[Slowhand] Chicago? Illinois? United Center? Can't be ...

[Almighty Geetarz]

Acoustically crisp? Intimate? The United Center? The one in Chicago? 
 
The writer had to have attended a different concert at a different United Center, 'cause the one EC played in Chicago in this dimension is anything but ... acoustically crisp.
 
EC shop at Home Depot? Hmmm, you never know when you'll need a power washer ...
 
---------
 
Clapton's singing the blues 


Monday, July 19, 2004




By Karen Sorensen
Staff writer 
---------------------------------
Back in the 1960s, every British rock musician who came down the pike cited the American blues as his source of inspiration. 
That may have been true, but there's only one who's still saying it today. 
And when he took the United Center stage Saturday night, he was true to his word. 
Eric Clapton, looking more like a guy who might shop at Home Depot than a legendary rocker, devoted more than half of his set to the blues, pulling out standards including Willie Dixon's "(I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie Man" and Muddy Waters' "Got My Mojo Working." But the centerpiece of his two-hour show was a tribute to Robert Johnson, whom he credits as his "musical foundation" in the liner notes of his latest album, "Me and Mr. Johnson." 
Pulling up a chair and an acoustic guitar, Clapton rolled out Johnson's "Me and the Devil Blues," "They're Red Hot," "Milkcow's Calf Blues," "If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day" and "Kind Hearted Woman Blues" with sheer relish. And he had a band capable of giving those songs life, including the irrepressible Billy Preston on organ and piano. 
Clapton's life could have come straight out of a blues song. 
An illegitimate child who grew up thinking his mother was his sister, Clapton overcame heroin addiction only to fall into alcohol abuse; his only son was 4 years old when he fell to his death from a 53-story building. 
Is that where he gets his continued devotion to the blues when his contemporaries have moved on? Perhaps, but it was refreshing to have those songs — some of which were written in the early 1900s — brought back to life in 2004 and embraced by an audience of more than 15,000. 
And how great to have them played in a way that was acoustically crisp and intimate, even in a huge venue like the United Center. The chance to see Clapton go into even just one blues riff was worth the price of admission alone. 
But that said, Eric Clapton is never going to be Muddy Waters. His voice, while still amazingly strong and true for a man who will turn 60 next year, lacks the gravel that the old blues masters brought to these songs. 
It's a voice that's better suited to the rock hits he's had over his four-decade career, and there were some of those on Saturday night, too: "Layla," "Cocaine," "Let it Rain," "I Shot the Sheriff," "Wonderful Tonight." It's easy to forget how long Clapton's been around until you hear "Bell Bottom Blues" or "Sunshine of Your Love." 
The latter — part of the encore — was the one song where Clapton showed a little emotion. Joined by steel guitar player Robert Randolph, whose band opened the show, the two played off each other and clearly enjoyed it. 
And for a guy whose only interaction with the audience was "Thank you" and "The name of this song is ...," that was fun.


		
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/slowhand/attachments/20040801/eb5da54e/attachment.html