I remember reading Eric Clapton’s autobiography when it first came out in 2008. The title of the book — Clapton: The Autobiography – doesn’t mince words; neither do its contents.
I’ve long admired Eric for his musical abilities, but I’ve never really known much about him outside of his songs. Suffice it to say that this tome leaves few stones unturned. The intimacy and candor make it obvious that Eric truly did write this himself because there’s none of the fluff that typically accompanies a ghost writer.
In addition to learning myriad nuggets of knowledge and tidbits of trivia, I particularly enjoyed the way in which Eric’s remembrances of people, places, and events tie into the accounts of other characters in their own biographies (auto, authorized, and unauthorized) that I’ve read, like Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart, and Ronnie Woods. Unfortunately, as a result of reading this book, I discovered that I didn’t really like Eric much as a person.
But that’s neither here nor there. Like many of the artists of his time, Eric bounced around a number of bands, including the Yardbirds, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, and Cream, in which he played sustained blues improvisations and “arty, blues-based psychedelic pop.” When Cream disbanded in 1968, Eric, Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood, and Ric Grech formed the blues rock band Blind Faith.
Two years later, in 1970, by which time his guitar playing was already the stuff of legend, Eric embarked on a solo career. Alongside his solo calling, Eric also performed with Derek and the Dominos, with whom he recorded his all-time classic signature song Layla.
It’s been 13 years since I read Eric’s biography, and I don’t have it here in my office, but — as I recall – a lot of people at that time didn’t immediately make the connection that Eric was a member of Derek and the Dominos. My recollection is that, when the news did eventually break and realization finally dawned, signs promptly promulgated proclaiming that “Derek is Eric!”
The reason I’m waffling on about this here is that I just read an interesting article about the American actor, puppeteer, and filmmaker, Frank Oz. I was already aware that Frank was associated with The Muppet Show as a puppeteer, but I hadn’t realized that he voiced the characters of Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, and Sam Eagle.
Do you remember the classic Good Grief, the Comedian’s a Bear sketch (my friend Little Steve can perform this so well that – if you close your eyes – you’d swear that Kermit and Fozzie were in the room with you)?
What I didn’t know that that Frank also voiced the character of the Jedi Grandmaster Yoda in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
As soon as I discovered this, I found I could hear both Yoda and Fozzie’s voices playing in my head (actually, that’s not an uncommon occurrence, now that I come to think about it) and things somehow seemed to click into place.
It brings a new aspect to the saying, “May the farce be with you.” I’m almost moved to create my own sign declaring “Yoda is Fozzie!” Maybe I should have this printed on a T-Shirt, but is the world ready to be exposed to this earthshaking news?
Speaking of biographies of rock stars, have you read the Lenny Kravitz bio “Let Love Rule?” (BTW, in this case, should the question mark be outside the quotes? I think so.) Anyway, this biography is FANTASTIC and it made me really appreciate him and his music.
(a) No (I haven’t read it), (b) Yes (in this case the ? should be outside the “), and (c) I’d love to read it and will add it to my Amazon wish list
I agree, Fozzie played the role of Yoda.
It’s amazing what the makeup folks can do these days 🙂
Biographies of rock stars. Let’s see:
Most are written as transcripts of a solo narration onto a tape recorder and as a result are poorly written and disjointed and with frequent colloquialisms and gratuitous swearing. I also find the order that they wrote their songs different enough from the order that they became popular to be quite disconcerting as it disrupts my internal timeline.
Graham Nash. Pompous and narcissitic. He had the reputation of being a gentlemen and a great friend who would even take drugs to help a friend get through a tough trip. Turns out that he would only do it if that friend was David Crosby. I didn’t like him as a person.
Keith Richard. He is remarkably generous with his assessment of different musicians saving his criticism for David Bowie and all the other members of the Stones with the exception of Ronnie Wood. Some errors that are perhaps explicable since he was drunk or high most of the time. In the final chapter he tells the story of being on a safari and being close to an elusive cheetah because they saw the cat’s dead prey lodged in the boughs of a tree. Cheetahs can’t climb and it would have been the prey of a leopard. But would you correct a drunken rock god who owns a gun?
Randy Bachman (Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive). Not so much an autobiography, but a transcription of his broadcasts on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation involving how music is written, the sounds of different makes of guitars, personal reminisces of other rock stars. Really interesting and recommended.
Pete Townshend. Quite well written although I got it as an audiobook. It was interesting to hear him chuckle as he read certain passages which gave a slightly different meaning to the text. The description of the early Who and the fact that the group was never really a close knit unit seemed at odds to the heights that they achieved. He comes across as self righteous and a narcissist as well. However I would recommend the book.
My understanding is that the Keith Richards biography I read was mostly written by a ghost writer because Keith couldn’t remember much of anything. I quite liked Ronnie Wood’s autobiography https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001LNOOFW
Although it’s not related to rock-and-roll, my favorite autobiography of all time is “The Moon’s a Balloon” by David Niven https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006W7PVY
That is the second time in 6 months that I have been reminded of Niven’s book. i recently took a writing course with the University of East Anglia. The lecturer pointed out some skillful landscape descriptions in the autobiography.
I believe I still have a copy somewhere. Time to re-read it!
I look forward to hearing what you think when you re-read it and become reacquainted with all of the details.
Jimmy Barnes (of Cold Chisel) and his autobiography Working Class Boy (one of his better known songs is “Working Class Man“). He’s probably not well known outside Australia, but his impact on Aussie music is huge. He did an anti Vietnam war song Khe Sanh which is also very good. The video for another one, Flame Trees, was shot in a town just down the road from me. His singing style is pretty full on and he pretty much screams sometimes. His childhood was pretty rough but he’s turned out OK.
I was in Tasmania once on holiday and just coming out of the hotel lift. This guy who looked familiar held the door open for us as we went out. I made some inane comment and kept wondering if I’d seen him before. As we went onto the street my wife said “Isn’t that that guy you like that screams?” I thought “OMG – Barnesy!!!” I wish I’d recognised him – I’m not one for hassling stars but I would just have liked to have said “Love ya work, mate!”
Hi David — thanks so much for sharing — I’m up to my armpits in alligators at the moment, but I’ll take a look at these as soon as I can — Max