This Saturday, March 30,
Eric Clapton turns 79 years old
. One of the great rock guitarists, with a history in which contrasts are the rule. An enormous talent as a musician with a successful career and a personal life in which there
was no shortage of addictions, tragedies and illnesses
throughout the sixty years of his career.
Clapton will perform on
September 20 at the Vélez stadium
; It will be his fourth visit, since his debut in Buenos Aires, in 1990, and his two previous performances, in 2001 and 2011.
Eric Clapton on the poster for his current "60 Tour". Photo: IG
His “60 Tour” tour resumes on May 9, in Newcastle, England and will continue with shows in Liverpool, Birmingham and four performances at the Royal Albert Hall in London. A tour with a certain farewell flavor, at least for this type of tour in which the musician crosses the Atlantic towards South America.
Music always helped him
Clapton's story included
struggles with drugs and alcohol, the tragedy of losing a child and a disorder of the nervous system
, peripheral neuropathy, which not only involves severe pain but also the inability to perform on stage and which for the moment has been able to handle.
Now, none of all these vicissitudes managed to divert him from music, a character that, evidently, helped him overcome blow after blow.
Rarely does an artist receive immediate acceptance from colleagues and the public like Clapton had after his time in
The Yardbirds
(1963), where he surprised by his quality in expressing that special feeling that the blues holds.
Eric Clapton in the Cream era, with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce. Photo file.
He was so surprised that less than two years later, the legendary John Mayall invited him in April 1965 to be part of his band
Bluesbreakers
. Around that time, at Islington station on the London Underground, that famous graffiti “Clapton is God” appeared.
Then came
Cream
, with Jack Bruce on bass and Ginger Baker on drums, and then
Blind Faith
, the first rock supergroup, with Baker, Stevie Winwood, on keyboards and vocals, and Rick Grech, on bass.
While his star continued to rise, he recorded with his great friend
George Harrison , participated in
John Lennon
's Plastic Ono Band
and released his first album
Eric Clapton
(1970).
Eric Clapton at his wedding to Pattie Boyd, the ex of his friend George Harrison and the muse of "Layla." Photo file
Seeking to put together his own band, he crossed the Atlantic to record an exceptional album with the Allman Brothers' lead guitarist, Duane Allman. Under the name
Derek and The Dominos
they release
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs
, with
Layla
, that unparalleled composition dedicated to his impossible love until that moment,
Pattie Boyd
, Harrison's wife.
Clapton and drugs
Drugs were always a permanent presence in the rock environment, Clapton
began using them at the age of fifteen
. While he encountered
heroin
during his time at Cream,
alcohol
was always present.
However, it was around 1970 when his heroin use went from sporadic to permanent. At some point, after having fought for several years to abandon her, he admitted that, due to his visceral fear of needles, he aspirated her and that required larger amounts and more money.
Eric Clapton live at the 1996 Prince's Trust charity event in London. Photo: Reuters
In
Clapton, The Autobiography
(2007) he admits that
he spent about 16 thousand dollars a week on heroin
. It was about three years that put the musician on the brink of financial bankruptcy.
He gave up heroin, which was being used for him, but fell into alcoholism. “He changed shooting for stabbing,” they would say in the neighborhood. What would come would be even more serious, darker and would put Clapton on the brink of death. Before, he went through situations between painful and undignified, like when at a concert (he was not the only one), on the West Coast,
he fell to the floor and urinated on himself
.
It was a long drunk that began in the mid-'70s and ended in January 1982, when after calling his manager for help, he was put on a plane and checked into the Hazelden Treatment Center in Minnesota, seeking to get out of his addiction.
“I don't know how I survived, especially in the '70s. There was a moment on the Minneapolis-St Paul trip that I was dying.
She had three ulcers and one of them was bleeding
. At that time he was drinking three bottles of brandy and taking handfuls of codeine for the pain. I was about to die and I don't even remember it,” he noted in his autobiography.
He also said: “The only reason I didn't commit suicide was because I knew I couldn't drink if I was dead. It was the only thing he thought about and the only thing worth being alive for, to drink.”
Eric Clapton went through the '70s between his addiction to drugs and alcohol. He finally managed to rehabilitate himself in AA. Photo file
Sobriety was not going to come easily. It took him a few years to achieve it and he did so with
the invaluable help of the Alcoholics Anonymous community
.
Among the urban myths of Buenos Aires, there is one that refers to Clapton during his first visit to Argentina, in October 1990. One afternoon, in the English-speaking AA group of the Methodist Church of Corrientes, Casi Maipú, in Capital, sat down and just said “I'm Eric and I Have a Good Day.”
The defense of anonymity makes its confirmation impossible, but at that moment that visit transcended, natural indeed for those who participate in the meetings to maintain their sobriety.
The tragic death of his son
Recovered from his addictions, Clapton faced the biggest blow a father can endure, the loss of a child. On March 20, 1991, his 4-year-old son, Conor (from his relationship with Lory Del Santo)
fell from an open window, from the 55th floor
, in Manhattan. Apparently playing hide and seek with the babysitter.
Eric Clapton and his little son Conor, who died at the age of 4 in a tragic accident. Photo file
Clapton was going to pick him up to visit the Bronx Zoo to see the elephants. The day before they had gone to the Nassau Coliseum circus, on Long Island, where Conor had become fascinated with the elephants and the visit to the zoo was a response to continuing to look at those fascinating beings. That night, the night before the tragedy, Eric told Lory, “I intend to be a proper father.”
The guitarist had not had a relationship with Conor, who had been born from the relationship with the Italian model, a “love at first sight” while Clapton was still in a relationship, although in the midst of a breakup, with Pattie Boyd.
It was Clapton who had to go to the morgue. “Whatever physical damage Conor suffered in the fall, when I saw him they had already restored his body as much as possible. I remember looking at his beautiful resting face and thinking. “This is not my son, he looks a little like him, but he is already gone.”
At the funeral, at St. Magdalene Church in Ripley, England, where the guitarist was born, Del Santo said: “I didn't see Eric cry, but I know that people cry in different ways.”
Eric Clapton lived in 2001 in Dallas, shortly before marrying 25-year-old Melia McEnery. Photo: AP
Clapton entered a depressive state that only his willpower and AA groups managed to reverse. Let us remember that seven months before Conor's death, on August 27, 1990,
Stevie Ray Vaughan
, who had participated in a festival where the figure was, precisely, Clapton, died tragically. The helicopter in which he was traveling fell on the side of a mountain, a few kilometers from the stage, on a stormy Monday morning.
He was brought out of this state of depressive paralysis by a contract to compose the music for the film
Rush
, produced by Reprise Records. A film that premiered in January 1992, where the plot line is accompanied by new songs composed by the guitarist, among them that beautiful ballad
Tears In Heaven
, which summarizes the legitimate desire of every father to see his son again.
A theme that did not go unnoticed by the audiences, who succumbed to the charm of the melody and the soft voice with which the artist sings.
Peripheral neuropathy
In June 2016, Clapton confirms that he is having
serious health problems
.
“I had some pain last year; "They started as mild pains in my back, but it ended up turning into what they call peripheral neuropathy, in which it feels like I had electric shocks going down my legs," he said in an impromptu press conference.
Eric Clapton displays his Commander of the British Empire award, awarded by the Prince of Wales in 2004, at Buckingham Palace. Photo: AFP
The problems would have started in 2013, when due to pain he had to cancel a series of concerts. “It's difficult to play the guitar like that, even standing up sometimes is very difficult for me,” she added.
Two years later, in 2018, he admitted in an interview with BBC 2 that he was going deaf as a result of tinnitus,
a disease that can, in addition to causing hearing loss
, generate a persistent sound that does not come from an external source, but rather from inside the same ear.
“I'm going deaf and my hands don't work like before,” added the musician. The pain in his hands comes from that peripheral neuropathy that he has suffered for eight years and that creates serious difficulties for him in playing the instrument, although Clapton, true to his story, continues to overcome it.
The famous album "Umplugged", Eric Clapton's best-selling album.
He has an important discography, with more than 30 solo works, some such as
EC Was Here
(1975),
Unplugged
(1992),
From The Cradle
(1994),
Me and Mr. Johnson
(2004), excellent. He also worked with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and the historic albums with Cream. He won 16 Grammy Awards in different categories.