Eric Clapton

Me & Mr Johnson

Do We Really Need This?

Review Score:

(6/10)
When I heard Clapton was releasing this record, I immediately wondered WHY? I thought he was retired. Well, maybe that's just from live touring and playing. Anyway, he did come out with it, I listened to it, and here is my assessment.

I would not recommend this record until you have listened to and learned to appreciate the original versions done by Mr. Johnson himself. And I consider myself an Eric Clapton fan.

For many years, I have appreciated and listened to blues music. I admit that, because of my age (54), I first listened to the more accessible British white kids like the Stones and Yardbirds, who, ironically enough, were largely responsible for making blues palatable and popular in the States. The hope was that after being introduced to the music by these rock/blues bands, you would have the urge to go back and listen to the people who actually created the music in the first place. So that's what I did.

When I first listened to Robert Johnson's recordings, I was a bit mystified as to why Clapton and seemingly everyone else found them so monumentally great. To my young white ears, they were rough and raw, his voice was too high, the sound too scratchy and primitive. But I kept listening and began to realize just how far-reaching his music was. I read about his short and tragic life and I tried very hard to imagine what it must have been like to be an itinerant blues singer in Mississippi in the 1930's. Of course, I could not come close to imagining it because of who I was, and who I am. Over time, I came to realize the power and feeling of that music. The roughness and crudeness of it was what made it so real.

Many white musicians have become very, very wealthy through imitating the music of older, poorer black musicians. It's always seemed like a type of plagiarization to me; maybe they should have given 10 cents of every dollar they made to the families of the guys they ripped off. But that's a big subject, and maybe Clapton and his ilk have been doing this all along; I hope so.

I am sorry. I'm getting too heavy here. Clapton has always been very upfront about his admiration for the older guys, and I am not accusing him of greed or anything like that at all. Like any of the thousands of blues musicians of all races out there, first and foremost he loves the music and wants to play it himself.

But do we need all of these recordings?? Why should there be a hundred different blues bands committing a hundred different versions of Sweet Home Chicago to cd? Just because you can play it and you like it doesn't mean you should release it on disk and ask for people to pay for it. Instead, play it at your live shows, tell us who wrote it, and urge us to go out and buy the original recording, which was much better than your's anyway.

Listen to Little Richard do Tutti Fruitti, and then, try to listen to Pat Boone's version. For blues, compare Mick Jagger or Robert Plant to Muddy Waters or Sonny Boy II. Most white people do not have the voice to sing blues; their voices are too thin, their enunciation too clear. Clapton has made himself a pretty good singer, but he can't come close to Muddy or Robert or any of the other great old black singers.

I guess I am a purist.

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