[Slowhand] The New Album

[Jason Linden]

You know, I used to really want every new album to be guitar filled, but
when I was waiting (pessimistically) for this one to come out, I realized
that's a little unreasonable. Since he went solo, most of his studio albums
haven't been guitar filled. And, for the first time, I'm okay with that.

I realized that I have a lot of music in my collection from a lot of artists
who do a lot of different things. I don't need Clapton to just play guitar
solos.

I play guitar, and he's the reason why, but a lot of my favorite Clapton
albums aren't guitar-centric. I really like Backless, for instance.

Anyway, I decided, on this album to just kind of listen to it and not expect
anything and not have any notions of what I think it should be. I think it's
good. The material is almost all very good. Clapton doesn't get carried away
and over-produce, which is something he's prone to. The arrangements are
good. I really like listening to it.

It's not From the Cradle, but so what? If another artist, who I didn't
expect a bunch of unbelievable guitar playing from put this out, I'd be
really pleased (I like New Orleans Jazz and low key blues and JJ Cale
songs), so why should I feel differently if it's Clapton?

Also, to the guy who hasn't looked forward to any shows since Cream. I've
been out of the live loop since the 2007 festival (starting a family will do
that), but the tour leading up to that was awesome and the collaboration
with Winwood has been just out of this world, even from a guitar
perspective.

Honestly kids, I don't know what a lot of you want. LAOALS is my favorite
album. I love Cream and Mayall, but that was all more than 40 years ago.
Just listen to the new stuff like it's music. If you have to have crazy
guitar, you won't like it, but that doesn't make it bad. It just makes it
not your thing.

-Jason