Clapton: The Autobiography

Rating All Ages Genre non fiction Publisher Broadway External Links Official Eric Clapton Website

Eric Clapton, The Autobiography reads with fluidity, even through all the horrific description of drug abuse. It’s very easy -- trouble is, it’s too easy. We are in an age where artists, particularly musicians, are supposed to do multiple duties as actors, designers, philanthropists, and really anything else in the kitchen sink we toss at them. Now all musicians are supposed to be writers as well instead of just saying, “Hey, I spent oodles of time talking to a writer who transcribed my words then made them sensible.” It reads like a transcription, not a memoir.

That is the only poor thing about this book.

Whether tinged by opiate smoke or alcohol this book is written so well that, frankly, you don’t care. Only the stoniest of hearts would not be moved by reading how Clapton got his first guitar as an angry pre-pubescent (or “tween,” we’d now say) and spent so many hours holed up, through childhood and even as a raging London success, with a series of instruments that served as the only addiction that didn’t nearly kill him. Hearing about The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and “little Steve Winwood” is amusing and humanizes mythical giants.

Anyone who has ever played guitar can really appreciate Clapton because it doesn’t dumb anything down -- you actually benefit if you have technical know-how. Clapton waxes about how he deconstructed songs in order to learn how to play them, from chord progressions to exactly where your fingers are placed for certain guitar styles. Those who cannot play will still understand not just what Clapton says but just why folks respect his abilities and just how learned is he.

Here, Clapton is able to talk about “Layla,” Pattie Boyd who was George Harrison’s wife and the muse behind so many songs. Clapton doesn’t shirk away from what a selfish man he was (is?): after chasing Pattie for nearly a decade he tried to seduce one of her bridesmaids. During the marriage, before and after rehab, he seems intent on destroying the one woman he ever truly wanted. Clapton seems neither pitiable nor as sorry as most would be for how is adultery and addiction destroyed his marriage to Pattie; Pattie seems to have been, sadly, just another addiction to indulge in and conquer.

Clapton’s heroin addiction was so bad that he was spending about $12,000 a week on heroin, although he remarks he never shot up -- a childhood encounter with needles terrified him enough to smoke or snort it. This meant taking more heroin than if it was cut and shot, but this also saved him from the late 1970s burgeoning AIDS pandemic. Between graphic descriptions of drugs and all the whisky and beer he consumed, reading this is like studying a how-to manual, both in scoring and keeping clean.

We also learn that Clapton came from a strange background shared by other celebrities like Jack Nicholson: his uncle nicknamed him “the bastard” and he found this to be true. His “sister” was his mother and his biological father being a Canadian soldier that he never knew. His maternal grandparents who spoiled him and bought that first guitar raised Clapton. Throughout the book Clapton cites this knowledge as his first negative encounter with women and it followed him throughout his life, causing him doubt and pain. There’s a lot of psychobabble in his words and it can get fairly taxing.

An autobiography of someone so well respected that they spawn famous graffiti (“Clapton is God”) is somewhat dangerous. Knocking down mythical figures is risky but well worth it when the rewards are clean writing that never shirks the issues and gifts of the person behind the stories.