Is Eric Clapton a racist?

"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

I can't tell which responses are serious, but would kinda like to note that despite the names and the western habit of considering all non-white people west of Thailand to be the same color, India and the West Indies are really, really far away from each other.

yes but their names are v similar dont u see

Enoch Powell and Clapton both referred specifically to "black" immigrants, Powell at least was educated enough to know exactly what he meant, but it's hard to read Clapton as referring to anybody other than West Indian immigrants either.

xpost OK, well, I can't think of a better example without making a ridiculous leap, like, say you're Ziggy Marley's touring keyboard player and you spend the whole tour reading David Duke's book or something.

My only point is that it's totally possible to 'have black friends' and not necessarily do / say / believe things that are constantly advancing the causes of black people.

This is what happens whe you try to write serious, clear posts on ILM while listening to Half Japenmese really, really loud

u didnt tell us u were half japanese - this changes everything

Surely there's a difference between "to the right of Che Guevara" and "behind Enoch Powell"??

xposts

I'm not saying the guy shouldn't take some hits for these comments, but you guys are putting a little too much in when you take a musician's ideas as anything approaching cogent, reasoned thought on something as difficult as British immigration policy.

OTM

My only point is that it's totally possible to 'have black friends' and not necessarily do / say / believe things that are constantly advancing the causes of black people.

It's also possible to have black friends and say / do / believe things that actively impede the causes of black people. This doesn't make you a particularly good friend.

i hate ziggy marley's touring keyboardist, i don't care if that makes me racist

I'm not saying the guy shouldn't take some hits for these comments, but you guys are putting a little too much in when you take a musician's ideas as anything approaching cogent, reasoned thought on something as difficult as British immigration policy.

I don't think anybody's doing that, they're mostly saying "look, over the years Eric Clapton has repeatedly championed the views of a notoriously racist politician" and then drawing their own conclusions from that.

ziggy marleys half japanese touring keyboardist here w/a book recommendation 4 u

OK, I see your point there HI DERE. I guess the argument could be made that Clapton is kinda being two faced here.

I was merely defending the right of anyone who may live in a cushy gated community and / or has a voting record similar to Archie Bunker to claim they have black friends and not have it result in a liberal laugh riot, but I guess that's probably for another thread and another time

i just voted for africa on the toto song poll so i'm not a racist anymore

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Matt. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. Oh wait...

just to be clear airports the liberal laugh riot comes from the obv fact that having black friends in no way precludes one from being a racist and to display proof of black friends in defense against racism charges absurdly illustrates ones lack of understanding of racism altogether thereby fanning racism suspicions

my wife's family is friends with an australian family who are very nice and friendly folks but the dad is racist as fuck. he always talks about enoch powell. so i guess i would be suspicious of clapton on those grounds.

this guy is pretty hilarious looking

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/11_01/powellL0411_468x825.jpghttp://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/enoch_powell.jpghttp://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/4/4c/Enoch_Powell.GIF

if trolls could fly ...

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.