” explanation is worth something, but it isn’t entirely satisfactory. Or, at least, it’s not satisfactory if you’re a professional theoretical

biologist.

What does music have to do with biology? Music is something that people

create and something that people respond to. People are living organisms,

and biology is the study of living organisms.

We can compare music to eating. Eating is a well-known activity. People

do it. Animals do it. We know what eating is: it is the ingestion of certain

substances into our digestive systems. The ingested substances, or food,

travel through the digestive system, where components of those substances

are broken down and extracted by various means for use within the body.

Leftover portions of the food get pushed out the other end.

We can explain eating at a psychological level: we eat when we feel hungry

because it makes us feel good. Being “hungry” can be defined as a feeling

of wanting to eat food. We can determine that we become hungry when we

haven’t eaten for a while,

and that we stay hungry (and slowly get hungrier)

until we have eate

1. I Looked Away(Chuck WIllis):

Old country blues song covered by the Dominoes. Carl Radle recommended the band play.

2. Bell Bottom Blues(Eric Clapton/Bobby Whitlock):

A very underrated classic, penned by Clapton with Bobby Whitlock. From the Layla book recently published: it was about a young woman who clapton spent time with apparently she was dark skinned and had family of royalty in some midwestern eruopean country... In my opinion..This song is one Clapton's best songs written its a shame the song wasnt performed as much as it should have been. Since I had typed this text a number of years ago though Eric Clapton had played it on tour for the last few tours in the last 5 years haha!

3. Keep On Growing(Eric Clapton/Bobby Whitlock):

Initially a Jam song that was to be thrown away, but Bobby Whitlock liked it so he went to the back of the studio and wrote the lyrics in like twenty minutes and I must say not to shabby :P

4. Nobody Knows You When Your Down and Out(Blues Standard):

I know Bessie Smith covered this song and its one of the first songs Clapton learned to play.

5. I Am Yours(Eric Clapton/Nizami:the guy who wrote the story "Layla and Majnun")

Clapton wrote this soft ballad, borrowing lines from the story of Layla and Majnun to incorporate into the lyrics of the song.

6. Anyday(Eric Clapton/Bobby Whitlock):

Another Great song by the Clapton/Whitlock writing duo. Duane Allman added the slide to the song giving it what he called a chariot like driving beat.

7. Key To The Highway(Big Bill Broonzy):

I believe this song was written by Big Bill Broonzy. Great cover of an old Blues Standard!

8. Tell The Truth(Eric Clapton/Bobby Whitlock):

I believe the majority of this song was written by Bobby Whitlock. After Duane Allman had showed Bobby a few different open guitar tunings Bobby came up with this song.

9. Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad(Eric Clapton/ Bobby Whitlock):

Not much to say about this song other than its a great faced paced rocker with some blistering guitar solo's. Clapton and Bobby Whitlock said when they formed the Dominoes they just wanted to write some songs that they could play and jam to.

10. Have You Ever Loved A Woman(Billy Myles):

Dominoes attempt at capturing the energy of true blues in the style of Clapton's greatest guitar influence Freddie King.

11. Little Wing(Jimi Hendrix):

Initially an attempt to cover a great song by a great artist, But shortly after the Dominoes recorded this song Jimi Hendrix Died and it became a passionate tribute to a close friend of Clapton.

12. Its Too Late(?):

I forget who wrote this song performed by the Dominoes. Great cover. Which was also covered by Freddie King and Buddy Holly. The Dominoes version is a mix of those two.

13. Layla(Eric Clapton/Jim Gordon/Duane Allman):

Layla's beginning chords of the song were the first creation of the song by Clapton. He had written early on with the Dominoss, but didnt show it to anyone because he wasnt quite sure what to do with it at that point. The song was co-written with the drummer Jim Gordon as far as I can tell just related to the piano coda at the end of the song.

Rita Coolidge also had her hand in on the piano coda of the song as Jim Gordon and Rita Coolidge were dating at the time. It was something Jim Gordon wanted to play on his solo album but clapton really thought it would fit perfectly at the end of Layla and talked him into putting it on the album..

The opening riff of the song Duane added, which made the song that much more powerful. He borrowed the lick from a Albert King song, the name of the same song escapes me right now. From the recent book about Layla and Derek and the Dominos. Bobby Whitlock had mentioned that (i believe years later) after Layla had been created he was on a plane with Albert King and told him that the opening lick was taken from one of his songs and the band was making money off of i. Albert King just said to Bobby "that boy dont owe me anything I got plenty of songs..."

14. Thorn Tree In The Garden (Bobby Whitlock):

This song was the last track the group played together on. They all sat around on the floor together with acoustics around a candle and recorded this in one take. Some interview I read on Bobby Whitlock, he said he wrote the song about this dog that was owned by a previous band he was with. Apparently the dog ran away or was given away or something and he was heartbroken about it. Beautiful song though!

Interview with Tom Dowd, Producer of the Layla album..

Derek & The Dominoes Live at the Fillmore East

Live album with the dominoes some great jamming going on, Its to bad that there are not more great quality recordings of their live performances like this.

Track Listing:

1. Got To Get Better In A Little While

2. Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad

3. Key To The Highway

4. Blues Power

5. Have You Ever Loved A Woman

6. Bottle Of Red Wine

DIsc 2

1. Tell The Truth

2. Nobody Knows You When Your Down And Out

3. Roll It Over

4. Little Wing

5. Presence of the Lord

6. Let It Rain

7. Crossroads

'Brownie' Claptons most prized guitar which he had auctioned off in 1999 through the Christie's auction in aid of the Crossroads rehab centre, sold for just under half a million dollars. The Strat now resides in the EMP(Experience Music Project) museum in Seattle, Washington ( I have been to the museum a few times to stare and drool at this guitar).

Its a 1956 Fender Stratocaster in sunburst finish, maple neck with skunk-stripe routing, 21-fret fingerboard with dot inlays, three pickups, three rotary controls, five-way selector switch, tremolo/bridge tailblock and white pickguard.

This was arguably Eric Clapton's most important guitar, even more so than 'Blackie'. It was also arguably his best sounding guitar. It had both emotional and historic importance to Eric, as it was the first Strat he ever bought. He had seen one of his heroes, Buddy Guy, playing one at the Marquee Club and decided he wanted one as well.(Another quote about Eric on acquiring a strat: Around the time of Hendrix's death(late 1970) Eric switched from playing Les Pauls to Strats. Was that a conscious tribute to him? "Yes, I think it was," recalls Clapton."Once he wasn't there anymore I felt like there was this room to pick up. But then I also saw Steve Winwood playing one, and something about that did it for me. I went to see him at the Marquee and he was playing a white-necked strat and there was something about it...")

He purchased it from Sound City, one of the best suppliers of musical instruments at the time, which was located at 124 Charing Cross Road in London. He bought it on May 7 1967 for the princely sum of E150 quid, but interestingly didn't use it during his time in Cream or even Blind Faith. He started using it for session work in lat 1969 and 1970 with Delaney & Bonnie, Doris Troy, George Harrison and Leon Russell, as he felt the sound was more appropriate for the style of music he wanted to play. He would still occasionally play a Gibson of some sort, but his principle electric guitar of choice from late 1969 to the present day became the Fender Stratocaster.

'Brownie', as it was affectionately referred to much later on in its life, was his main guitar for the recording of his first solo album, Eric Clapton-he was pictured on the front cover with it, and by late 1970 it had become synonymous with the sound of Eric Clapton. Perhaps the best example of its unique tone, can be found on the Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs double album, where it is set against Duane Allman's more throaty Gibson Les Paul. Brownie is again pictured on the sleeve, this time on the rear of the Layla Album, seemingly discarded on the studio floor with a pair of headphones among a pile of dominoes, cigarette butts and a pair of shoes. The inside cover features Eric playing Brownie in a variety of poses taken during sessions at Criteria Studios in Miami. Other examples of Brownie's sound can be found on the Live Derek & The Dominoes Fillmore album, and their aborted second album sessions(some of these are featured on the Crossroads box set). In fact, countless photos from this period show him playing Brownie; with Delaney & Bonnie And Friends on their early 1970 US tour, the first Derek And The Dominoes Lyceum gig in London and a variety of shots from their tour later in the year. When Eric came back into the public eye in 1974, he had started using a different Strat, one which was made up of various other Strats he had bought in the US whilst on tour with the Dominoes in 1970. The new guitar became known as 'Blackie' and that's a whole different story...

He didn't abandon his old favourite, and would still occasionally use it on recording sessions for 461 Ocean Boulevard, as well as taking it on tour with him right up to the end of 1985. In fact, on the US tour that year, he would often use Brownie for the performance of Double Trouble.

At the auction, the biding started at $200.00 while the track Layla riffed away in the background. Initially, it went up in increments of $20,000.00, pausing for a time at $420,000.00. The auctioneer then jokingly offered to throw in a free guitar stand, before a final bid of $497,500.00 was accepted with the fall of a hammer. History was both bought and made in those few moments.

“Sometimes,” Ahmet Ertegun once said, “the guy who brings the coffee produces the session.” At the Atlantic Records of Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler, such creative serendipity often balanced precariously on the narrow but sturdy shoulders of Tom Dowd. One of the most gifted and innovative engineer/producers in recording history, he died October 27, 2002 at a nursing home in Aventura, Florida after a prolonged respiratory illness.

A youthful prodigy in physics and electronics, the New York City native graduated Stuyvesant High School at age 16 (my father, Howard Schwartz, graduated from the same school at the same age) and attended City College of New York before being drafted into the Army in 1942. Instead of being shipped overseas, Dowd was able to continue his work and studies in the physics labs of Columbia University as part of the US government-sponsored task force known as the Manhattan Project in the development of the atomic bomb. Dowd was also a trained musician (violin, piano, string bass, sousaphone) who performed with the Columbia band and orchestra. His horror at the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 is said to have led him to abandon nuclear physics and enter the recording field.

Beginning circa 1948, Tom toiled in various small New York studios recording everything from radio adverts to groundbreaking jazz dates with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music credits him with engineering the first stereo album, by the Wilbur De Paris Dixieland Band, “which required customized equipment, including two needles, to play it.” Dowd joined Atlantic as a full-time employee in 1954 (about a year after Jerry Wexler), when the label’s New York office still sometimes doubled as its recording studio. He became, in Wexler’s words, “the architect of the Atlantic sound,” bringing an unparalleled clarity and concision to the recording of r&b and jazz.

“Tom pushed those pots [volume controls] like a painter sorting colors,” wrote Wexler in his 1993 autobiography Rhythm and The Blues, co-authored with David Ritz. “He turned microphone placement into an art…When it came to sound, he displayed an exquisite sensitivity.”

In an October 1999 interview for MIX magazine, Dowd noted that “in February of ‘58, the first [Atlantic] session on 8-track was Lavern Baker. Within the next 90 days, I went through Bobby Darin, the Coasters, Charlie Mingus, Ray Charles…I would be sitting in the studio doing the Coasters at 2 o’clock in the afternoon with Mike [Stoller] and Jerry [Leiber]. Ahmet would call me up and say, ‘Ten o’clock tonight, we’re going to do Mingus.’ You want culture shock? Go from the Coasters to Charlie Mingus in ten hours!” Dowd designed Atlantic’s first 8-track studio on West 60th Street in 1959 and began recording there the following year.

In 1963, on his first visit to Stax Records in Memphis, Tom performed emergency repairs on the label’s archaic mono equipment and the next day cut Rufus Thomas on “Walkin’ The Dog.” Two years later, in July 1965, Dowd installed the first two-track stereo tape recorder at Stax, then broke in the new setup by recording Otis Redding’s entire Otis Blue album in two marathon sessions within 24 hours.

During his Atlantic years, Tom Dowd engineered landmark sessions by John Coltrane (including “Giant Steps” and “My Favorite Things”), Modern Jazz Quartet, Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, the (Young) Rascals, Dusty Springfield (including Dusty In Memphis), and Cream (including Disraeli Gears, which “was finished in one weekend” according to Eric Clapton). Some less celebrated albums from his immense Atlantic discography include The Fantastic Jazz Harp of Dorothy Ashby, Suddenly the Blues by Leo Wright, Cher’s 3614 Jackson Highway, Latin Bugalu by Charlie Palmieri, Blues From The Gutter by Champion Jack Dupree, and High On The Hog by Black Oak Arkansas. Dowd was never admitted to the Atlantic partnership and did not share in the rewards from the $17 million sale of the label in 1967. He remained a high-salaried employee until the mid-Seventies, when he left Atlantic to pursue independent production.

Musicians loved him for his great patience, his peerless technical ability, and his total dedication to the task at hand. It was Tom Dowd who introduced Duane Allman to Eric Clapton, and who a short time later produced Derek & the Dominoes’ 1970 double album Layla, And Other Assorted Love Songs. The Dowd/Clapton partnership persisted into the Eighties through such albums as 461 Ocean Boulevard, EC Was Here, and Money and Cigarettes.

“For better or worse, the strength of [Layla] rested almost entirely on Tom’s faith in me,” wrote Eric Clapton in an essay published on the occasion of NARAS (the Grammy organization) presenting Dowd with its 2002 Trustees Award. “I had no finished songs, no real concept or idea of where I was going, nothing but an abstract burning passion for live, spontaneous music.”

“On top of everything else, I refused to make the record under my own name, and was developing a powerful drink and drug problem – not a great position for any record producer to be placed in, but Tom pulled it off. He saw the potential and exercised the most incredible patience in getting through the obstacles that I would constantly place in front of him. It’s little wonder that I eventually came to look on him as a father figure.”

Dowd formed a similar long-lasting bond with another gifted but troubled musician, Gregg Allman, beginning in 1970 when Tom produced the Allman Brothers Band’s second album Idlewild South. Producer and group soldiered on through four more LPs, including the classic 1971 live double At Fillmore East. The band split in 1980, then regrouped nine years later—and Dowd took the controls once again for a pair of live sets and three more studio albums. (Where It All Begins, from 1994, ranks with the ABB’s best post-Duane Allman recordings.) Their final, touching reunion came September 13, 2002 when Tom—now using a wheelchair and and an oxygen tank—attended an Allman Brothers Band performance in West Palm Beach, Florida.

A less affectionate but even more lucrative affiliation was with Lynyrd Skynyrd for the albumsGimme Back My Bullets, One More From the Road, and the original band’s final testament Street Survivors. Dowd also made numerous dully-professional albums with the likes of Rod Stewart, Meat Loaf, and Chicago. But in his last professional decade, working with the Allmans, Primal Scream, and Joe Bonamassa, Tom returned to the forceful, blues-based electric music that he had helped bring to prominence twenty years before.

As an album producer, Tom Dowd shared in other people’s Grammy Awards like Allmans’ 1995 win for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Incredibly, Dowd never won his own Grammy Award in the Producer and/or Engineering categories. His only elective Grammy, for Best Album Notes of 1992, was earned for his contribution to the liner booklet for the Aretha Franklin box set Queen Of Soul – The Atlantic Recordings—an award he shared with six other contributors. Ten years later, in a belated attempt to correct this gross oversight, NARAS presented Tom with both a Lifetime Achievement Grammy and the Trustees Award. He was also the subject of the 2003 documentary film, Tom Dowd and the Language of Music, directed by Mark Moormann.

“There is a tribe of musicians, spread all over the world, who have been fostered and nurtured by Tom Dowd,” wrote Eric Clapton. “We know who we are, and we are proud of who we are, but most of all, we are proud of him. I am honored and privileged to be one of them.”

GRITZ: I see you released a new album on the Grapevine label, and it's called "It's about Time." Tell me (about) "It's About Time," Bobby. WHITLOCK: Well, it's not a double or a triple, but a quadruple entendre. It's about time I had some product out; it's a song about, it's about time that we changed things and made this world a better place to live. The song speaks for itself. That's pretty much it; you just really have to listen to the song and the lyrics to understand what it's all about, because it is all about "time," and it's gonna be recorded in one century and released in another. So it's a whole time frame - I wrote it the day before we bombed Saddam Hussein, okay? -

"and the children crying in the streets,

sons and daughters dying at their mothers' feet,

it's about time

to be set free,

it's about time,

it's our destiny.

Sooner or later, we're gonna get along.

Sooner or later, we're gonna sing a song

of peace.

Lovin' your fellow man,

As far as the eye can see.

Hand holding gentle hand,

It's About Time. So that's the essence of it.

Interesting, 'cause I'm gonna tie that back into a song you wrote about 30 years ago when you were talking about being aware of time, as a young man. A friend of mine that I was talking to that's a guitar player, Peter Young, that's gonna play with me, just yesterday: I've always known, when I was even a little child, what I was gonna do, and about incarnation and reincarnation. I've always been aware of this thing - I've discussed it with my wife, Vivian, and everything - I've always known what I - that this was my destiny. I've always known this. I've never had any aspirations of being president of the United States, or senator, or anything like that, or owning a shipping company. I've always known this, and I've always known that all the changes that I'm going through and I've gone through, have led up to this point in time in my life. Peter said, "That's pretty amazing!" (laughs).

So you've always known music was your medium. Even when I was very small, less than three feet tall. I've always known, and I've always known that I would be in this position, and I've always known this. I've never forced it--it's never been a forced issue. My uncle Troy told me - he's dead now - and he played flat-top guitar and mandolin - he said, "Do it because you want to, not because you have to, and it will make sense," and that whole thing just brought it to light to me. This was when I was real young, because you can't go out and do what I do to make money, because then you won't make money. Money is just the aftermath - it follows you. My whole thing is like I have something to say; there's so many ways to say "I love you." There's been--how many times has the song been written? and it's a different song every time, but the same message. But it's kinda like I'm a faucet; a spigot, rather, a water faucet that turns on, and all of these things are in the air, all of these ideas and melodies and messages are in the air. I'm one of these people that are channeled in that area, that is attracted to (this). I have this ability to just say things and sing things and play things that just strike home that are real natural. I don't mean that in any other way - there are people who are destined to be directors of companies and there are people who are destined to be great golfers; I'm destined to be projecting this message and sing the way I do.

One of the songs from the Layla box set, and one of my favorite songs that you helped co-write follows this: "Tell the Truth," which is just what you've been saying. Yeah, that came to me one night. I was at Eric's house; (I) stayed at Eric's for six months and then we got a place in town - we called it "the Domino flat." It was 'hell on wheels,' I'm telling you, we were a terror. But we were young and out of control. It came to me: the whole world was shaking, and it felt like it. The whole thing came to me, and I made up chords. It was an open 'E' but everything was backwards. Eric helped me on the very last verse, and I just wrote the whole thing that night - it just came to me - "the whole world's shaking, can't you feel it? A new dawn's breaking, I can see it." And there was a new dawn, and it was a new dawn in my life, and there was a new dawn in that it was a new day.

That's great. So you've been very much aware of what's going on in the world and changes we've been coming through - to the millenium - I think more people are becoming more aware than people are becoming afraid and leery. They understand that there's a humanity that needs to be involved in this whole life process and concept. I believe that more people are becoming more centered, spiritually and moralistically. I believe things are turning around - I know I am. I know that I'm changing, that I'm growing, and that I have grown. I would hate to turn around and suddenly, I'm 92 and never experienced this whole life process.

Back to your early years, when you were younger, and you knew you were going to become a musician - was part of that because you were born in Memphis and you were so much steeped in the Memphis sounds? (thoughtfully) No. Like, when I was real, real little, it was just a part of me--it was in my soul, and in my spirit. I sang all the time. I always knew it - I'm talking about real little, like a little bitty boy. Not eight (years old), but smaller. I just always knew it! I mean, I chopped cotton and picked cotton, rode the back of bean planters and stuff as I was growin' up out in the country, in Arkansas. But I always knew that I was goin' to do - it was in my spirit. It was the heart of me. I always knew this. It's nothing I set out to do - like I just didn't suddenly turn 15 years old and decide to play. It's something I've always done: sing and sittin' down and playin', it came as a natural thing to me.

What did you start out (playing) first - was it guitar or was it keyboards? It was guitar! My grandmother, "Big Momma" King, used to sit me down on her lap when I was about three or four years old, and had this old National dobro. It had hula dancers on the front and on the back, and she'd sit down and play me (softly sings gospel-style) "turn your radio on, get in touch with Jesus." She had long hair down to the ground, and she gave that guitar to me when I was about 14, and I immediately sprayed it black. Then it got lost, over the years. Then someone, a girl named Genya Revan, who was with 10-Wheel Drive, called me one time, out of the blue, and said, "I have something that belongs to you." I left it with her in New York, because I knew it was going to get lost in the shuffle. As it turns out, I got the guitar back and I restored it. I put her name on top of it, inlaid it - after all those years!and I played it on the record (the new release).

Speaking of guitars, I want to skip to a song that you're known for, off the Layla album - it's the last one, "Thorn Tree in the Garden." Who is that about? You don't know what that was about? No, but I sure would. I know what your lyrics say, but it seems like everybody was! No, there's not very many people - I've only told this story - one time. I don't think that anyone would believe me, but I'll tell you: it was about a dog - a little dog that I had. I used to live at the Plantation - remember the song, "Shoot-out at the Plantation" that Leon Russell wrote? There was thirteen of us: "Indian Head" Davis, Jimmy Karstein; there was a bunch of us living in this house in California. And I had a little puppy that I named after Delaney's daughter, Bekka Bramlett. So I had a little puppy and a cat, and I was one of thirteen people that was living in this house in the Valley. This guy - I'm not going to give his name because I think that would be inappropriate - said, "You need to get rid of these animals, we can't have--there's too many people in this house at the same time, anyway. There was Chuck Blackwell, who played drums with Taj Mahal; I mean, there was thirteen of us living in this house! And so I got rid of the cat; I took it out to Delaney's house in Hawthorne, CA, and left that with Delaney and his mom out there. When I got back, I wasn't going to get rid of my dog, Bekka, but I got back and this guy had taken my dog away, and it really upset me. Rather than doing anything physical or anything like that because it really hurt me emotionally, I was thinking, well, 'a snake in the woodpile,' this and that; then I went, no: 'thorn tree in my garden.' And so I wrote the song, sittin' in my bedroom and the "thorn tree in my garden" was this guy who had disposed of my dog. And the song is about my little dog, and he was the thorn tree in my garden. It's not about a woman or anything; it's about love.

For a favorite pet - that's really nice. Speaking of Delaney Bramlett, how did you two guys meet? played all the clubs in Memphis and in the South during the mid-'60s, and everybody came - I was the first white artist signed to Stax records, on their "Hip" label - their so-called "pop" label at that time. I hung out with Steve Cropper, my mentor and a friend to this day; "Duck" Dunn was my first producer. I was there when the Staples Singers did "Long Walk to D.C." and Albert King did "Crosscut Saw" - I was in the studio. Every time that Stax was open, you used to go down on McLemore (street) and not worry about being killed - I was there! Every time the doors opened, I was there - it opened at 9:00 a.m.; I was there at 8:30 a.m., and I stayed all day and night. I watched them do "Hip Hugger" and "Slim Jenkin's Joint" and everything like that. And then I used to go out on the road with Booker T. and the MG's. I went to Lanskey Brothers and got a lime-green suit - the collar went out to my shoulders - and I sang when Isaac Hayes and David Porter quit goin' out on the road with the MG's, I would go out and sing out in front and do all the Otis (Redding) songs and stuff. So, I was hooked up like that. Well, "Duck" Dunn discovered Delaney and Bonnie in a bowling alley in Hawthorne, CA., and he brought them to Memphis. It was the second album - it was the first record - but it turned out to be the second album, done in Memphis. He brought them to one of these clubs I was playin' called the Cabaret Club - now it's a tuxedo shop - but I played all the clubs: The Louisian' Club, Paris Theatre - everything! At the Paradise - I'd go down to the Paradise and I'd be the only white person there. In a sea of black folks, I'd be the only white person at the Paradise, and not afraid or threatened or anything. Everything was copacetic then. It all changed when Martin Luther King, Jr. got killed. But "Duck" discovered Delaney and Bonnie in this bowling alley and brought 'em to Memphis. They came down - everybody would come, like Eddie Floyd, and Cropper, and "Duck," and they would all come and sit in with my band. All I did was soul music, and Booker T and the MG's stuff, and I did "Expressway to your Heart," remember? and Young Rascals stuff - that's all I did. If you didn't know how to play "Midnight Hour," I wasn't gonna be bothered with you. I never had heard Eric Clapton or nothing; I didn't know nothing about no Cream or anything like that. I wasn't interested in all that diddley-diddley stuff, and pink hair and everything; I was like strictly into rhythm and blues. He ("Duck") brought Delaney and Bonnie to hear me one night - it was a Thursday - and they heard me and said, "We're gonna put a band together. Would you like to come to California?" I said, "Yeah!" and I was gone on Saturday. I just packed my doo-wah diddy bag, and I had my Nehru jacket on, and got off the plane in California, and I ain't never been nowhere, except to Macon, GA., with the MG's, flying - that's the first time I ever flew. I went to California and you know, things changed (chuckles) big time (laughs).

I'll say. I know the album you're talking about; that's the "Home" album, the one they called "Home." Yeah, well, it's the second album, but it was really the first one that we recorded. The first album released was "Accept No Substitute," and that was on Clive Davis's label, Electra.

I have both of those; they took me a while to track 'em down, but they were worth the effort - you're right, that's full of rhythm and blues and soul. Yep, that's who was playin' on it - it was the Stax guys. We did it all down at Stax. As a matter of fact, I still got my jacket off that Electra album, I still got that coat. That's the only piece of memorabilia I have, really. It's got Leon Russell - we did "Ghetto" - boy, it's a real, real good record.

It's definitely one of the nicest things I've heard. Jumping ahead: now you're in England with Delaney and Bonnie as part of their Friends, and you're on tour with Eric Clapton. Whose idea was it, on the inside jacket picture, to have you guys walk through the desert carrying all your gear? Barry Feinstein - the guy who did all the photography. We went out in the desert - you remember a guy - I can't believe I remember - Albert Grossman - he managed The Band - that was his Rolls Royce. And Barry's feet (hanging out the window). We went out to the Joshua Tree. Gram!

Parsons. He discovered Delaney and Bonnie - we were playing in Snoopy's Opera House; five dollars a night, five nights a week. He's the one who connected us with everybody - really, Gram did. But that's Barry's feet hangin' out, and Albert Grossman's Rolls Royce. We just went out there and was walkin', and it just happened, it was one of those things - we went out to the Joshua Tree, where that boy - his road guy took him out to the Joshua Tree after he died.

I was wondering, because I noticed everyone's carrying gear but Delaney! ( laughing) Is there a common denominator there or what?

That's why I kinda wondered, who set up the shoot, because I figured in the desert, it must have been hot and dusty. I see Eric's carrying an electric guitar case! And I'm carrying a guitar - he's got mine, and that one was his.

That album is one of the most exciting live albums I ever heard. (matter-of-factly) We moved fixed stages. You gotta figure we had Jim Gordon, Jim Keltner; both of 'em on drums, we had a guy named Tex (Johnson) on congas, Bobby Keys, Jim Price, Leon Russell, Rita Coolidge, Delaney and Bonnie, myself!

Dave Mason! !Eric Clapton, Dave Mason, and George Harrison - I mean, that was one serious, serious band! We were a tough act to follow - we opened up for Blind Faith in America, and we were shuttin' 'em down. We were getting front-page reviews, and that's where we met Eric. I mean, we were blowin' them away. They were doin' "Can't Find My Way Home"; they had Stevie Winwood in the band, and Ginger (Baker) and Rick Grech. See, we befriended Eric - he couldn't believe our camaraderie - we always hung out in hotel rooms and stayed up all night, playin' guitars and singin' and raising hell, telling people to go to sleep and quit bangin' on the walls (laughs). But that was our nature - we'd do it on the airplanes, we'd sing on the airplanes and stuff, that was our nature. Eric really loved that camaraderie, and he wanted to work with us. Delaney - I remember standing outside - we were in Maple Leaf Gardens, in Toronto, and we played there, and we were lookin' at Blind Faith, because we opened up for them. He said - he was lookin' at Eric - "What do you think about him playin' with us?" I said, "I think it would be great - he's a great guitar player, but he's gonna have to do somethin' about them pink pants!" (laughter). That's kinda how it went.

Oh, no! (laughing) This is true. And then I went through my tenure with the whole Delaney and Bonnie thing, and we went all over the world - I mean, it was a great band, a great thing that happened, and I learned a lot. I kept my mouth shut, except when I was singin', and my ears and eyes wide open. When it came down to doin' it, I couldn't be with Delaney and Bonnie any more 'cause they were fussin' and fightin' all the time. Everybody had been goin' through drugs and doing all that shit. I called Steve Cropper - I had married an old girlfriend and we were living across the street from Delaney and Bonnie, and they were fightin' with each other - it was just awful. I called Steve Cropper and said, "I gotta get out of here; I'm hooked up with a woman who wants me to go back and chop cotton and drive tractors, and I can't do that!" And he said, "Why don't you go over and see Eric?" I said, "I don't have any money!" and so Steve Cropper bought my airplane ticket, and I had $120 in my pocket. I called Eric and I said, "Hey, man, do you mind if I come over and visit for a minute?" He said, "No, come on over, I'm just getting my hair cut." Little did he know, I showed up the next day, and that's really how it happened. So, (Steve) Cropper gave me the advice to call Eric, and also bought my airplane ticket, and my first wife's ticket back home. I gave him credit on my album (laughs): thanks for the advice. Thanks for the advice and the ticket, Steve! (laughter.)

That's really kind of you. I see by the liner notes off the "Layla" box set, that you, with Dave Mason, who was an original member of the early Dominos; you were looking to have a Sam and Dave type of approach to the band. That was my idea - that's what I figured out how to - I was kind of a fire under Eric's ass as far as it was, vocally, 'cause he wasn't real secure with his vocals. His first album, as a matter of fact - we did the "Eric Clapton" album, with Delaney and Bonnie and Friends - but Delaney sang all the songs and Eric just came up back behind him and sang exactly what Delaney had sang. Delaney put everything, all the vocals down and Eric came back behind and just put 'em down, exactly like (sings softly): "I'm lovin' you, lovin' me, it's all the same!" Eric was real insecure vocally. He's more secure now, but he ain't Otis Redding, but I mean, he's a good singer. But I put a fire under his ass, and it was an option that I took, just to - our band was open - we didn't want no chicks, and no horn players, we wanted a four-piece rock 'n roll band, and we did it, and I chose to it like Sam and Dave. He'd (Eric) do a verse, I'd do a verse, we'd do one together, we'd do the things together, I was doing harmonies and all that, so that's how that all came to light.

I love, for example, on "Tell the Truth"! I was doin' my 'John Lennon' low harmonies. That was my John Lennon stuff. John Lennon would do a lower harmony under Paul (McCartney), and I would do that kind of a thing. It was whatever the song called for and dictated, is what went down. Sometimes, the best part is no part at all.

You did it also on that Chuck Willis song, "It's Too Late" - you came in right behind Eric, also. That's right. It's just whatever it felt like, whatever it felt was right. That's what went down. We all trusted each other enough - we were professional enough to let each other have room, and space, and I believe that's true, at this point in time in my life: Hey, am I gonna tell Jim Horn what to play? (laughs). Am I gonna tell Steve Cropper what to play? (laughs). No, I'm not! I'm gonna leave it to their good judgement, 'cause they know - they hear it - they see the 'big picture.' I mean, I see the 'big picture.' If I'm doin' something with someone else, or for someone else, I know what my part is. Just like I said earlier, sometimes your part is no part at all. You can always make up something, but then that 'something' just very well may not be the one that sinks - that goes in the hole. I think, "less is more."

Now we're up to the time period when the Dominos have begun to jell, and you're in the Criteria studio in Florida. I saved the original Layla album jacket from 30 years ago. Inside, there's a picture of a handsome-looking guy wearing a bandana, with his arms folded, a white shirt, hair tucked back over his ears, looking confident, like he owns the world - there you are. Yeah, I was feeling real confident about everything. I mean, we were in there, doin' it. I told Tom Dowd - I got the idea from him when we did George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" album - that album is just Derek and the Dominos with George Harrison and sundry guests. We were a constant - we were a mainstay of that whole album. Phil Spector was so funny in the control room; man, they really needed to have the whole thing running in the control room. And, plus, we did the "Apple Jams." When we got to Miami, I told Ronnie and Howie Albert, and Tom Dowd, "If anybody walks in, it's just tape; just turn it on!" - whether it's Eric by himself, or me and Carl (Radle), or whomever it may be, just turn the tape on. So that's how we wound up with all those jams and everything.

You have four or five long jams on that box set. (enthusiastically) Oh, big time! When we were doing the band, we would play in 'E,' - just 'E' - (laughing) for hours and hours and hours down at Eric's house, and we had a complaint from a neighbor: Can you guys change the chord? (more laughter). Just change keys, please! (laughter).

That's great! I'm thankful the LP photos are in color, because there's a great color shot of you with your arms around a very special guy: Duane Allman. Yeah!he was my bro'. His brother (Gregg) had gone to California, and was doing that Hollywood thing. Duane and I, we were close; see, I knew Duane before I knew Eric or anything. Duane and I had been mates for years - we were friends for years.

He also played on "Motel Shot" and "To Bonnie from Delaney" with you, with Delaney! That's right - so he went back a long ways with us, you see. It was just one of those coincidental things - they (the Allman Brothers Band) happened to be playing down in Florida. It all evolved - Tom (Dowd) wanted him there, and I wanted him there, and he was excited about this Eric Clapton-thing. Eric had never really heard about the Allman Brothers, or Duane, or anything, but when he walked in, boy, it just really completed the picture. We were in the middle of recording at that point in time, and then Duane came in and it was just like - brilliant. He was my - I was his 'little brother,' he'd say, 'cause Gregg was off in Hollywood. But Duane and I, we were - we were womanizers!

Oh, no! I'll put it to you like that (mischievous laughter). I think that's as gentle as I can be with that! (more laughter). We were on the phone, and Macon, Geoirgia was busy in Miami! (laughs).

You told me that Gregg is godfather to your daughter. That's a fact!

He was there at the hospital - tell me about the story. I had moved to Macon, after the Dominos and all that. I went down and talked to Phil Walden; that's when I started my Capricorn (label) tenure, and I moved down to Macon. When my first child was born - my daughter, Ashley - she has writer's credits on one of the songs, "Born to Play the Blues" - that's another story - and also is singing on the album that's coming out here in the new year - when she was born, my first album with Capricorn came out the day my daughter came out. (laughs) I was in the waiting room and Gregg came walkin' in with a six-pack of Heineken, sits down and says, "I knew you was by yourself," and he sat with me. We heard when my baby was born, and he's my daughter's godfather.

That was "One of a Kind" (1975); is that correct? That would be it. It's one of a kind. She's my only daughter, and she's gorgeous, and sings, and is so talented, and so is my son, Beau, as well as my son, Chris, and my other son, C.J.

That's wonderful. Thinking back to Duane for a second, there's one of those jams, the last one, #5 - you guys go on for 18 minutes, and Duane does some marvelous sawing away with that bottleneck - I swear to God he's sawing away at the strings!you guys had a wonderful time on those long ones, those long jams. That's what we did. If you listen to that album from front!from the start to the end, everything is exactly where it was and how it came about. There wasn't a positioning of 'this song comes here, and this song is gonna be placed in number five (slot)' - it was exactly how it went down. Everything is exactly how it went down. When we went back and we had room for another song, Eric said, "We got room for one more song." I mean, we didn't have enough songs for--we didn't have enough material for one album, much less a double album. I went out and wrote some lyrics in the middle of the whole thing, on "Keep on Growing."

Great song! Yeah, we used to do that as a jam. We had another jam that we used to do called the "Airport Shuffle." But "Keep on Growing" was a jam, and we just put it down. They were gonna trash it - I said, "No, gimme a second. Gimme a pen, and 20 minutes." And I went out into the lobby of Criteria and wrote the lyrics and went back in and tried to sing it, and it wasn't for me to sing, but Eric and I could sing it together, perfect - it worked out perfectly. But I wrote all the lyrics in, like, 20 minutes. (sings in a husky voice) "I was standin'!" - you know, that whole thing, it just all came out. I said, "No, we can't trash this song!" And so a lot of that went down as we were there! Next thing you know, we were going in and Eric and Tom Dowd said, "We've got room for one more song," and they said, "Bobby, would you like to put something on here?" I said, "Well, this is kind of a 'love' album', and so that's when I said, "How about 'Thorn Tree in the Garden'? Tom Dowd, in Producer magazine--one time, I read an interview, he said that (song) is perfect stereo recording: with the voice, and the bass, and Jim Gordon with the little bell, and the guitars: Duane and Eric, and myself - he said that is the epitome of a perfect stereo recording. And that comes from the man! - Mr. Dowd - and I felt real proud about that. So, they closed the album with it, 'cause it was the last thing that we did. I'm real proud about all of that; I feel real good about all that I've done, what I've accomplished, maybe the lives that I've touched, and the changes, and maybe a difference, in a little ways, somewhere or another, you know? As a matter of fact, there was a party that was goin' on, and this was in Columbus, OH; it's got that university there. These people had a party for me after one of my shows. And so I went to the party, and I had to catch a plane, and I said, "I've got to go," and they said, "No, you've got to wait - you need to wait, there's somebody coming to see you." I was getting ready to walk out the door when this man and woman walked up. They said, "We've just got to say 'thank you.'" And I said, "Why is that?" See, I never really knew about what kind of impact that we, as writers and artists and singers and players have on the world. They said, "We've just got to say, thank you." I said, "For what?" They said, "Thorn Tree in the Garden." He said, "I was just getting ready to leave my wife - I walked out the door - I was walking out the door and the song came on the radio. I turned around, and we were arm-in-arm." I said, "Thank you very much, I'm flattered," and he said, "You don't get it," and he went, "come here, boys!" And there was two curly-haired, red-headed kids come walking up; two boys, they were twins. He said, "Without you writing that song, I would have never been with her and we wouldn't have these children, and we have a good life." Suddenly, I knew that I had a role in this world, and that it was an important thing that I'm doing.

(softly) I'm glad to capture that story. Isn't that a good story? That's the gospel truth. I hope these people read this article and remember it, and contact me. I wish I knew who they were, because they changed my life - they changed - those two people, and those two red-headed curly-haired boys, changed my concept of and my view of my perception of where I am in the scheme of things on this planet.

That's a great tribute, Bobby, I'm glad you got a message like that; that's wonderful. Let me ask you about two of your bandmates who can't participate for a number of reasons. I'm speaking of Jim Gordon and Carl Radle. I was very sorry to read about Jim's illness (author's note: paranoid schizophrenia - he murdered his mother during a psychotic episode and remains under heavy sedation in an institution) during the '80s - he was a marvelous, versatile musician. What's your take on Jim Gordon? He had the heart of a freight train, and there wasn't nobody at home. He could play like a locomotive, but when you looked in his eyes, there wasn't nobody home. I told him he needed to get help. A long time ago, he said that he heard voices. I told him, "No, that's like, I go to the closet; that's that 'small, still voice,' that's called a conscience. He said, "No, I hear voices," and that was a long time ago. All the drugs and everything - maybe that part of the brain that assimilates things had gone because of all the heroin and the cocaine, and the morphine, and everything. Maybe he had done too much of it, the seratonin (level). Maybe he had eliminated his brain of being able to put things together; I don't know, it's just my philosophical thinking. I feel for his family - my heart goes for and to his family, and it's a tragic situation that he's in, but he put himself in there, and it's a choice that he made. He could have stopped doing those drugs and sought help, but he chose not to, and it cost him his life, it cost him the lives of all of his family members, but on top of everything else, it cost his mother her life. It's real, real sad.

I heard he could play non-stop - he just wouldn't stop drumming. That's it! Like I've told you: like a locomotive, like a freight train. He's probably one of the most talented people that's in jail for the rest of their entire life for a major atrocity.

I was amazed that he only played keyboards on some of Delaney's albums - he never touched the drums (on some songs). Of course, he put the coda on "Layla." That was him and me. You hear that real big-sounding thing; that was him, and you hear where it's real screwed up, that's me. So, Tom Dowd put both parts together - the piano coda. That's Jim and myself at the end of that thing. (earnestly) As a matter of fact, he did not write that - he did not write that. Jim Horn wrote that. Absolutely true, and that's a fact: I can attest to that. I'm a witness. Jim Horn showed him that - Jim Horn just did my album - and Jim said, "Lemme show you somethin', and I went, "Whoa!" - he did! I remember Jim Gordon and Rita Coolidge were livin' together up on some canyon, and I was stayin' in the house down below, and they were upstairs, and they were trying - Jim Gordon played me this thing, and they were trying to put it together, him and Rita. It turns out, Jim Horn actually really wrote that coda. Like I say, I'm tellin' you the truth, I'm a witness.

Another person: was Carl Radle an underrated bass player? I don't think he ever got the credit for what he could do. No. He was a downbeat player, and I mean that in a positive way. He wasn't (sings a funky, popping bass shuffle) - he wasn't one of them upbeat, slap-em, back-em kind of a deal. He'd go over there and put his head down and stand in a corner, and just play and do the thing he was supposed to do - he was just right there on the money. I remember one time when we was playin' in Great Britain - it cost them a pound to get in - we didn't charge them anything - and we played this club that was upstairs - jam packed! I looked up at Carl and he had those round John Lennon glasses and they were just frosted over. It was steam from everybody that was in there (laughs). He was wild!.was absolutely wild, but a great player. A silent raver - I never saw him with a woman, never saw him with a man, never saw him with a woman. Then, one time I walked into his hotel room and he had six women in bed with him, and I said, "Awright!" (cackles of laughter). And he's layin' up there with a big shit-eatin' grin on his face! (more wild laughing). He had three on one side and three on the other. (gleeful laughter). (proudly) He had his legs crossed; it was just totally, totally too cool! (peals of laughing) I just opened the door, looked in, smiled, shook my head and closed it, and turned around and walked away.

That's great, that's great! Lots of stuff I never told anybody; nobody knows this insight!

No, that's why I called you! (both laugh). By the way, your songwriting, and people covering you - did you know Buckwheat Zydeco covered "Why Does Love Got to be So Sad?" Yeah, and he's too cool - that guy can really play a (Hammond) B-3. Vivian, my wife, got me a Buckwheat Zydeco thing, but it doesn't have "Why Does Love Got to be So Sad?" on it. But I've always wanted to hear that, and I haven't been able to get hold of it yet. But, that guy can really play a B-3, man!

I've heard him do that; I heard it back in the late '80s, and it took me a second to realize what he was doing. I recognized the melody; of course, it didn't have the guitar wash that we recognize. He's a real player, man, he knows what to do on a B-3. Not a whole lot of people know what to do on a B-3: I can only say there are four people, like Jimmy Smith, Booker T. Jones, Buckwheat Zydeco, and me. That's the only four people I know that know how to operate a B-3, and I don't mean that egotistically, I mean that as a matter of fact.

Hmm, 'cause I was going to say, Gregg (Allman) plays a B-3. Yeah, but Gregg has one that's all - he asked me one time, he said, "You get more sound out of one Leslie than I ever heard. Can you fix my organ?" I went in back of his organ and it's all the electric stuff - I mean, he had taken the guts out. I do it real natural. I can tweak it up and everything. Yeah, Gregg's a great B-3 player, don't get me wrong. He's one of my favorite - he's one of the soulfullest white guys I know.

But as you say, you feel more comfortable on that B-3, yourself. I'm comfortable right there.

That's an interesting point you made about the sound of your organ - listening to the Dominos live CDs that I've got, as well as the studio material - you used to put out a tornado of sound; it literally swirled - it moved, and you could see it moving around - I could, at least. Yeah, in your mind. On this album I've got coming out, I've got a 1959 Hammond B-3 that's never been played by anyone but myself, with two Leslies. I set one Leslie on one speed and one on the other. And on some songs, I put three organs on, which means there's six Leslies goin', and they're spread out, and you would never know it, unless I told you. It's the most awesome instrument - it's a powerful, powerful instrument. Not loud-like, but it's powerful: it's got a lot of dimension and depth about it. If you'll be gentle with it, it can be huge.

That's what you did. It's kind of like watching a genie pop out of a bottle in slow motion - how the cloud filters up out of the bottle! Yeah, that's a good synopsis of it. What I do, I go in the back of the organ and work in the back side of it, go into it, and I get the most output out of the power amp, to where you don't overdraw out of the Leslies, and I change the vibrato and the tone sounds, but it's things that are like, personal things. I couldn't tell someone how to do it and they go do it and do it the same way - it would be like someone telling me how to tune a guitar. I wouldn't be able to do it like them. Except, Duane told me, "Just tune it like you play it. If you want an open 'E,' make an 'E' and tune it." (chuckles). That's how I learned to play slide, from Duane, and his technique. It's a personal thing: no one can get an Eric Clapton sound except Eric Clapton. I can go and get Steve Cropper's guitar and let him turn it on, tune it up, and put it the way he plays it, and I could put it on, and I would not sound like Steve Cropper. There's a touch!it's something that's real elementary!but ever-so huge.

Let me ask you about some people who have had the pleasure of working with you - a little name-dropping here: John Prine. My buddy. "Slow Boat to China," and "Silent Night," "All Day Long" - I did a bunch of stuff for him.

Yeah, the "Great Days: The John Prine Anthology." You also worked with Steven Stills! Yeah, "Down the Road." Yeah, as a matter of fact, he left me that thing - we were at Criteria again, and he left me that to mix - Ronnie and Howie Albert and myself were down there. There was one song, "City Junkies," that was a song that I have, that we were doing, and it wasn't called "City Junkies," it was called something else, and he took everything off and rewrote everything. Ronnie and Howie Albert looked at me and said, "He just ripped the song off, right in your face!" I said, "Yeah, that's okay, I don't mind" (laughs). He wound up leavin' me and those guys to finish all the vocals and mix the whole thing! Then I took it back to Colorado. So I was actually a producer on it, not just a player. Then he went up there, to Colorado, and did the number - changed everything around.

You also worked with Dr. John: "Sun, Moon and Herbs," you did the vocals in 1971. Sure did! Aren't you good!

Yeah, I did a little research! Yeah, it was Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger and myself. I could tell you something else that you don't know: I worked on Exile on Main Street. (sings) "I don't want to talk about Jesus, I just want to see His face!" Yeah, I did that, but it took them so long in those days - everybody was doin' dope; Keith would come in at 4 o'clock in the morning, and nod out in the middle of a solo - I'm not talking bad about him or anything like that, but I mean, you do things around everyone else's schedule, and Mick and I were sittin' out there, but they neglected to put me down as a credit on the album. Jimmy Miller was producin', Andy Johns was the engineer, and when I told Jimmy about it, he went, "Oh, no; man, I forgot!!" I went, "Hey, that's all right, 'cause I know." Bill (Wyman) knows; Charlie (Watts) knows.

You were also on Bonnie Bramlett's "Lady's Choice" (1976). Yeah, that was a Capricorn thing - we sang a duet. You done your homework, haven't you?!

Well, one of the people who covered you is a favorite of mine: Mike Nesmith. He did "Bell Bottom Blues," didn't he? Cher did "Bell Bottom Blues."

Mike has an album I like: "From the Radio Engine to the Photon Wing." Mike Nesmith covered you, George Jones!. George Jones, Tom Jones, Glen Frey!

Sheryl Crow! Johnny Rodriguez!

Jeff Healy! Did you work with Jeff Healy? A very interesting guitar player, a heckuva guy! Yeah, I did the "Hell to Pay" album with him. He explained his guitar playing to me: it's all a mathematical type of a deal for him. He can play straight-up; he can play with it hangin' on his shoulder, but he said, mathematically, it worked better for him with it on his lap. He's an incredible player. I took him around - I picked him up at his hotel room, in Memphis, and got up on the elevator, and he was comin' out his door, and I said, "You don't have a mind (someone to help him around) or you don't have someone! He said, "Nah, they just put me in here, and I found my way." He got in my car and he said, "This is a '73 Mercedes." I said, "What? How do you know that?!" (laughing). He said, "I can tell by the smell. This is an old 72-73 Mercedes." I said, "You're absolutely correct!" (chuckles happily). I took him to a record store - I called in advance and told them I was bringing Jeff Healy - he was opening up for B.B. King, down on the river. Jeff is the sweetest guy in the world. I called this record store down in Memphis and told them he's a 78 (record) buff - he's big on the old 78's. We went in - he could take a record - they had all of 'em down for him, so he could get to ('em) - pull it out, run his hand around the outside, his thumb across it, and touch the center of it, and tell you how many times it's been played, who it is, and what record company it is.

I just swallowed really hard! This is true! I've seen it. When it came time to pay for the records that he got, he took it out, took his money out of his pocket - say it was $25-26 - he felt the $10, put that down, felt another $5, and a $5, and a $1 - I mean, he could feel it! And he was exactly right. When I walked him out on stage - B.B. King was down on Mud Island - he said, "What are we looking at?" and I said, "You got the Mississippi River on your back, and you got a sea of Afro's in front of you. Sixty thousand Afro's, and you could walk across, and you'd be right straight in downtown Memphis with a beautiful skyline." He said, "Thank you. Nobody ever tells me anything!" I took him out to eat - no one ever tells him anything or what it looks like - I find that amazing.

Me, too. Speaking of 'Kings,' let me change from B.B. to Albert, 'cause Delaney turned me on to Albert King in a big way. I understand you played with Albert King. Albert - two weeks before he died - I was all bent out of shape about them rerouting my flight from New York down to Atlanta and back to Memphis, and I flew over, and I could see my house. I had to go to Atlanta, then come back to Memphis, and I was all bent out of shape - I told Vivian, "I can't stand this, why did Delta change (my flight)?" Nonetheless, I got on the plane, and there was Albert! I walked in, and he was right there. I sat down and we talked the whole way. He was goin' on, this was his last record that he'd done, at Gary Bell's place - it's now called "The House of Blues" - but it was the last record that he had done, and I always told Vivian, "You gotta meet Albert King one of these days!" and I said, "I guarantee you, the first thing he's gonna say, (drawls in a deep voice) "Ah known little Bobby since he coulda barely looked over the console!" (laughs with glee). And sure enough, I got on the airplane, and there was Albert, sittin' there in his bowler hat and everything, and all stretched out, and we sat there and talked, and he was all upset about what they had done to his last record - it turns out to be his last record. He was all upset about it - he said, "It don't even sound like me!" I wrote a song with a boy named Danny Green, called "Blues Man," and that was on the record, and that was one of the last songs he ever recorded. Albert - he was a big, tall guy - he couldn't read nor write, but he could count that money! We walked off the plane and Vivian was there, and I said, "Vivian, this is Albert King!" and he said, (drawls in a deep voice) "Ah known little Bobby since he was barely" - just like I said! (laughs).

Would you believe that he has a new release that's just come out with Stevie Ray Vaughn? I wouldn't doubt that; it's probably the last session that Stevie Ray did (authors note: the session was in 1983), and that was done at Gary's studio as well. He had just come out of rehab, and he was havin' a difficult time, Stevie Ray was. He couldn't get the sound out of 13 amplifiers that he could get out of one. I mean, he literally had 13 amplifiers stacked up. He was havin' a real difficult time with everything - I talked with him about it and everything, down at the Peabody. He said, "Goddamn, Bobby, when I was druggin' and drinkin', it wasn't a problem: I just used one amplifier. Now, we're up to thirteen!" (laughs). Tryin' to look for that sound!

Bobby, let me go back in time for one second: were you on a Canadian train tour (with Delaney and Bonnie) about 1970? Nah, as a matter of fact, I wasn't on that tour. That happened after I left.

I know some of the stories, and the cast was so good: Janis Joplin, the Dead! I can tell you some stories about Janis Joplin and everything in the back of a limo, but not me with her - I won't tell those. Those don't need to be told, because those people are still alive, except for Janis.

A little more name-dropping, then I'm gonna jump back to your releases: Bill Graham? Bill Graham was cool. He was a cool guy - you could walk into his office - he had a real small office - you could walk in, and up on the right was a Derek and the Dominos poster.

His autobiography, "Bill Graham Presents!" (Doubleday, 1992) is really funny. I'm looking through (it) and don't see any mention of the Dominos; of course, they mention the Fillmore West, where you guys played - actually, you played at both Fillmores, East and West. Yeah, at the East, we did two nights in a row.

We were talking earlier, that there are two live Derek and the Dominos releases. One has the four of you guys leaning on the fence; that's the earlier one, and they (Polydor) just put one out about three years ago, called Live at the Fillmore, which has some alternate mixes that were not released. They were talking about how you guys went on and on - your piano was just rolling. I'm real basic when it comes to piano - I'm real basic when it comes to anything. Singin', I'm basic - I sing the song. I don't do no hot licks or aerobatics, or acrobatics or anything with my voice. That (imitates vocal squeals) makes me all nervous. I just sing the song. No, it's all real simple. The first song I ever did on piano in a recording situation, the very first song I ever played piano, was on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass album called "Beware of Darkness."

Mmm-hmm, I know the song! And it was just like, too cool: all of a sudden, a window - a door opened in my mind. It just happened. I listened to some of my early stuff with the Dominos, you know, like dink-dink-dink-dink; real sloppy but real basic, but real good and simple, no over-done things. I lost one of the tendons in my right hand and I told 'em, "Hook it up to the other tendon on my middle finger because I know me - I'll try to be playin' like Chuck Leavell, or something," 'cause I'll be trying to get fancy. Chuck's one of my favorite players, and he's one of my best friends. He's my tree-huggin' buddy. He's got a big thousand-acre tree farm down there!yes, he's a sweet guy, I love him to death.

Back to your work: you've got Bobby Whitlock (1972), which is hard to find - it's out of print, but you've got a couple of things there: "A Day without Jesus", "Dreams of a Hobo"! "Dreams of a Hobo" is the very first song I ever wrote in my life.

How are we gonna find these things? I think MCA bought it.

Interesting songs you've got here: "Back Home in England." You've got a real thing for England, don't you? Yeah, but that was a song that I wrote in a dream. It came in a dream - I used to keep a tape recorder and a pencil and pad by my bed, and I was in California, and I dreamt that whole song, and I wrote it down and sang it - I woke up in the middle of the night and sang everything, right then.

Would you rather be living in England? No, I have an affinity for that place, that's why I think I'm so comfortable down here in these hills in Mississippi. Everybody thinks of Mississippi as the delta land - it's not. It's all hills and hollows and rivers and creeks and streams and stuff around here. There is the delta, but I don't live in the delta. This looks more like England or Wales or something with trees. I'm surrounded by a national forest, and I'm out here by myself.

You also did "Where There's A Will, There's a Way." That's the best song on that live album (with Clapton), as far as I'm concerned. (proudly) Thank you very much! I appreciate it. Delaney helped me with the very end of it. That song just came out of me - just fell out of me, as do most songs, just fall out of me. You know how baseball players get in a batter's slump, or a pitching slump - I get in a songwriter's slump sometimes. I always do, and it's a change - it's a growing period, it's a growth process. But "Where There's a Will, There's a Way" is just one of those things that came out.

That's a great song; I absolutely love that song! On the live album, it's totally cool, the live Delaney album. I've got a new version of it that I'm doin' now, that's (growls) real funky and snaky. It's totally cool. I'm gonna put it on my next record that's comin' out.

Delaney did that on his last solo album: he changed "Let it Rain," he did it as the original calypso idea. Delaney cut it the way he originally wanted it to be, with that calypso steel drum sound. I asked him about that, and he said Eric wasn't ready for the vocals and so he did it in that kind of rocker style. The original song was Eric's song, and it was called "She Rides." (sings) "And she rides, chocka-chocka-chocka, and she rides, do-do-do, and she rides like a new beginner." Then Delaney came in, and they changed it to "Let it Rain." It was called "She Rides." I'm not talking bad about Delaney or anything, I'm just sayin', this is the truth! If you want to do the in-depth interview, this is it!

Okay, I know you guys are close. You also have some other things out: "Raw Velvet" came out in 1972, "One of a Kind," when your daughter was born; "Rock Your Sox Off!" (1976) - I was just going overseas in the navy at that point, and I never got a chance to get hold of that. They re-released it on CD, and it sold, the day it came out, it sold out.

Nuts. I had to go for some Japanese imports to get "Motel Shot" and "To Bonnie from Delaney." Well, that tells something about you: you're a man in demand! Well, I hope that this new thing that I've got coming out - it's taken me a long time to get emotionally, psychologically, and physically prepared for doin' what I'm doin' now, and all these songs that are on this album, all of 'em are sincere, they're the truth, they come from the heart, and hopefully, they'll make a difference, somehow, some way. I'm 125-150 percent in my head and in my heart, I'm there, and I'll be there, and I'm gonna play the songs that no one's ever got to hear, like "I Looked Away" and "Anyday" and things like that. All those people bought all those records and everything - if I went out and bought a record, I would want the artist to play me the song, and Eric hasn't been playing any of those songs. I'm gonna make sure that I do those kind of songs from the Dominos thing, because people paid a lot of money for those records and they're still paying money for those records! I would like to hear the people that created them - I would just like for the people to say thank you. So, I'm gonna be doing old Dominos stuff; I'm gonna be doing my new stuff. I'm gonna be doing some of my other things. I know through my recording statements and stuff throughout the world, what's being played where, and it's very strange - like "Thorn Tree in the Garden" - people in Germany and France and Australia, they love that song. "I Looked Away," and "Anyday," there are all these great songs that Eric doesn't play at all, and that's okay, he's Eric Clapton, he can do what he wants to do, or he can not do what he doesn't want to do. But, I believe it's my obligation because if I were on the other end of the role, I would want you to play me the song that I bought - the song that I love, the song that I listen to - if I went to your concert, I would really appreciate you playing me that song. Not something that Elmore James wrote - nothing bad on Elmore James, okay, or Robert Johnson, but, hey: can you play me "Why Does Love Got to be So Sad?" or "Tell the Truth" (laughs) - something like that? That's where I'm at, and that's what I'm gonna do.

Give the people what they want. Yeah! They deserve it - they paid a lot of money for those records! Those things - they weren't cheap! A double-album was not cheap! Now, a triple or quadruple CD is not cheap.

That's for sure. Last person in mind - I wanted to ask about how he influenced you: Ray Charles? Yeah! - totally cool. I got a good story: I wrote this song, and I couldn't get arrested in Nashville, because I was too soulful. I wasn't 'country' enough. And I wrote the song, called "Someone You Should Know," and I sang a lick in there, and it goes (rising vocal wail), "Hey-y-y, hey-y-y-y-hey-y-y, now that it's o-o-over, there's nothin' more I can say-y-y, 'cept that I'm too sorry for sayin' just a little too-o-o late!" It's called "Slip Away." But the lick, "Hey-y-y, hey-y-y-y-hey-y-y", that was me singin' Ray Charles. Well, when he did the song, he did it exactly like I sang it, except he put a Ray Charles lick in at the end of it; you know, "Where you goin', woman, get back in here!" kind of a thing. He just really earmarked it, just totally cool. But "Slip Away," I wrote one night, just me and the piano, and I took it in to this lady at CBS, Bonnie Garner, and it was just a cassette, and I said, "This song is for Ray Charles!" and I left and went to California. Six months later, I got a telephone call, and a tape in the mail, and a letter, in one day, the same day, and it said that Ray Charles told me that he was gonna - when he did his definitive country album - he was gonna do everything and mix it, and wait, and then do the world a favor, and go back in and cut "Slip Away." And that's what he did, and they sent it to me. And he sang it exactly, him goin' "Hey-y-y, hey-y-y-y-hey-y-y, now-w-w-w that it's o-o-over" - that's me singing Ray Charles singing me!

That's great!that's great. Yeah, I think that's the ultimate compliment. It sold, but I don't care if it sold one record - just the fact that he did that is like the ultimate professional, talented musical kind of compliment that anyone could ever pay - I mean, money would not compensate that. It's the best thing in the world for me, that suddenly, I realized, that (gesture) was too cool - there is relevance to all this.

Okay, Bobby, this has been an absolute treat and a treasure. Thank you so much for being a musician and songwriter, and an inspiration for so many of us. Thank you very much. Between yourself and this guy down in Nashville; he sent me some stuff and it's just him and his wife; it's not just, it is his wife and him, and it's just totally cool. He plays the slide, and bottleneck, and they're playin' the stuff, and he sent me a letter that just really inspired me, and at this point in my life, some people like yourself, and like this boy named Ricky Davis and his wife, that means a whole lot to me. You don't know how big this is in my world, that someone really does care, and that I've made a difference, and that's real important to me.

Well, we're gonna tell the story of those two red-headed curly-haired boys! I think that's perfect, and I wish that they'd get in touch with me. I would like to see them, because, you know, I'm partially responsible for that. That's why - Eric was playin', he had that song by J.J. Cale wrote called "Cocaine," and I took my kids to see it, to see him in Memphis. In the middle of the thing, he did that (sings notes) "duh-duh-duh-duh-cocaine!" It turned all of the lights on in the Coliseum. I told Eric, "Hey! You got a responsibility here. Anybody that doesn't have any on them is gonna go get it - because they believe in that." I realize my responsibility and what you say and everything, what we have to say (as role models). It has an impact on people, and you've got to be cautious about what you have to say. It's all about love and peace and togetherness, being able to listen. I think that's where it's all at.

Thanks again, Bobby, for letting me listen to you, and much obliged for everything. Cool. Good interview - I appreciate your candor and frankness.