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Eric Clapton tells John Blackstone, CBS, that he is not as good as he used to be, and discusses the making of his just released album, "The Road To Escondido." Few excerpts from the TV interview are follow:
John: "I sort of hope you misquoted. Somebody said you said that looking at the old tape I'm not as good as I once was."
Clapton: "That's not absolutely true. It was on Youtube. I was surfing…looking on Youtube and I put my name on and I got a piece of footage from a mid 90's which I just played blues song I thought. There was something that I was doing that I just don't even think I just sort of unconsciously let go off. I am not doing it anymore. Probably because it is too hard to do it. But I believe I can still play with the same amount of emotion, feeling, and expression that I always set out to do. That's just logic, isn't it. The faculty is going start wearing away at some point."
About his new album “The Road To Escondido”
John: "The Road To Escondido. Originally in your mind that wasn't going to be a bunch of duet, was it?"
Clapton: "Funny you should say that. The idea I had I just told John when I saw him at Crossroad Guitar Festival that we did. Then I just ask him that would you make a record with me? And I had no idea what that would be when I was verbalizing. I just say you could produce it and I'll play or something because the thing for me was to get your sounds because that's the secret of the whole thing it's not so much in the play, it's what he does with it. And I just was amazed as he said yes because I was just expecting a rejection. So when he said yes, I was kind of ok by surprise. And that's how it's kind of happen.”
Clapton mentions that the next thing is materials. “I hardly write at all this day. I write under extreme pressure or just by accident. It's not something I do. But John went right away to work, then he sent 9-10 songs off to me.” Clapton said “this is fantastic, all I really got to do is go into the studio with him, cut these songs, and he produced it, and we will done it. But how would anyone who buy the record know what J.J involvement is unless they look at in the fine print. Then I really want people to know about his involvement in this. I just don't want to be an Eric Clapton album with a small print produced by J.J. Cale in it. So, I told him how would you feel about this being 50/50 thing. First he's starting to get reluctance. But eventually, he was great. That's how I end it up. When I hear me singing his songs, it just doesn't have the weight, but when I hear two voices, and we sang together, we create the hybrid. I think that's a magic."
John: Why did you want to make sure that J.J. Cale was recognized?
Clapton: That's just my thing. I've always been insistence on people knowing. People ought to know where things come from. I feel like I am a servant to this thing rather than just using it to my advantage. I always want people to be aware of the history of THE music. I want people to know what is this thing is about because that's the whole mission of the album "The Road To Escondido."
You can watch partial interview here Source CBS |
