Is Eric Clapton a racist?

Looking back on the 30th anniversary of Rock Against Racism

Many of those who will gather in Victoria Park next Sunday to watch the Good, the Bad and the Queen, Hard-Fi, the View and the others on the bill were not even born 30 years ago. But for those who attended the original concert in 1978 it was a show that changed their lives and helped change Britain. Rock Against Racism radicalised a generation, it showed that music could do more than just entertain: it could make a difference. By demonstrating the power of music to effect change it inspired Live Aid and its supporters claim it helped destroy the National Front. It was the triumphant climax to a story that began two years earlier, following one hot August night in Birmingham.

It was 5 August 1976 and Eric Clapton was drunk, angry and on stage at the Birmingham Odeon. ‘Enoch was right,’ he told the audience, ‘I think we should send them all back.’ Britain was, he complained, in danger of becoming ‘a black colony’ and a vote for controversial Tory politician Enoch Powell whom he described as a prophet was needed to ‘keep Britain white’. Although the irony was possibly lost on Clapton, the Odeon in Birmingham is on New Street, minutes from the Midland Hotel where eight years earlier Powell had made his infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. But if the coincidence was curious, the hypocrisy was breathtaking: Clapton’s career was based on appropriating black music, and he had recently had a hit with Bob Marley’s ‘I Shot the Sheriff’.

In usual circumstances his comments would have been merely ill advised, but it was the social and political context which made Clapton’s intervention so chilling. The National Front had won 40 per cent of the votes in the spring elections in Blackburn. One month earlier an Asian teenager, Gurdip Singh Chaggar, had been murdered by a gang of white youths in Southall. ‘One down—a million to go’ was the response to the killing from John Kingsley Read of the National Front. Sid Vicious and Siouxsie Sioux were sporting swastikas as fashion statements. David Bowie, who three months earlier had been photographed apparently giving a Nazi salute in Victoria Station, told Cameron Crowe in the September 1976 edition of Playboy ‘…yes I believe very strongly in fascism. The only way we can speed up the sort of liberalism that’s hanging foul in the air…is a right-wing totally dictatorial tyranny…’ In that same interview Bowie claimed that ‘Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars.’ This was Britain then in the sweltering summer of 1976, and in that context Clapton’s comments were potentially incendiary.

And apparently, Clapton is still a racist

This summer, in the last weekend of June, Eric Clapton will headline two shows in London and Leeds, the locations for the first and last Rock against Racism carnivals. While David Bowie had distanced himself from his pro-Nazi remarks, Clapton has not only never apologised for his outburst, but has continued to praise Powell; only last December on The South Bank Show he reiterated his support for the man and four years ago he told Uncut magazine that Powell had been 'outrageously brave'. In fact the truly 'outrageously brave' ones were those who spoke up against the hate mongers and stood up for a vision of a liberal and tolerant Britain; apathy and cynicism is easy, but Rock Against Racism was gloriously uncynical.

he is not a racist. he was just caught on a bad racist day.

ugh

clapton CANT be a racist. he pays tribute to black blues artists all the time and has said dozens of times how much he owes black music. liking black music/honouring bb king and co = not a racist. end of thread. can we just end this here now?

lolol

Bigging up racists at every opportunity and moaning about immigration for the last 30-odd years doesn't make him a racist tho.

Sorry, meant that for the Morrissey thread.

hey, eric clapton has black friends

and he makes money off of them!

he can't be racist!

i dunno why youre laughing big hoos. clapton covered bob marley too, so anyone saying that he had a problem with west indian immigrants in the uk at the time is just wrong.

titchy, are you being sarcastic you cheeky little blighter?

"eric clapton has black friends"

yep. and he doesnt even NOTICE theyre black. which just goes to show - as if proof was needed - that, again, he is not a racist. i would in fact argue that him speaking his mind is something he learnt from the blues songs he learnt as a teenager. ie more proof of how he isnt racist.

Bigging up racists at every opportunity and moaning about immigration for the last 30-odd years doesn't make him a racist tho.

Sorry, meant that for the Morrissey thread.

-- Noodle Vague, Thursday, 22 May 2008 19:50 (50 seconds ago) Link

o my damn. lo1!!

You're fucking with me.

Right?

You're fucking with me. xp

u right bro making mad $$$ off of black musical traditions and recording an album w/bb totally make "enoch was right" an ok thing to believe.

Just as a side note here, I love that PC shit disturbers have claimed the 'I have black friends' defense and made it that anyone who uses the phrase is clearly a bigot. What if you, like, really DO have black friends? What if you work in a soul fod restaraunt, intern at a hip hop label, and still - GASP! - criticize the welfare system?

bruvs, was it his fault white people prefer buying music by white people more than they like buying the black music that inspired said white people?

dont hate the player, hate the game.

Just as a side note here, I love that PC shit disturbers have claimed the 'I have black friends' defense and made it that anyone who uses the phrase is clearly a bigot. What if you, like, really DO have black friends? What if you work in a soul fod restaraunt, intern at a hip hop label, and still - GASP! - criticize the welfare system?

You intern at a hip hop label?

i would in fact argue that him speaking his mind is something he learnt from the blues songs he learnt as a teenager.

Enoch had them old woke up this morning, found a river of blood type blues.

People forget how involved Clapton was with black music in the 80s in the UK though. He put up the production budget for the first London Posse album, for instance. And he produced two of the tracks on the first Apache Indian album.

One of those was the song with all the Oswald Mosley samples, right?

actually ive heard that clapton interns at a hip hop label

xpost - Just using that as an example, taken from, err, real life accounts. heh heh heh

I'd also say I'm too busy defending late era Blck Sabbath on ILM to criticize the welfare system too. It ain't all about me, Noodle.

"What if you, like, really DO have black friends?"

you can still go on stage drunk and rant about evil immigrants.

clapton was there in covent garden at some of the early uk hip hop jams too. he helped lay out the lino.

My question though is, isn't it entirely possible to be politically to the right of Che Guevara and still, like, treat everyone equally and with respect? I'm just sayin.'

depends how theyre being equally treated.

What people forget is that Clapton wants all white British people to be sent back to Germany.

wait so titchy is being serious

Clapton actually wanted to give London an NBA franchise as well.

What if you, like, really DO have black friends? What if you work in a soul fod restaraunt, intern at a hip hop label, and still - GASP! - criticize the welfare system?

What about the welfare system? Are you implying that there a very certain group of people messing it up?

the only serious points i made in this thread were at 20.04 and semi-seriously, at 19.58.

wheres that nude spock paul revere gif

Pleasant Plains, I will not be party to a witchhunt, sorry bud. I wasn't 'implying' anything and was in fact basing this example on people I have known.

Why would dissing on welfare automatically make you a racist?

also, fuck Eric Clapton in his beady little eyes

I don't think it does automatically make you a racist, that's sorta my point. Can't Clapton hold political views his 'black friends' might disagree with? Something tells me these black friends would have less of a problem with his stupid ideas than knee jerk liberal types, no?

woah @ image of dan perry fucking eric clapton's eyes

And yes, fuck Clapton forever, dude sucks

anyone saying that he had a problem with west indian immigrants in the uk at the time is just wrong.

CLAPTON HIMSELF was the one who said he had a problem with West Indian immigrants in the UK.

Well, given that they're his friends, I would assume they're more tolerant of him than people who don't know him. I think that's true of everyone, though; you tend to be nicer to people you know.

My point was that bringing up criticism of the welfare system as a strawman example of What Racists Do seems really odd, particularly since it has nothing to do with the thread or the counter-example you were constructing.

That's worded poorly, I don't mean you were saying racists hate welfare, I meant you were saying that people assume that people who hate welfare are racists, and there's a gigantic implicit assumption in there that needs to happen in order for that to make sense.

huh welfare hating has been coded racism since st least reagan - obv not across the board - but still a fine example

https://freshsheetmusic.com/media/catalog/product/p/a/paul_murtha-eric_clapton_on_stage_-_trombone_1-musicnotes_thumbnail.png

if Connor Clapton had grown up today, his dad would still get to write Tears in Heaven

I like to believe Clapton died somewhere in 1976, but was kept alive through infusions of racist propaganda and far-right conspiracy theories, resulting in the creature that has been infecting us with pseudoscience for the past year or so.

Too bad Clapton didn't join the "27 Club" instead of Hendrix. The world would've been a whole lot better with that swap.

we'd have never gotten "Change the World" or his "I Shot the Sheriff" cover!

There was a Clapton documentary on about a month ago and one memorable part had him saying his parents made him cut his hair when he was a teenager, and that ever since then he hadn't trusted anyone.So yeah, some traumas he's working through here, give the man a break, etc.

I imagining some alternate universe where people complain "Man, I can't believe Hendrix went from Electric Ladyland to this bland Babyface shit! I bet Clapton wouldn't have done this had he survived that heroin overdose."

My guitar teacher is a big fan of Clapton ... but literally only what he did in Cream through Derek & the Dominoes, so 1967-1970. He is bored by or outright hates everything he's done since 1970.

So as far as he's concerned, yeah, Clapton died in 1970, right after Hendrix.

"My Father's Eyes", Pilgrim, THIS is authentic blues!!!!

The outtakes from the aborted second album for Derek & the Dominos are pretty good (I think from 1971?) but that's pretty much the miserable end of the Eric Clapton worth hearing.

can't lie, i quite like this cocaine/sunshine of your love mash-up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdqSEPmdF98

Whenever I consider the forking paths of Hendrix surviving, the outcomes are far more Clive Davis presents Carlos and Jimi's Supernaturals III than Mdou Moctar collabs.

I'm going to have to disagree with the "Clapton sucks after 1970" angle -- in fact, I think "461 Ocean Boulevard" is one of the best albums Clapton has made (but I do think the hits are the weakest tracks on the album -- I've never really been a fan of "I Shot the Sheriff" and "Willie and the Hand Jive," but I absolutely love "Motherless Children" and especially "Let It Grow"). After that, though, I will say that things generally do go downhill from there (though I do have a bit of a soft spot for "Lay Down Sally," weirdly enough).

I actually like unplugged

There was a Clapton documentary on about a month ago and one memorable part had him saying his parents made him cut his hair when he was a teenager, and that ever since then he hadn't trusted anyone.So yeah, some traumas he's working through here, give the man a break, etc.

A bizarre moment in my 10-year-old life -- I briefly got obsessed with the song "Bad Love" and would rewind and play that part of my Journeyman cassette over and over again. Very much a product of that pre-adolescent phase where you start to have an inkling of what having your own music taste is but haven't really figured it out yet, much in the same way as you might start to stare at a girl you think is pretty at that age but have no idea what might be a next step.

In my actual adolescence I briefly thought Cream was alright, but the more other music I heard the less good they seemed.

diarrhea medicine

I've always thought of Clapton as medicine that *gave* you diarrhea.

Only just noticed how much of a self-rip that song is from Layla. Even the chord change from the chorus to verse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUbpwNWmjfI

Now that I think about it, Layla, On Tour with Eric Clapton and Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton are the only three Clapton-related albums I enjoy as a whole, and he was a sideman on two of those (though he's easily the best thing about Blues Breakers). I might throw the live Yardbirds album in there too, but regardless, his heyday is ridiculously uneven for a figure of his stature - pretty much everything I'd ever want to hear from Cream is on that 20-track The Very Best of Cream compilation. Luckily he was so prolific that there's more than enough music to fill a truly great box set of those years (1963-1971, and Crossroads was NOT it, even if you clip off the later stuff).

I think this is the only blip in the "Clapton sucks after 1970" write-off. Pros And Cons is terrible Waters cringe but Clapton stuck around for the first leg of the tour and hearing him on something like "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" where he's forced to be interesting is legit great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIu03Nh-QTk

What about “it’s in the way that you use it”

He used it wrong.

As I noted above, my angle isn't so much "Clapton sucked after 1970" as it is "Clapton sucked after unveiling his racist side to the world." I stand by this wholeheartedly.

So it's more like, "Clapton sucked after August, 1976" then?

I guess so, yeah. I still admittedly love "461 Ocean Boulevard".

Live shows are another thing. The material can be terrible, whether it's the songs or the arrangements, but he can still play well when he cares/tries/exercises good taste for once.

I guess so, yeah. I still admittedly love "461 Ocean Boulevard".

― Lone Wanderer Mark II

Great, underrated album. Very stoned vibes. It might be my favorite of his.

Eh...at this point I love blues and blues rock but really why bother much after Cream considering. I'd rather just listen to Freddie King, Magic Sam, Walter Trout, Govt Mule or Rory Gallagher or Buddy Guy. Even of his generation, Jeff Beck and Robin Trower were doing fresher things than old slow hand over the last decade or so.

Only one of EC's later records I have been remotely curious about but not enough to check it out was the one he did with JJ Cale. Never got around to that one, but there are JJ Cale records I have not checked out that are in front of that one.

The live gig DVD reunion with Cream was pretty good, I saw that one.

FWIW, some skeptics have had nice things to say about From the Cradle - it's the one latter day Clapton album that might be worth your time, but as earlnash mentioned, you can find much better blues albums from the last 30 years elsewhere. Buddy Guy alone has done better (check out 2001's Sweet Tea).

I will second the praise for the Cream reunion DVD. Surprisingly quite good, easily the best thing Clapton has done in the last 40 years.

a lot of cream songs have this sort of low key hazy smokiness that i can appreciate on some level, different thing from fully actualized hard rock like zep or sab

like, how tom heavy the drumming is on sunshine of your love, it kind of floats above everything while stringing it all along

Buddy Guy's Sweet Tea rules. My early Clapton fan pal saw one clip of the Cream reunion and, seeing that Clapton was apparently playing his Strat, shut it right off.

Not to derail the thread, but this is a very funny skewering of Clapton.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFiYTs7EWsU

I like fooling people into thinking this is Will Oldham:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awbA-uWHycE

Yeah, some of those sleepy-time "Tulsa" records are harmless...if someone puts them on, I won't object and may even find them pleasant, but they're not something I'd ever want to put on myself.

Eric Clapton is good ... for me to poop on

The version of "We're Going Wrong" on that Cream reunion is totally ace. That said, a huge part is that Jack Bruce's voice is sanded into a fine gravel and has such an ache and Ginger Bakers rolling toms are really tasty.