Hi, this is Eric Clapton here.
I just want to uh...
Express my sadness
and uh...
To say, thank you,
to my dear friend B.B. King.
I want to thank him for all the inspiration and
encouragement he gave me as a player over the years and
for the friendship that we enjoyed.
Um...
There's not a lot left to say because this music, um...
It's almost a thing of the past now.
So, uh, if you're not familiar with his work then I...
I would encourage you to go out and find an album called,
B.B King Live at the Regal.
Which is where it all really started for me
as a young player.
[acoustic guitar playing]
[Eric] I had a blissful childhood.
I was raised with a great deal of love by my parents.
Especially by my mother.
Because she loved me in an unconditional way.
[Rose speaking]
[ Puffin' Billy playing]
[Eric] People say I was pretty spoilt and I was selfish.
I'm sure I must've had some qualities,
but not from what I hear.
I was very fond of painting and drawing.
Anything that was introverted.
[Rose speaking]
[Eric] I knew that I was different.
And I knew that other kids at school
regarded me as different or maybe inferior
and I did have a massive inferiority complex.
And I didn't know why.
Then I found out that my sister was really my mother.
She left when I was very, very young
and I was raised by my grandparents.
[Rose speaking]
[Sylvia] Pat was very lively, very difficult youngster.
She wasn't easy.
Rose used to say she was a nightmare.
She met this Canadian.
He was over here in England in the village.
And it was one-night-stand.
In those days to be pregnant
and young and you're not married
was awful.
Ric was born and she just went to Canada.
If Rose and Jack hadn't have taken him on,
I don't know what would have happened to him.
I really don't.
[Eric] I felt hurt.
Very, very upset.
At that point I mistrusted everybody
including my grandparents.
I was so confused.
It seemed to me that my life
had been a lie.
[blues riff playing on guitar]
[man on radio] Hello, children everywhere.
This Uncle Mac. Good morning, to you all.
Here in London on Saturday.
[Eric] Uncle Mac was on the radio
on Saturday morning.
And he would play a variety of music for kids.
How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?
All those kind of novelty things he would play.
And then, every now and then,
he'd play some different music.
♪All that time ♪
♪ Man, I've laid in my bed so long... ♪
[Eric] You didn't hear that anywhere else.
Except on this kiddie's program.
And I thought, aw, man,
this is just for me.
♪ The landlady decided to call
♪ I was too evil to answer the phone ♪
[Eric] I didn't even know that it was black music.
I didn't know about black and white being different stuff.
But something about it got me.
Something stirred me.
Without me even being aware of it.
It took all the pain away.
Well, obviously when I got to the age to buy records,
I went and bought them.
[harmonica playing]
[Rose speaking]
[acoustic guitar playing]
[Eric] I could get the record player
down to the level that was right
and play along
to my heart's content.
Non-stop.
[Rose speaking]
[Eric] It was always one man
with his guitar versus the world.
He was completely alone and
had no options other than to just sing and play
to ease his pain.
And that echoed what I felt.
So, more and more and more and more,
I wanted to be like that.
I enrolled in Kingston School of Art
when I was 15.
And I was really gripped by the experience
of getting involved in a life in the arts.
I wanted to know about French literature.
I wanted to know about French cinema, Japanese cinema.
I read Baudelaire.
I read Kerouac,
Ginsberg and Steinbeck.
But I was absolutely addicted to blues.
Totally obsessed.
I had a record collection.
And I was skiving off a lot.
Going to try and find imports in jazz record stores.
Muddy Waters, B.B King,
Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley.
[Mojo Working playing]
♪ Got my mojo working but it just won't work on you ♪
♪ I wanna love you so bad till I don't know what to do ♪
[Eric] There seemed to be
nobody that I could talk to,
would have any interest in this.
You had to travel miles to find another person.
We used to meet up at the Marquee Club
up in Oxford Street.
The blues night was a Thursday night.
And you would meet like minds there and just dance.
I met Mick and Keith and Brian over there.
They were just part of this crew that would go there.
♪ Got my mojo working ♪
♪ Got my mojo working... ♪
[Eric] And so blues music led me to the friends
that I was gonna have.
[knocking]
[Ben Palmer] In those days, there was very little interest
in the blues.
It wasn't popular music in this country at all.
I was one of those snobby purist people.
And I got very interested in a style of piano playing,
played by Muddy Waters' pianist, Otis Spann.
I thought well, this music belongs in a band, really.
So, I advertised in the Melody Maker.
This bass player got in touch with me.
Well, he said, "If only we could find a guitar player.
"We could really start to get this music working together."
[ Steppin' Out playing]
We hired a room in a pub with a piano
and this little fellow walked in the door with a guitar.
He was about 17.
[music continues]
It was instantly clear that he had a tremendous gift
and had worked really hard to develop it.
We couldn't believe how good he was.
It was a very small outfit with no equipment.
We all went through one amplifier.
Vocals, guitars and everything.
We did more rehearsing than playing.
But it was fun.
[music continues]
[Eric] Ben was the person I knew,
from the minute I met him was a serious guy.
And he was a great piano player.
He was a deep inspiration for me.
And a kind of father figure too.
[Ben] I thought Eric had an obsessive interest in music.
I thought it was the very core of his being, really.
He was very friendly but very private too.
And he tended to form very close relationships
with people suddenly, none of which ever lasted
for any length of time.
Anyway, Eric decided he was
going to be a professional musician
and so he had to make a career move.
[man 1] Ten,
nine, eight...
[man 2] All right, take one now. When you're ready.
Four, three, two...
[ I Wish You Would ]
♪ Early in the morning 'bout the break a day ♪
♪ That's when my baby went away ♪
♪ Cryin' and pleadin' won't do no good ♪
♪Come back baby I wish you would... ♪
[Chris Dreja] We had been working pretty regularly
and we'd lost our lead guitar player.
Eric was in the same college as we were.
We were one of the few southern British blues bands.
So he joined the band sort of, immediately.
♪ Staying out all night long ♪
We did a weekly gig on a Sunday night
at a place called the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond.
It was like a party. Everyone would get together
and just go mad.
And I developed a little following amongst these people
and I knew that there were certain ways that I could
get them going.
♪ Trying to love me and some other man, too ♪
He had his own group of followers that used to stand
right in front of him on the stage.
The Clapton clique.
Usually everyone would
go for the lead singer but it was different in our band.
[Eric] It spread and it became a fan base.
[ I Wish You Would continues]
♪ Oh! ♪
[applause]
[Paul McCartney] It's great, you know, it's good fun.
There's lots of people all comin' in, which is nice.
And we're having a good time, you know,
with Freddy and the Dreamers,
and The Yardbirds and everybody. It's good.
[Eric] We were considered a good live act.
We were asked to do The Beatles Christmas show.
And we thought they were wankers.
But I got on with George very well
because he was a guitar player.
[George Harrison] We were both in bands
and we did a Christmas season in the Hammersmith Odeon
together and Eric was in The Yardbirds.
And we met then.
[cheering]
[The Beatles singing]
♪ Can't do that ♪
[Eric] So people that came to see Yardbirds
were really into the music.
When The Beatles came on,
they'd just start screaming so that you couldn't actually
hear anything but the screaming.
We would watch from the wings
and I would see how pointless these guys thought it all was.
Already.
[harmonizing]
George was clearly an innovator.
But the sad part was
that no one listened.
And I thought The Yardbirds had real understanding
about what it was really all about.
And it wasn't about being famous
or getting on TV or having a hit.
[cheering]
[indistinct chatter]
[ For Your Love playing]
[Chris] Jim, Keith and myself
started to have many ideas about areas of music
we wanted to pursue.
And when the music publisher came along
with the song For Your Love,
it just felt absolutely right.
♪ I'd give you everything and more ♪
♪ And that's for sure ♪
[Eric] It was pop.
All the material we were doing was blues music
which hadn't even properly filtered through
to the mainstream here.
So we were pioneering something.
I noticed they were deliberately
growing Beatles haircuts.
I thought we've sold out. I've sold out.
I've gotta get out of here.
[Chris] Eric played on the studio sessions
for For Your Love.
And then immediately left.
We had this massive record suddenly
and no lead guitar player.
[Eric] I was so disheartened by the music business,
because it seemed to me that everywhere I looked
everyone was on the make.
I think I was probably a nasty piece of work
to have around, you know, if you were tryin' to launch
into the successful music world.
[creaking]
[thud]
[Ben] Eric came to my house in Oxford.
I was living on my own so, it was a one to one thing.
And we just talked.
[Eric] I wanted his advice on what to do
because I liked playing the guitar and I love blues music.
But I thought I was gonna give up everything.
And I stayed with him for about two weeks
and watched him carve.
[Ben] We both have pretty dysfunctional families.
And we would sort of sit and talk about these things.
And I thought his interest in his music was so obsessive
that he didn't really have a choice about what he was
doing with his time.
He just had to go where it was best to go.
I'm sure it's been with him all his life.
[Eric] And while I was there someone tracked me down.
And it was John Mayall.
[indistinct television chatter]
[laughing]
Thanks, Bu. And before we run out of time,
I think it's about time we learn to do
the Crocodile Walk,
with Johnny Mayall and the Bluesbreakers.
♪ See that crocodile walk ♪
♪ Hey, and he lookin' my way ♪
[Bob Dylan speaking]
♪ Any minute today ♪
♪He got a long way to walk ♪
♪ Lookin' for a home ♪
♪Yeah, I wanna see you smile ♪
♪ And, hey, hey, crocodile ♪
♪ Yeah, crocodile now tell me ♪
♪ He might settle down now, baby ♪
♪Ooh, yeah ♪
♪Hey, hey, crocodile ♪
[John] When it came to blues there was nobody like him.
Eric was that special.
He knew the history of it. The background of it.
And he had the emotional feel for it.
And the technique to express it.
He was given this freedom
to let loose.
♪ Disappearing in the dark ♪
[Alex Hooper] Eric, how much do you think that
his influence helped blues based bands?
[Eric] If you're gonna take it back to the roots
it's between him and Alexis Korner and they're the ones
that started actually physically playing it.
And there were lots of people
that collected old blues records
but that didn't play.
But he worked in the clubs playing it.
I mean, he's responsible for the whole thing, really.
[Eric] The minute I got into that band
I joined a working schedule I'd never seen before.
We worked seven nights a week.
We played every night.
The Twisted Wheel in Manchester.
The Mojo in Sheffield.
The Boathouse in Nottingham.
The Club a'Gogo in Newcastle.
I still had no idea how you talk to girls.
I was very shy.
And then suddenly I was dating, picking up girls.
It was like a girl in every gig.
[John Mayall] Eric lived in Ripley
and he didn't have transport.
So it became a matter of convenience
that he'd stay at our house.
There was a spare room.
So he moved in there.
I had the family, you know,
so he was living in the family house.
So it was very suburban.
The regular life with the mum and dad and three children.
At night we did the gigs.
[Eric] He was very cool.
He had an incredible collection of records
that I listened to all day long. For about a year,
I just would put on records and play along with them.
and I went at it.
[tabla playing]
A lot of my influences around that time
weren't just guitar players, they were other singers
and also Indian music.
I listened to Bismillah Khan a lot.
I wanted my guitar to sound like his reed instrument.
[Indian music playing]
[blues music playing]
[Eric] One of the biggest influences
on what I wanted to achieve
with a guitar was Little Walter.
The sound he made with the harmonica,
playing through an amplifier.
And it was thick and fat.
Very melodic.
I had been wandering into music shops
in the west end of London.
And plugging a guitar in.
I'd try that guitar with that amp.
And I found this amp way out in West London
and it was perfect.
It was an absolutely perfect sound.
[amplifier hums]
[ Steppin' Out ]
[John] He showed up with that guitar and that amp
and immediately people started to idolise what he was doing.
And to certain extent that's what bugged him the most.
He didn't want to be looked at and inspected.
He just wanted to play the way he wanted to play
and leave him alone.
[ Steppin' Out continues]
[interviewer] Now, from the time
that you left The Yardbirds
and joined up with John Mayall and company,
your head seemed to change tremendously as far as
your music was concerned.
What kind of things were happening to your head then?
Well, I really didn't change as much as you probably think
because it's not really,
you know, an individual change.
It was just put into a different context.
So, I mean, the things that I was doing
reflected differently, you know.
I mean the...
The context of The Yardbirds as opposed to John Mayall
is totally different. One is pop and one is...
Was then even more earthier blues than it is now.
Stuff you played then.
And you know, I just played the same things
but they just sounded different.
[man] Take three.
[blues music playing]
[Eric] We had been on the road for long enough
to go in and just play our set.
But at that period there were technicians
doing the recording
that just came up to your amp with a microphone,
stuck it two inches away from the front of the amplifier.
It seemed to me that if you wanted to get
the atmosphere that we were getting in the clubs,
you needed for it to sound like you were in the audience.
Ten feet away. Not three inches.
And so when the guy did that
on that day that we went in to record,
I said, "Excuse me, I don't want it there."
"Put it over there."
He said, " Well, you're making our job really difficult."
And I said, "I don't care, that's the way I want it."
[blues guitar playing]
With Eric playing at the sort of volume he was playing,
there was no way that anyone could deal with it.
They didn't know what to do. So we had to find a way
to deal with it.
That was the most exciting part of the project
because when we found how to do it, we had the sound.
[ All Your Love playing]
[Roger Waters] That changed everything.
Before Eric, guitar playing in England had been
Hank Marvin and The Shadows.
Very, very simple, not much technique.
Suddenly we heard something that was completely different.
The record sounded unlike anything that any of us
had ever heard before, it was completely revolutionary.
[interviewer] Eric, now that blues have started to emerge
as a really very powerful force
on the pop scene.
And everyone's latching on to it even though
they don't necessarily understand the music.
Now, do you think this is a bad thing?
No, because, you see, what will happen is that
after a long time, they will become
so well educated musically
that they'll be able to dig spades singing the blues
instead of having to take watered down imitations.
They won't have to accept that any more
because they'll be free thinking enough
to be able to look at a coloured man and dig it
without having any hang ups. You know?
And then, you know,
all the white guys are gonna have to find
something their own to play, that is good enough
to stand up to it because
they won't be accepted, they'll be rejected.
There won't be any white blues bands,
it couldn't happen.
What is it you think about the music that draws
young white kids to it?
Now, you mentioned the fact that, uh,
groups like The Rolling Stones
have turned them on to the music.
I think white kids really love a beautiful sound.
That deep tone.
Then even white kids sing the blues.
They can play more blues than I can ever dream of playing.
But you know, they'll never be able to vocal like me,
you know that.
And I'm singing that out to the church
and got that big tone, I guess that's what
the white kids come to see me for often.
Does it have something to do with the feeling that...
That's what I'm saying, that tone is the feeling,
you got the feeling in there, for those kids.
And there's no way you can counterfeit that?
You can't counterfeit that.
You mean, in other words...
The young kids can learn to play a guitar that way
but they can't learn to sing that way?
Like me?
-You mean, white kids? -Yeah.
Oh, no.
-You know better than that. -Why is that?
They ain't got enough soul
and they didn't have enough hard times.
[chuckles]
[Hughie Flint] I came around to Jones' house one day
and he'd been out in the garden reading
The Melody Maker and he was furious.
And he said, "Eric's rehearsing with a band
"in some church."
And I said, "Oh, is he?"
All of a sudden, there it was.
There was this new group that's gonna be
making its debut somewhere and that was it.
It was very sudden.
Total lunatic.
Just said he's gonna quit.
[I Feel Free playing]
♪ I feel free ♪
[Eric] I wanted to be a blues trio.
Fusing jazz and rock.
It was just a thing where
the three of us liked one another's playing
and we decided to do it.
♪ I feel free ♪
♪ Feel when I dance with you ♪
♪ We move like the sea ♪
♪ You, you're all I want to know ♪
♪ I feel free ♪
♪ I can walk down the street there's no one there ♪
♪ Though the pavements are one huge crowd ♪
♪ I can drive down the road my eyes don't see ♪
♪ Though my mind wants to cry out loud ♪
♪ I ♪
♪ I feel free ♪
[Jimi speaking]
[Eric speaking]
[Jimi speaking]
[Eric] The first time I saw Jimi, I think
it was a gig we did in London
and I saw him a couple of times at the speak easy.
He used to come around to the flat a lot and stay there.
We had a great time really.
He was so shy, and quiet, withdrawn and gentle.
We talk about every day kind of ambitions, you know?
And the way we want the world to be
but the conversation never stayed that way for very long.
'Cause Jimi had such a surreal mind.
Once you start going talking about anything.
You'd end up talking about flying saucers, you know?
Sort of purple velvet moons.
[laughs] It's like.
And you couldn't keep him on the ground for any length
of time.
[Jimi speaking]
[Eric speaking]
[indistinct chatter]
[Ben] Eric came to my house in Oxford with Ginger
and said he was forming Cream
and would I like to go and work for them.
I think he wanted somebody around who he knew.
He was enjoying the new fruits of success hugely
and the psychedelic musical venture that was happening.
[Ahmet Ertegun] Eric and Cream came to New York
and they came to record in our studio.
They played songs that are not absolutely
in a 12 or eight bar form but have a blues feel.
It's a new music.
Especially when Eric played the guitar.
[ Hey Joe playing]
[Tom Dowd] When I walked into my studio,
I had a bunch of English roadies setting up
double stacks of Marshalls
and double bass drums and double cymbal stands
and so I just looked and I thought,
"What, have I got two of everything?"
I couldn't believe what I was looking at,
it was just three men.
[indistinct studio chatter]
[Strange Brew playing]
♪ Strange brew ♪
♪ Kill what's inside of you ♪
♪ She's a witch of trouble in electric blue ♪
♪ In her own mad mind she's in love with you ♪
♪ With you ♪
♪ Now what you gonna do? ♪
♪ Strange brew kill what's inside of you ♪
[Richard Goldstein speaking]
[Eric speaking]
[Richard speaking]
[Eric speaking]
[Richard speaking]
[Eric speaking]
[Eric] We were recording in Atlantic Studios.
We're sharing that workspace with Ray Charles,
Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding
and Wilson Pickett, so we were in their play room.
A lot of the time, we were going out as Otis Redding
was coming in or Aretha Franklin
was coming, the sessions that would overlap.
And one day Ahmet said,
"What would you like to play?"
And I said, "Oof, would I? You kidding?"
-Okay. -Standby.
[Eric] I looked in and there was Joe South,
Bobby Hinton, Bobby Womack.
There were like five guitar players on the floor
and Aretha on piano, singing.
And I went in there with my permed hair
and pink trousers, high-heeled boots.
Looking like a freak from Mars
and they looked at me like, "What's this?"
And I sat down and played.
♪ If you had a dollar ♪
♪ And I had a dime ♪
♪ I wonder could I borrow yours? ♪
♪ As easy as you could mine ♪
♪ Because when you need my love ♪
♪ And I gave time after time ♪
♪ And turn around to find me no returns ♪
♪ Then, my friend you've used my dimes ♪
[Ahmet] Aretha Franklin started laughing when
she saw Eric because he was wearing
psychedelic costume. [laughing]
But when Eric played the guitar,
Aretha stopped laughing
because it was the real thing.
♪ Your heart to do for me ♪
♪ Then, baby, just don't darken my front door ♪
♪ Baby ♪
♪ I want you to be as good to me as I am to you ♪
♪ Baby ♪
[Eric] Man, that was it, I thought if that comes out.
I don't have to do anything again.
♪ Listen, don't you walk around here ♪
♪ Feeling like you can treat me any ol' way ♪
[camera shutter clicking]
I had just arrived from Paris to be a model.
When I met Eric, I didn't know
who he was at all.
He was a bit shy, he was a bit inhibited at first.
But then we started going out together.
And we pretty much moved in together
very quickly.
[Eric] Charlotte was very funny
and very, very open minded.
We had a friendship.
We just were comfortable together.
She saw who I was
for better or worse.
[Charlotte] I just started feeling like
Alice in Wonderland.
I was totally into the Beatles.
The next minute, we were invited
to take part of this special event by the Beatles.
It was like, "Okay." [laughs] You know,
normal.
♪ Learn how to play the game ♪
♪ It's easy ♪
♪ Nothing you can make that can't be made ♪
When I moved into the Kings Road.
George would drop by on his route home
out to Esher.
And I've been going to Esher a few times
taking acid together, bit by bit, we were becoming friends.
♪ All you need is love ♪
♪ All you need is love, love ♪
♪ Love is all you need ♪
[indistinct chatter]
[audience cheering]
[rock music playing]
The audience there was so much more advanced.
Cream very quickly realized, they could just open up.
I mean they would play the same number for 40 minutes.
Improvisation every night.
[rock music playing]
And the audience couldn't have enough of it.
It was exactly what they had wanted to hear
and it had suddenly arrived.
[drumming intensifies]
[audience cheering]
[music ends]
[audience cheering]
[Crossroads playing]
♪ I went down to the crossroads ♪
♪ Fell down on my knees ♪
♪ Down to the crossroads fell down on my knees ♪
♪ Asked the Lord above for mercy ♪
♪ Save me if you please ♪
♪ I went down to the crossroads ♪
♪ Tried to flag a ride ♪
♪ Down to the crossroads tried to flag a ride ♪
♪ Nobody seemed to know me everybody passed me by ♪
[interviewer] Many of these young players
coming along today
have been really turned on by the way you play the guitar.
I'm grateful some of them seem to like me.
I'm grateful because
to me, it seemed to open a few doors for us
that seemed like that was never gonna be open.
Because until the days of rock 'n' roll a lot of times,
a lot of the places, we... They just wouldn't accept us.
I'm not speaking racially,
I'm just talking about the people at home
that just wouldn't accept us in some of the places that...
The door's open now, that you can go into.
[Crossroads continues]
[Bill Graham] B.B King played the joints for years.
Otis Redding was a black R&B singer
who played the southern route.
And what rock n' roll or the popularity
of rock n' roll has afforded us
is the opportunity to use
good rock n' roll as bait to bring
the people in, but once they got it, present them with
uh...
some of the people who, were it not for them,
there wouldn't be any rock n' roll.
[B.B King] I was playing in New York City
and I've been hearing about this young guitarist,
the Cream and so on.
I met this young man.
Long hair and very quiet like.
We had a jam session.
Eric seemed to take time, it's like putting pieces
in a puzzle.
Like an old seasoned guy.
It could sound good, but if you gonna play
more than two or three notes, you need to have
a story to tell.
And he told me some very good ones.
White America had never paid attention to blues.
So thanks to Eric, really, it awakened.
Started them listening.
Now a lot of doors were opened for B.B. King
and many other people like myself.
[Crossroads continues]
[Ahmet] They did like 300 shows a year.
And had a huge, huge following
based on their live performances.
So at that time, Cream got to be
the biggest band in the world.
Much bigger than the Rolling Stones
and the Beatles.
[music ends]
[audience cheering]
[Jack] Eric Clapton, please.
[interviewer] When you're improvising,
do you use stock phrases?
Um, yeah, there are always phrases
that I always play that are stock phrases
that I work from you know,
which are just like...
All these runs.
You know, I've put together from old phrases
that I've first started on like...
[plays guitar slowly]
And then they're just kind of messed up
with other things which I've learned like...
If a guy likes playing football,
then that's what he'll use to get...
To get all of his, kind of, basic...
Kind of, angry bits out of him,
you know, that you build up through any day.
You can just, someone is tooting the horn
in the car behind you and you'll get angry
and you have no release for it, you know?
Well, that happens to everybody,
but you know, I've got the advantage of being
able to sort of play that out
on the guitar.
By being sort of, um,
fairly aggressive in the way I'm playing,
not the way I use it.
That can be done too with people like The Who.
Can you show us?
What you mean, you want me to break the guitar up?
Well, no, not quite, just an example
-of aggression in your music. -Yeah, right.
[plays blues guitar]
[Charlotte] Eric wasn't the best communicator.
There was a lot of unsaid things, you know,
about where he was at.
He enjoyed part of it very much.
There was an aspect of being adored.
But it was difficult to keep up.
And to be on tour for months and months.
There was constant, serious dispute
between Jack and Ginger every day.
It didn't matter to them what they were arguing about
really.
It was just, they were at each other's throats
and it was very intense.
We shut one another out, I mean I would just run away
from him, we never socialized.
We never really shared ideas any more, we just got
together on stage and played and then went our
different ways.
The whole thing was awful.
[sombre music playing]
[indistinct chatter]
[guitar playing]
[Charlotte] Eric was picking up his guitar at home.
and twanging on it non-stop.
Which is not always the easiest thing
when you're trying to have a conversation
with somebody.
I remember finding myself talking and I would get
a riff from the guitar back,
rather than proper communication.
It was very hard to keep up on an emotional, personal level.
You know, I'm in love with Eric.
And then the world's in love with him.
We just didn't talk about feelings.
Eric just wouldn't go there.
I always felt he was running away from something.
He started going to George and Pattie's quite a lot
when they lived in Surrey.
When Cream broke up, I think spiritually,
he was really rather bereft.
And he enjoyed hanging out and played guitar and started
writing all day.
[John Lennon] Yes?
[Engineer] Start again.
-[cymbal crashes] -[John] Okay.
George said, "I'm going to do this song,
"I want you to play the guitar."
How we doing, Hal?
[Eric] We did maybe two or three takes,
and there was a very few
attempts at the song.
[John] Yes?
Just start again.
They were fast and furious, they were harsh judges.
[While My Guitar Gently Weeps playing]
♪ I look at you all see the love ♪
♪ There that's sleeping ♪
♪ While my guitar gently weeps ♪
♪ I look at the floor and I see ♪
♪ It needs sweeping ♪
♪ Still my guitar gently weeps ♪
[camera shutter clicking]
[Eric] It was just one policeman.
His name was Inspector Pilcher.
He wanted to bust all of the people
that were in the pop business for drugs.
He ended up getting done for corruption.
He busted George
and the word was, he had planted dope.
Ginger knew someone in the police force,
who said I was on Pilcher's list.
That night, the Pheasantry got raided
and they planted hash everywhere.
So I thought, well, I better get out of town.
♪ See the love there that's sleeping ♪
♪ While my guitar gently weeps ♪
It's the first time I spent any money really,
any of the money that I made with Cream.
I never owned anything before.
I mean, I'd been bumming around all my life
from the day that I first left Ripley.
I just fell in love with it.
I had the most incredible feeling of coming home.
Now, Eric had a house in Newhurst
which is just beyond Esher.
So it's quite easy for the two of them
to go to each other's houses.
[Charlotte] And it was just like a really nice friendship
going on.
George had a lot of respect for Eric's guitar playing.
It was just four friends.
[Pattie] We'd hang out together
and we'd go to the restaurants and bars.
He used to come over to the house quite a lot.
Not always to see George.
I think as time went on.
You know how some people have that stare that's longer
than it should be?
And I caught a couple of those.
[Eric] I knew it was wrong.
George was my best friend.
But I felt a compulsion towards her.
That she was probably the most desirable woman
I had ever met.
And even though, they were married,
I wanted her.
Even though she was unavailable
and that frightened me.
[Pattie] I felt there was a big confusion in his head
about women.
And what they represented to him.
It was so intense and he was so intense.
[ship horn blaring]
[Eric] When I was nine, my grandmother said to me.
This lady's coming and she's your real mum
and we're gonna go and meet her
and she's gonna stay for a little while.
She arrived by boat and we went to meet her
at Southampton.
She was on one of those big liners.
She came with two kids.
[Sylvia Clapton] Eric was very quiet that day.
He's very shy.
He wanted to see his real mum.
And I think Rick was looking for love.
[Eric] We got back to Ripley
and then when everyone came down to get a cup of tea
or whatever.
I wanted to know the most important thing.
"You're my mum, are you gonna be my mum?"
And she said,
"No.
"I think it's best we leave it the way it is."
[Sylvia] It was so cruel.
She didn't like the fact he called her, "mum."
I couldn't believe anybody could be so nasty.
She brought her other son, Bryan
and he said to 'Ric, "Are you my brother?"
And she heard that, and she said, "No, he's not
"your brother."
I couldn't believe it, she could say things like that
to a child.
[Eric] I was so angry with her.
I just felt rejection.
I didn't talk to anybody.
I was more on my own than I had ever been.
[sombre music playing]
[Presence of the Lord playing]
[Steve Winwood] Eric felt that he wanted to try something
a bit different
musically and asked me if I'd be interested.
We were essentially just experimenting.
None of us more than Eric I think,
he was definitely going through something.
[Eric] We were just having fun,
we hadn't got an agenda.
I wrote a song called, Presence of the Lord
which it starts out
with the line, "I finally found a place to live."
And I was really writing about Hurtwood.
♪ I have finally found a place to live ♪
♪ Just like I never could before ♪
♪ And I know I don't have much to give ♪
♪ But I can open any door ♪
♪ Everybody knows the secret ♪
♪ Everybody knows the score yeah ♪
♪ I have finally found a place to live ♪
♪ In the presence of the Lord ♪
[Eric] By now, Charlotte had had enough.
We broke up and she'd gone back to Paris.
And I had begun on and off to see this girl, Alice.
She was a great woman.
But she didn't know that I was obsessed with Pattie.
♪ Everybody knows the secret ♪
♪ Everybody knows the score yeah, yeah ♪
♪ I have finally found a way to live ♪
♪ In the presence of the Lord ♪
[audience cheering]
[Pattie] One morning, I woke up and
opening the mail, I found this letter
with tiny little handwriting.
And I opened it and it said,
"Dearest L."
The spacing of the words and the size of the lettering
compared to the size of the page.
It was quiet, but it was full of passion.
I almost had a sort of physical reaction
that somebody could write something so amazingly
beautiful and yet keeping it quiet.
It was bursting with passion.
And later in the early evening,
the phone rang and it was Eric.
He said, "I mean what I say in the letter."
[Bobby] The very first time I met Eric.
We were opening up for Blind Faith.
That band broke up, so I called up Eric
and I just said, "I needed to get away,
"and just to get quiet for a while."
And he said, "Why don't you come over?"
We just hung out and played and watched silly programs
and stuff, you know?
[Eric] I was offered a concert which was a benefit, you know?
Wouldn't make any money, really, it was just a chance
to play somewhere.
Bobby and I
thought, "Why don't we do that?"
So we only did the rhythm section,
but the only rhythm section we knew that we could
work with was Jim and Carl.
So we got Jim and Carl over.
And I think that was the only thing we had planned.
[rock music playing]
[Bobby] It was all about just playing constantly.
There was times when we jammed in E for like days.
[Cathy] There was really no break from it,
there was like a constant musical party.
Everybody came over to visit.
There was always a lot of cocaine.
Lot of Mandrax,
which is kind of like a quaalude.
LSD, mescaline and a lot of pot, a lot of hash.
I knew something was wrong with Eric, he wasn't himself,
he was very distracted all the time.
Whenever I saw Pattie, I saw him perk up a little bit.
He had a lot of pictures of her around,
like modelling pictures.
I think that was even bigger than his music,
because he seemed to be so obsessed.
Eric started to phone me and said, "Come on.
"You're obviously unhappy, come away with me."
And I'd say, "No, I can't."
You know, I'm married to George and he'll say,
"Look, come on..."
He was fun and awake and alive.
It was the most wonderful temptation
and I could only compare him to George
who could be very cold and would just turn off.
So from time to time, during the summer,
Eric and I saw each other.
We'd go to little places for coffee, lunch or even dinner.
[Bobby] George Harrison rang one afternoon
and he asked Eric,
if he and I would like to play on his first album
that he's gonna do.
He had all these songs, you know?
Eric and I had talked about who we wanted
in the band.
Of course we knew, we wanted Carl.
And Jim Gordon just storm trooped over
and we were ready to go, we couldn't wait.
You know, because it was to go into the studio and record
All Things Must Pass.
So, really, we put the band together
during the All Things Must Pass sessions.
[My Sweet Lord playing]
[Eric] That was our first recording,
it was All Things Must Pass.
It was the first Dominos real recording.
But that's when the drugs were coming in.
This guy would show up at Abbey Road
and sell you your coke
but he'd make sure that you bought
smack as well.
That was the deal, he wouldn't sell you one
without the other.
♪ Really want to see you ♪
[Bobby] Eric says, "You wanna try some of this?
You know, the heroin.
I said, "No, man, let me just watch you."
He did it.
Just snorted it, you know?
I said, "What does it feel like?"
He said, "Pink cotton wool surrounding me."
[Eric] Then I went in to a sort of trance.
It got really mysterious and I didn't know where I was.
I had been given a little Persian book.
The love story about Laila and Majnun.
An absolute tragedy of doomed love.
The hero ends up alone in the desert
and gives his soul up to Allah before dying alone.
I saw myself as that.
I saw the whole experience with Pattie as tragedy.
[Pattie] Things became rather tricky with George and I.
I met with Eric, we had a drink in South Kensington,
he had a flat there.
Eric said, "You know, I love you and I want you
"to be with me, come away with me.
"I just feel that I need you."
[Eric] We'd been flirting for quite a while.
But we hadn't gone over the line.
But that evening.
We made love.
And then we realized that we were supposed to be
at this party.
[Cathy James] Everybody was there. It was a big party.
I went with Mick.
Paul McCartney was there, Eric was there.
Pattie came without George.
[Eric] For the first time, it felt like there was a chance
for us.
[Pattie] Eric said he wanted to talk to me
and we were in the garden.
This was quite late, you know, because the sun was beginning
to come up.
And George appeared from nowhere
from the mists of the morning.
[Eric] And I said, "I have to tell you something,
"I'm in love with your wife."
[Pattie] And George looked at me accusingly and said,
"Well, what are you gonna do, are you going with him
"or are you coming back with me?"
[Eric] I felt her detach.
Right there and then, I knew the deal was off.
[Pattie] So I said, "George, of course I'm going with you."
There were no extra words, there was nothing else
to be discussed except who was I going home with
and I found that deeply depressing.
[Eric] Everyone knew that George was playing around
but she was absolutely loyal to him.
And I thought, "What do you want?
"Do you want to see me crawl across the floor to you?"
What do I have to do?
[Thorn Tree In The Garden playing]
♪ There's a thorn tree in the garden ♪
♪ If you know just what I mean ♪
♪ And I hate to hurt your feelings ♪
♪ But it's not the way it seems ♪
♪ 'Cause I miss her ♪
♪ She's the only girl I've cared for
♪ The only one I've known ♪
♪ And no one ever shared more love than we've known ♪
♪ And I miss her ♪
[Bobby] Eric was going through this major major trauma.
That's why all that music spoke that way.
It was Eric telling the truth about
what was going on with him right then.
That was for sure.
♪ And if she winds up walking the streets ♪
♪ Loving every other man she meets ♪
♪ Who'll be the one to answer why? ♪
The people in the South will go out back
and roll around in the gravel, you know?
About being in love with your best friend's wife.
Eric did it musically.
He wanted so much to get Pattie back
and he said it was time to record.
♪ Maybe someday soon ♪
♪ Somewhere ♪
When we got to Miami.
We set up in Thunderbird motel down there,
with very large bags of cocaine.
We really didn't have enough songs for an album.
But we had faith.
Played all day, played all night.
Get back to hotel, hole up in Eric's room
or something and playing that thing.
[blues guitar playing]
[engineer] Once more, once more, once more. Sorry.
[blues guitar playing]
[Tom] They started playing me concepts for songs
that they had not finalized the arrangements on
and I just kept tape rolling for a day or two,
because I was learning the songs as
they were playing them and the songs
and the arrangements were evolving.
[Eric] I can't do it. When it gets a little more complicated
than a simple harmony, I'm not sure if I could.
[Bobby] What if I started out and did the first...
[Eric] And the guitar?
[indistinct conversation]
[ Bell Bottom Blues playing]
[Tom speaking]
[Eric speaking]
[Eric] About two weeks into the sessions,
we hit a brick wall.
We got stuck, really badly stuck.
I'd written part of the song in England.
For Pattie.
It had this sort of story overlaid on him
about a little Persian book.
Laila and Majnum.
And I couldn't finish it.
What will you do when you get lonely?
♪ And nobody's waiting by your side ♪
♪ You've been running and hiding much too long ♪
♪ You know it's just your foolish pride ♪
[Bobby] That was for sure,
a tortured soul singing right there.
But things were getting complicated.
The band really needed a new direction.
[ Dreams playing]
[Eric] Tom Dowd took us all to see the Allman Brothers.
And I was completely blown away by this band
and they just were incredible musicians.
[Tom] Eric had never met Duane.
He heard about Duane, but Duane and I were
already tight.
It was Duane's show, he ran that band,
he was the band leader.
That was it.
After the show, we asked him to come back and we jammed
all night long.
[Duane Allman speaking]
[Layla playing]
♪ I've tried to give you consolation ♪
♪ When your old man had let you down ♪
♪ Like a fool I fell in love with you ♪
♪ Turned my whole world upside down ♪
♪ Layla ♪
♪ Got me on my knees Layla ♪
♪ I'm begging, darling, please Layla ♪
♪ Darling won't you ease my worried mind ♪
[Duane] Hands are dead!
[Duane speaking]
[Eric] Duane and I just became inseparable
for the rest of the time we were there.
He was the catalyst we needed.
[Bobby] It was all about love songs.
Ballads with a different tempo.
It was that what we can't see or touch
or smell, or taste or feel.
And of course, it was all about Pattie.
That's why Eric is singing all that pain and agony
and stuff.
[Pattie] I met with Eric in South Kensington
he said, "I've got something for you to hear."
♪ Bell bottom blues you made me cry ♪
He played me this album.
My gosh, it was so powerful.
♪ If I could choose ♪
♪ A place to die ♪
♪ It would be in your arms ♪
♪ Do you want to see me crawl across the floor to you? ♪
I was at bursting point of emotion.
I couldn't believe that I was the inspiration
for him putting this together.
I thought when I heard it,
that everyone would know it was about me.
♪ Give me one more day please ♪
♪ I don't want to fade away ♪
And I didn't want this to happen.
I couldn't stop listening to it.
But once the album was finished, I couldn't wait
to get out and go home.
[ Layla playing]
[Eric] It didn't work.
It was all for nothing.
It was like a...
Rejection.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience is over.
The acid rock musician died today in a London hospital
apparently from an overdose of drugs.
During his short career, Hendrix flailed his
electric guitar into some of the most unusual
sounds of an unusual music.
[Eric] I went out into the garden and cried all day.
'Cause he left me behind.
And not because he's gone, but because he hadn't taken me
with him.
This made me so fucking angry.
[Bobby] Well, it shattered Eric, you know?
We had just recorded Little Wing couple of weeks
before that.
That was Eric's tribute to Jimi.
So that had a huge impact on Eric.
Morning, spot me on the Bee Gees and the other one.
Excellent.
You hear the new mix down there.
Eric, you're...
That Derek, they oughta be a smash hit.
I'm telling you, it's a mass...
Dill Besta, Greenbert.
Jerry...
All right, yeah.
Derek and the Dominos, 25 for cash box
and 24 for record.
I considered Eric the most major artist on our label.
So I couldn't believe the record wasn't selling
in America.
I didn't know what to do.
And he knew, it was because nobody knew that Derek
was Eric.
So, at that time, Eric was very vulnerable.
Why not call the group...
by your name?
Everybody knows...
that Derek and the Dominos
are Eric Clapton, you know what I mean?
[Eric] But then, what's the difference?
[Howard] But, why, why not?
[Eric] Well, because...
I guess it's just more fun to have a name, you know...
It's just lighter, you know?
[Howard] I read something about the idea that you wanna
give up touring, you're not considering giving it all up?
[Eric] I don't think I could ever stop playing.
You know, like I could vanish anytime, I could just stop
making appearances at anytime.
I think I could, that's quite easy.
You know, financially if I was secure enough
to able to not have to go on the road
which I'm not at the moment, I need to go out to make money
to exist.
If I didn't need to do that, as long as I had someone
around me to play with, you know,
I could probably just stay at home all the time.
[audience cheering]
[sombre music playing]
[Eric] I feel much more alone these days.
You know and if I'm alone, I'll cry.
You know, literally just weep.
What I want most is out.
You know, out of everything.
Because, right now, all I can see is the suffering of today
and the suffering of tomorrow.
[Steve speaking]
[Eric] It comes first.
-[Steve speaking] -[Eric] Yeah.
It's like surrounding yourself in pink cotton wool, you know?
Nothing bothers you, whatsoever, man.
Nothing will faze you out, in any way.
I also have this death wish.
[Steve speaking]
I don't like life.
[Steve speaking]
No. And I'm not gonna live very long.
[Bobby] Eric went into seclusion.
He turned and walked away, without us.
And he got off into the heroin.
And I was gonna stay there and wait it out.
But it didn't seem like it was ever gonna happen.
I thought it was the beginning.
I didn't know it was the end.
[sombre violin music playing]
[Ben] I was in Wales at the time,
and I went down to Hurtwood where he lived.
I didn't know anything about heroin addiction.
I just thought because I was one of his oldest friends,
if not his oldest friend.
There just might be something we could talk about.
And I saw him moving past the window upstairs
in the house.
But the house was locked.
And nobody had responded to me ringing the bell,
knocking the door.
In the end, I figured, "He doesn't want to see you,"
and I left him alone.
[haunting music playing]
I didn't see him for a long time.
And I thought to myself, given his family history
so far, this is going to be very difficult for him
to get through.
There are things you don't get over.
You have to find a comfortable place to put them.
But they're always there.
[plane engine revving]
With '74 tour, we started Scandinavia at first,
just as a warm up.
He was fragile, I'm not sure whether he was
really aware of everything around him.
What was going on around him.
[Eric] I managed to come off heroin.
But I just went from one addiction to another.
And the attitude back then was that alcohol was okay.
But for me, alcohol was far more dangerous than heroin.
[indistinct announcement]
[Howard] Whether it be record label forcing him,
management forcing him, may have been a little too quick
going on a huge tour like that,
and throwing him back into the public limelight
after being a hermit
through the past four or five years.
[audience cheering]
I'll drink to that.
[George] Eric discovered Gevassier and Remy Martin
and just went into it.
if he got a hold of something, he'd hit at it
until it was gone.
And before you know it, he'd be through a whole bottle
of cognac before lunch time's over.
It looked like he wanted to kill himself.
[audience cheering]
[Eric slurring]
[crowd booing]
[man shouting]
Some shows, he played 30 minutes
and say, "I'm done."
You know the contract may have said an hour and a half.
But you also have 25,000, 30,000 people that have...
Get a little upset... [laughs] That you just left.
[Eric] [slurring] Sit down and shut up!
It was still legal to throw bottles
and coolers and can openers and whatever you want
to throw up there, you could throw.
You'll think your life is in jeopardy.
[Eric] Jamie Oldaker!
Ah.
Smile, you cunt!
[marching music playing]
[Eric] The first disappointing confrontation with my mother
was when I was nine.
I learned how to recover from that over the next few years.
Becoming good at art and developing a strong interest
in music.
By then I'd kind of developed a personal look.
[children laughing]
[Rose speaking]
[Eric] I had my guitar and that was my total companion
in its little case.
And then there came this invitation to go to Germany,
because Pat's husband had been stationed there
with the Canadian Air Force.
He came over to visit us in Germany
and he was just so keen on the guitar.
And we said, if he wanted to bring the guitar with him
to practice, he could.
Because really and truly, like everybody else,
we didn't take it seriously.
[Eric] We're on an army camp and I didn't fit.
And it was suggested to me that I should get a hair cut.
I said, "I'd rather not, I like my hair the way it is."
My mother put on this face like,
"Dare to defy me."
And I thought, "I don't like you.
"You don't want me anyway.
"And now you really don't want me the way I am."
Rose said, "Please, do this."
Just to keep everybody happy.
So they gave me a crew cut.
It made me cry.
And a couple of days later, my brother came in,
my half brother and sat on the guitar
and broke the neck clean in half.
It was like, everything was done to demolish
my personality
and make me null and void.
I was full of hatred, anger and resentment.
So I thought, "Okay.
"That's the last time I trust anyone."
Things became very difficult with George
and I, and we decided it would be better
if we parted.
I heard that Eric was on a tour.
I went to surprise him.
Our relationship hadn't been completed.
There was clearly more to it than just snatched meetings.
[Eric] I hadn't seen her for all those years.
Pattie must have known
she was getting involved with someone
who was pretty unstable.
As much as I could love someone, I loved her.
I was not just screwed up, but you know,
a full blown addict by then.
Maybe I never got beyond just wanting her
from a distance.
[Pattie] We would do all sorts of things together
and he would say, he loves me.
But he wanted to drink all the time
and it just increased.
But then when he had too much to drink
or became really seriously unpleasant
and I felt that he didn't love me either.
So this was really ghastly
until maybe the next day
and he'd be loving again.
He was quite scary,
and he would scream at me across hotel lobbies.
He was just listening to a different drummer
when he was that drunk.
[Eric] Mind if I have a drink?
[man speaking]
Tell you what, you want to come on stage
and talk, you want to come up here and talk about it?
I'll fucking have you, I'll tell ya.
[Jamie] It got to be a point of wondering,
you know, each show, what's going to happen
tomorrow night?
And I used to ask Carl, "What's up with this guy?
"They told me he was a nice guy."
You know, I have to lock my doors every night
and hide from this guy, 'cause he's out of his mind.
[rock music playing]
[music slowing down]
[Eric] When I realized what I said,
I just was so disgusted with myself.
I was so fucking angry.
And I thought I needed to apologize to the people
I said that to.
Because it was so shocking and unforgivable
and I was so ashamed of who I was.
I was becoming not only chauvinistic
but fascistic too.
I was a kind of a semi racist
which didn't make sense.
I mean, half of my friends were black.
I dated black women and listened to black music
and championed black music.
But it didn't matter at all.
They could have all gone to the wall as long as I had
the bottle.
I hated everything. Everything.
I thought I had this dream, you know?
About the perfect band, you know?
I the... And the virtuoso
of each instrument, you know?
I thought I was a virtuoso.
My instrument,
thought Jack and Ginger was the virtuoso
and, uh, we all thought that.
I'm sad that it actually ever happen, really.
Because...
I mean, I wouldn't want to change anything
but probably would've done better
to stay with John Mayall
and then because, it was that Cream thing,
it was all like...
It was just aggressive music.
[snorting]
It's not even worth it, is it?
Just fucking do it. She's got another stash.
[Pattie] Eric was a very sad person.
Very, very sad.
He was a broken man
who can't cope, who can hardly speak.
He started having seizures
and then the doctor told me, unless he stopped drinking,
he would die.
[sombre music playing]
[Eric] The only reason I didn't commit suicide
was the fact that I wouldn't be able to drink any more
if I was dead.
My capacity for the love of alcohol was boundless.
So I drank and drank and drank.
Again and again and again.
When making records during the drunken period.
I personally find it difficult to listen to,
because I can hear how drunk I am.
All of these albums have,
elements where it's moved up a notch
and I've been given the chance to sing and play
in a way that I hadn't before.
[audience cheering]
I went off to Moscow,
a lot of things took place while I was there.
I ended up having an affair
with the studio manageress,
George Martin's Air Studios in Montserrat.
A lovely woman called Yvonne,
very attractive lady, very funny, very witty.
And I got a letter from her
saying she was pregnant with a daughter
and that she didn't have any expectations from me,
she was going to try and raise the child
in her existing marriage.
And I knew I just wasn't capable of having
a relationship.
♪ When, when ♪
Okay, let's just do it more acapella.
One, two , three, four.
♪ When I see those big, brown eyes ♪
♪ That's when I take my cue ♪
♪ Don't take us but a few minutes to get ♪
♪ A message through ♪
♪ I talk to you, you talk to me ♪
♪ I keep talking to the wrong person ♪
♪ It don't take but a few minutes ♪
♪ To get a man's... ♪
Understand each other.
Am I gonna remember that?
Well, you wrote it.
[Eric] I was in absolute denial about my alcoholism.
I had gone to the best treatment centre in the world
but I got into dope again
and alcohol and blow.
And I was trying to hide it from everybody.
Some people say you have to live the blues
to sing the blues.
During that period of time in your life
where you were involved with drugs and alcohol,
did you do that to justify that point of view?
No, you know, I was just a party animal.
A fun seeking boy.
And then I was in Milan, touring and a promoter
then she introduced me to Lory Del Santo.
I was just smitten with her
and decided I'm going to start my life from scratch
here in Italy without any idea where it was going to go.
[Pattie] He was a complete asshole.
There was no relationship, and I knew it wouldn't work.
And I felt so sad that he and I split up
because of that ridiculous idea.
But he was a sick person and he obviously believed it.
[Eric] We tried to make a go of it.
But she didn't know who she was dealing with,
I was not grounded in any way.
I said, "Well, look, I don't think this is working.
"I want to go back to my wife."
And she told me, "Well, that's not really
"good news, because I'm pregnant."
Mmm.
Conor was the first thing that happened to me
in my entire life
that really got to my core
and told me, time to grow up.
Strong man.
I could not fuck around any longer.
I could not damage this.
Up.
Catch that.
[making cooing noises]
[reporter speaking]
Well that came about quite out of the blue.
I met this young lady and bang it happened.
It was like the baby was looking for parents too.
You know, to give it life.
And he's great, it's wonderful.
Yes, just you know,
grow up happily with my son.
I got to the place where I couldn't live without
a drink and I couldn't live with it.
When I tried to stop on my own,
my withdrawals were so hard
that I had a grand mal seizure.
I was on my own in the house one day.
And I got down on my knees and prayed.
Was a really clumsy experience but it was born out of real
desperation.
And I said, "Just let me have some peace."
[reporter] What effect has fatherhood had on you?
[Eric] A very stabilizing effect because you suddenly
have to stop being so selfish, you know?
You have to think more about the life of someone else.
It is like a blood thing.
It's a tie for the rest of your life.
And I love him dearly
and really he's made a massive change in me.
[audience cheering]
Lory and Conor were staying in New York
in this place called the Galleria on 57th street.
And I was in New York as well.
So I took Conor to see the circus on Long Island.
We had a great time.
The following day, I was going to take Conor for lunch
maybe on my own.
It was about eleven in the morning.
I was getting ready to go up to 57th Street.
Then I got a phone call from Lory,
just kind of screaming.
She said, "He's dead."
I thought, "What's she talking about?"
She said, "He fell out the window."
[reporter] There couldn't have been a bigger nightmare.
Before anyone could stop him, four-year-old Conor Clapton
had plunged to his death from the 53rd floor
of the Galleria building.
He made it past his mother and three other adults
who were in the apartment
to a window that had just been cleaned and left open.
There was nothing to break his fall
except the roof of an adjoining building.
It's just a tragic accident, that the child apparently
wandered into... Into the bedroom,
wandered close to the window
and just by the fact that the window ledge was low.
It appears that he just tragically fell out.
[Eric] I felt like I stepped back out of myself.
I couldn't grasp it, I could not grasp it.
And I went with the body down to the nearest hospital.
I went to see him
and I said goodbye to him.
And I did lose faith.
[Pattie] It was horrific.
I just couldn't think about that little boy.
This little soul.
Eric was a fighter.
But I know that
as well as myself, a lot of his friends
were very concerned about him,
his sobriety, he was on his own.
[Eric] Italians had gone home and Hurtwood was quiet
and it was just me there.
With my thoughts.
I started opening all my letters of condolence.
Thousands and thousands of them.
I opened one and it was from Conor.
And it had been posted weeks before from Milan.
And I realized if I can go through this and stay sober
then anyone can.
And I suddenly became aware of the fact
that there was a way to turn this dreadful tragedy
into something positive.
That I would consider living my life from this point on
to honour the memory of my son.
[acoustic guitar playing]
I got hold of the little Spanish guitar that I had
lying around.
And I had it with me the whole time.
From the minute I woke up.
And for the rest of that year, I just played and played
to stop from facing this situation.
[Tears In Heaven playing]
♪ Would you know my name? ♪
♪ If I saw you in heaven ♪
♪ Would it be the same? ♪
♪ If I saw you in heaven ♪
♪ I must be strong ♪
♪ And carry on ♪
♪ 'Cause I know I don't belong ♪
♪ Here in heaven ♪
♪ Time can bring you down ♪
♪ Time can bend your knees ♪
♪ Time can break your heart ♪
♪ Have you begging please, begging please ♪
[Eric] Music saved me.
Just as it had when I was a boy of nine.
It took the pain away.
And I wrote these songs for myself
because I was feeling terrible inside.
♪ Beyond the door ♪
♪ There's peace I'm sure ♪
♪ And I know there'll be no more ♪
♪ Tears in heaven ♪
And the Grammy goes to Tears in Heaven,
Eric Clapton.
And the song of the year is,
Eric Clapton and Will Jennings, songwriters
for Tears in Heaven.
And the album of the year is...
♪ 'Cause I know... ♪
Unplugged, Eric Clapton.
[Eric] As much as I'm proud of what I've achieved musically.
It's all dust really.
At some point, there will be people who have no idea
what I did and who I am.
And I'm quite comfortable about that.
[audience applauding]
Thank you.
Finally, me and my daughter, Ruth
were able to begin our own relationship,
which was wonderful.
And it took me to a place
where I was able to have a great relationship with Ruth
and also become available
to have a relationship with another human being,
Now see that's, that was the first time I felt like that
in my entire life.
[Larry King] I have a brochure to show you quickly called
Crossroads centre at Antigua.
But this... This is an Eric Clapton project,
what is it?
For the last three years, I've been trying to start
a treatment centre in Antigua.
For addiction?
For addiction to drugs and alcohol, yeah.
So are you doing it for people who live
on the island?
I'm primarily doing it for people that have no money.
That need treatment.
There's 100 guitars here, some of them were with me
through some really extreme times.
But I want them to raise a lot of money for the foundation
and to carry the message of the centre.
[auctioneer] Five hundred thousand out there.
Six hundred thousand I'm offered. 700,000, 800,000.
Eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
And sold.
[Eric] Music has given me a great life.
That's never betrayed me, it's never gonna let me down.
But if it doesn't have the same value as knowing
that there are people out there that I've helped
get sober through the treatment centre.
[audience cheering]
[Robert Cray] Let's bring on Hubert Sumlin.
Please welcome Buddy Guy.
Put your hands together for the king of the blues.
B.B. King.
[Ben] If he hadn't heard and liked the blues.
He could just about about retiring from
the building trade now.
Having spent his life, laying tiles like his father.
If you guide yourself into the worst aspects
of life which he undoubtedly did.
Nobody pushed him down to the depth
that he felt he reached at several points.
And nobody has got him out.
Now, I mean that is a very powerful personality.
It doesn't necessarily have to show itself
in company.
But it must be there for him to have survived.
[Eric] And then I met Melia and fell in love.
She's everything I ever wanted.
She's my soul mate.
She's a beautiful woman, she's a great friend.
And she's a fantastic mother.
What more could a man ever want?
Hello, this is Sophie.
Here she is. And this is Daddy.
And this is Ella.
Here is Mommy.
And here is me.
Hi.
[all screaming]
[Eric] It's everything I did and all the mistakes
I made and everything that brought me here.
And it couldn't me much better, really.
I finally found the family I always wanted.
And always needed.
And now here they are, and I'm one of them.
My life is completely full.
And I would like to say a toast
to the Boss.
Give me a little talking music, will you?
Robert, please.
Keep it down, keep it down.
Ladies and gentlemen, for you, I know that you know
that Eric is a great artist.
He flew all the way to California
to make my first CD.
Not only did he do that, he's done so many things
for a lot of us, including this guy.
So I'd like you to know...
I'm gonna shut up in a minute, but I'd like you to know.
That I've been around the world,
I've played 90 different countries around the world,
and I've met many people,
kings and queens.
But I've never met a better man, a more gracious man
than my friend, I like to call him my friend, Eric Clapton.
[audience cheering]
So I say to all of you...
May I live forever...
But may you live forever and a day.
'Cause I'd hate to be here when you pass away.
And when they lay me out to rest...
As I mentioned, I'm 81 now.
When they lay me out to rest, may the last voices
I hear be yours.
Saying while we was alive we was friends.
[Mainline Florida playing]
♪ My heart was leaping in the sun ♪
♪ My friends all say that you're the one ♪
♪ Let me get this one thing very clear ♪
♪ There ain't enough going on down here ♪
♪ Mainline Florida, oh say ♪
♪ Mainline Florida, okay ♪
♪ Her arms were open open wide ♪
♪ Her invitation's a changing tide ♪
♪ I could remember not long ago ♪
♪ We took a cruise down on Hotel Row ♪
♪ Mainline Florida, oh say ♪
♪ Mainline Florida, okay ♪
[guitar solo]
♪ Her arms were open open wide ♪
♪ Her invitation's a changing tide ♪
♪ I could remember not long ago ♪
♪ We took a cruise down on Hotel Row ♪
♪ Mainline Florida, oh say ♪
♪ Mainline Florida, okay ♪
♪ Hey ♪
[serene guitar music playing]