Tag: Eric Clapton

Friday’s Theme Music

Today’s song arrived in the stream last night when I was thinking about change. Deliberate and focused change for people is often hard for all the elements of comfort and routine that our habits incorporate. It’s easier to do as we’ve always do rather than embracing a new way. These change require time, mindfulness, discipline, and persistence to see them through.

Thinking along those line as I walked through the back yard introduced the song, “Tulsa Time” by Don Williams (1978). It’s a country and western song, not generally my milieu, but I’ve lived in places back that catered to country and western music tastes, heard it, and picked it up. Then Eric Clapton did a few live versions of it.

I was amused but reflecting on the song, I conclude that “Tulsa Time” was a metaphor for trying and failing to change.

Well, then I got to thinkin’
Man I’m really sinkin’
An I really had a flash this time
I had no business leavin’
An nobody would be grievin’
If I just went on back to Tulsa time.

h/t to MetroLyrics.com

See? You’re trying to change; no one else knows. Who cares if you go back to what you were doing and how you were doing it? It was your choice.

That’s right; you’re in the driver’s seat.

I enjoyed this live version discovered this morning. Hope you do, too.

 

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Today’s song choice is straight out of thinking about the past. Ginger Baker, a musician of some renown, passed away at eighty years old last week. He was part of several groups that I enjoyed. One was Blind Faith.

Blind Faith was Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, Richard Grech, and the previously mentioned Baker. It didn’t last long, as Clapton wasn’t satisfied with the sound and performance. The group put out some memorable songs, though. Thinking of them, I searched the net and found this video of the group performing “Presence of the Lord” (1969). Sweet flashback.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Reaching back today to ’67, when I was eleven. Feels like a hundred years ago and feels like yesterday evening. Cream was a short-lived supergroup. Eric Clapton was already one of my guitar idols. Here comes Cream with those quasi-psychedelic, hard-rock, deep bass song, “Sunshine of Your Love”. I heard it and thought it was the future’s edge swinging toward me.

Now I sing it as a walk the street, sunshine on my head, laptop in my backpack, heading to the coffee shop to write, and think of it more as an homage to sunshine. At least, that’s why I was singing it yesterday. I thought the sunshine would enjoy it.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Another rejection last night. That always opens a darkside vein, for a bit, at least. I pondered the usual of whys and hows for an hour, slept on it and sluiced through some dreams. Then I arose this morning, told myself onward, and started humming this old classic to myself.

Oh lordy lord, oh lordy lord
It hurts me so bad, for us to part
But someday baby, I ain’t gonna worry my life anymore

“Worried Life Blues” have has been sung and played for decades. I’ve heard many performers do this song, but I went with B.B. King and Eric Clapton, two musicians I admire and enjoy. This version is from Riding with the King (2000). I especially love King’s deep, emphatic style on this song.

Pour a cup of something and listen with me. Sing along, if you’re so moved. Enjoy the day.

 

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Tuesday’s Them Music

Exchanged some comments with a blogger last night. He’d reminisced about enjoying Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, and AC/DC with his brother while they were growing up (Boys Will Be Boys). That reminded me how much I enjoyed Clapton, and eventually led me to streaming “Pretending” from his Journeyman album (1989). I like the power with which the song opens after the slight piano intro. The song lifts me up when I stream it in my head while I’m walking.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

On this throwback Tuesday, I found myself in the kitchen streaming an old favorite in my head.

“If you got bad news, you want to kick those blues, coffee. When your day is done and you want to run on, coffee. She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie. Coffee.”

No doubt I’ve posted this before. It’s a rainy day, and it calls for coffee, stat. What better song than Eric Clapton’s cover of the JJ Cale classic, “Cocaine”? While “Cocaine” is an anti-drug song, my version of “Coffee” is not anti-coffee.

Cheers

 

 

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Once again the stream pulls me back in time.

I enjoy Eric Clapton’s style of music and performances. I immediately bought his “Journeyman” album on its release. I was stationed in Germany at that point, driving a silver Audi. I remember setting off for a Volksmarch one Sunday morning and slipping this CD into the player to hear as I sped across the landscape under gray skies and a weak sunrise.

Clapton’s version of “Before You Accuse Me” from this album became my favorite track. Bo Diddley wrote the song while I was an infant and I’ve heard numerous covers that I’ve enjoyed. Clapton’s cover is a powerful, rocking version.

Let us rock.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Care for a little cream for your Friday coffee?

Robert Johnson’s masterpiece, “Crossroads” (or “Cross Roads Blues”) has been covered by many. I like the Cream version because it was the first one I heard when I was young. It’s hard to overcome that first love. More metaphysically, it’s a song that captures so much of life’s essence, IMO. We think, after making a journey, that we’ve gone somewhere. And we have, but then, we found ourselves at another crossroad. Decisions are made, moods are felt, directions are chosen, prayers are offered, and help is sought.

So here you are, on Friday, with a “Crossroads” about what to do, where to go, and maybe, who to be.

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Today’s Theme Music

This was an interesting oddity that I found on the net.

Thirteen years old, I was just getting into groups like Cream. Cream was Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Jack Bruce. I knew who Glen Campbell was, of course; being in America in nineteen sixty nine, Campbell was difficult to avoid. He was well-accomplished, with well-known hit songs like “Gentle On My Mind,” “By the Time I Get To Phoenix,” and “Wichita Lineman.” By sixty-nine, he was hosting television shows.

This video is of Glen Campbell hosting a show and introducing Cream in nineteen sixty-nine. I never saw this video before today, and it’s definitely a ride on the wayback machine. Cream, so accustomed to playing stadiums with deafening levels of sound, seem strangely muted here. The contrast between their long-haired hippie appearance and Glen Campbell’s look is striking, and can easily be a metaphor for the difference in the America that was, and the America that was coming. Look at the set’s simple production, as well. It’s a far cry from “American Idol.”

Take a look to moderately far back in modern America, to nineteen sixty-nine, with Glen Campbell, and Cream.

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Today’s Theme Music

The stream has shifted. Into the flow comes an all-time favorite by a little band called Derek and the Dominoes, with help from a guy named Duane Allman. Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon wrote the song, “Layla,” as a love ballad about Eric’s love for George Harrison’s wife, Patty Boyd. Duane entered the picture and changed the song to its more familiar rock sound.

Back in those days, I didn’t know about the confusion arising over the name of the group. I knew when I heard the song, I loved it and sought it out. I thought it was Eric Clapton playing, but if it was this guy, Derek, I didn’t care. Being a slow witted animal, I eventually grasped that it was Eric playing and singing, with help from the great Duane Allman – which explains the similarity to the Allman Brothers’ music of that period, right? It all eventually came together.

To me, this is a triumphant, feel-good song that ignites my creative energies. Pick up your air guitar. Time to jam.

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