Rock’n’roll, drugs and a good roast

Eric Clapton lost his virginity to ‘a girl called Lucy who was older than me, and whose boyfriend was out of town’. Lucky chap, you immediately think, and indeed, he seems to have lived a charmed life, which he hasn’t enjoyed one bit. ‘Something more profound also happened when I got this guitar. As soon as I got it, I suddenly didn’t want it any more. This was a phenomenon which was to rear its head throughout my life, and cause many difficulties in the future.’ He first saw the Beatles in the audience at the Crawdaddy club in Richmond: ‘I suppose that it was only natural that I would be jealous, and think of them as a bunch of w***ers.’ He explains himself with reference to his grandfather Jack: ‘Like me in later years, he was slightly unpopular and was a bit of an outcast.’ By temperament alone, Clapton is certainly qualified to play the blues.

He is, of course, one of the greatest of all rock guitarists. As Steve van Zandt once wrote, ‘He had seven years of the most extraordinary, historic guitar-playing ever — and 35 years of doing good work.’ Clapton’s autobiography bears this out. It is fascinating on the early years — the ‘Clapton Is God’ phase — and rather less gripping thereafter. When Cream were going to America for the first time

we were all so excited…. The first thing I did when I knew we were going was to make a short list of all the things I had fantasised about doing if I ever went there. I was going to buy a fringed cowboy jacket, for example, and some cowboy boots. I was going to have a milkshake and a hamburger.