Tag Archives: Eric Clapton

DVDs, Movies, Music

“White Riot” chronicles Rock Against Racism’s fight to end racism. Music to our ears!

We’ll do anything to end racism.  Perhaps we should take a lesson from Rock Against Racism (RAR).

Flashback: Britain, late-’70s. The country is deeply divided over immigration. The National Front, a far-right and fascist political party, is gaining strength. And countering this was Rock Against Racism, a movement that swept across the U.K. and Europe and culminated in a 100,000+ person march and a legendary concert event, think Woodstock meets the March on Washington, punk-style.

Capturing this incredible moment in time when music changed the world is director Rubika Shah’s award-winning documentary,  White Riot.

Expanding on her documentary short White Riot: London, Shah’s energizing film charts the rise of Rock Against Racism (RAR), formed in 1976, prompted by “music’s biggest colonialist” Eric Clapton and his support of racist MP Enoch Powell. The brisk, informative White Riot  blends fresh, engaging interviews with RAR staff and musicians with archival footage to recreate a hostile environment of anti-immigrant hysteria and National Front marches.

As neo-Nazis recruited the nation’s youth, RAR’s multicultural punk and reggae gigs provided rallying points for resistance. The campaign grew from “Temporary Hoarding,” the movement’s fanzine to 1978’s huge antifascist concert in Victoria Park, featuring X-Ray Spex, Tom Robinson, Steel Pulse and, of course, The Clash, whose rock star charisma and gale-force conviction took RAR’s message to the masses. White Riot chronicles this “extraordinary fusion of culture and politics that changed society for the better.” (Jackson Caines, Glass Magazine).

DVDs, Movies, Music

Rolling Stoner Bill Wyman shows how his music has given him so much satisfaction

Throughout his three-decade career as a founding member of and bassist for The Rolling Stones, Bill Wyman was known to the world as the band’s “quiet one”. Now, in The Quiet One (IFC Films), the famously private music legend speaks out about his extraordinary life and experiences as part of “the greatest rock and roll band in the world.”

Opening up his vast personal archive—a lifetime’s worth of previously unseen home movies, photographs and memorabilia— Wyman reflects on his early years with The Stones, the band’s meteoric rise to fame, and his search for a sense of “normalcy” amid the whirlwind of sex, drugs, and rebellion. Endearingly humble and down to earth, Wyman pulls back the curtain to offer a one-of-a-kind perspective on life as a reluctant rock star who let his pulsating bass do all the talking on “Brown Sugar,” “Gimme Shelter,” “Paint It Black” and countless other Stones classics.
 
The Quiet One also includes interviews with Eric Clapton, Bob Geldof, and Stones record producer Andrew Oldham and engineer Glyn Johns. The San Francisco Chronicle‘s Joel Selvin said, “After umpteen previous documentaries, concert films and video biographies, that this film consists almost entirely of previously unseen footage of the band qualifies as something of a minor miracle.”
CDs, DVDs, Music

Cannot get a ticket to catch Eric Clapton in concert? Now ready: The Blu-ray and DVD “Live In San Diego”

Anyway the wind blows you, you will end up watching Eric Clapton’s highly-anticipated Live In San Diego With Special Guest JJ Cale. The DVD and Blu-Ray follows the release of the 2-disc CD set, 3 LP vinyl set and digital album of the concert, that were released on September 30, 2016 on Reprise/Bushbranch Records. In addition to the main DVD and Blu-Ray program, fans will enjoy extra footage of Clapton and Cale rehearsing “Anyway The Wind Blows” and “Who Am I Telling You?” for the concert.

Recorded at Clapton’s March 15, 2007 performance at the iPayOne Center in San Diego, CA, Live In San Diego With Special Guest JJ Cale concert was part of a world tour that was much loved by Clapton fans and featured a stellar band that included guitarists Derek Trucks (now of the Tedeschi Trucks band) and Doyle Bramhall II. The two-hour San Diego concert was a highlight of the tour as it featured JJ Cale as a special guest on five tracks (including “After Midnight” and “Cocaine”), as well as Robert Cray on the final song of the record, “Crossroads.”

After successfully covering several Cale songs throughout his career, Clapton finally collaborated with Cale in 2006 on the original album Road to Escondido.  Says Clapton: “This is the realization of what may have been my last ambition, to work with the man whose music has inspired me for as long as I can remember.”

So it’s fitting that one year later, Cale joined Clapton on stage for this special concert where they performed together, underlining the mutual respect the two musicians had for each other.

The concert features a superb set list from across Eric’s career. Notably, it includes songs from Eric’s classic Derek and the Dominos album Layla, with Derek Trucks playing many of Duane Allman’s original guitar parts.

Clapton is currently preparing to play North American shows for 2017, a series of concert dates at two famed venues: New York’s Madison Square Garden and Los Angeles’ Forum.  The shows will be a celebration of 50 years in music and just as many decades performing at these two venues.  Legendary guitar players Gary Clark, Jr. and Jimmie Vaughan will be special guests at the shows.

The remaining dates for Clapton ion concert:

Thursday, September 7 New York Madison Square Garden
Friday, September 8 New York Madison Square Garden
Friday, September 15 Los Angeles The Forum
Saturday, September 16 Los Angeles The Forum

 

CDs, Music, Vinyl

Skip the New Year’s bubbly. Head straight for the “Fresh Cream.”

A most musically way to begin the New Year: The deluxe edition UMe release of Fresh Cream, the debut album by the British, blues boom power trio, Cream.

The 3-CD + 1 Blu-Ray audio disc come housed in a gatefold sleeve within a rigid slipcase and includes a 64-page hardback book, featuring new sleeve notes by respected Rolling Stone writer David Fricke. The set comprises various alternate and new stereo mixes plus several, previously unreleased BBC sessions. A special six-album 180g vinyl edition of Fresh Cream will also be released in April.

Can you name who was who?

Originally released in 1966, at the height of the UK blues bloom, Fresh Cream showcased the not inconsiderable talents of three of the then music scene’s brightest lights: Eric Clapton, fresh from John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers; drummer, Ginger Baker, straight from the Graham Bond Organisation; Jack Bruce who, at the time, had just left Manfred Mann. Collectively the three had decided to give up their roles as much sought after sidemen to form their own super group.

Coming together as Cream in the early summer of 1966, the trio moved at impressive speed to make the release of Fresh Cream in December of the same year. Highlights include the racing harmonica work-out and the call and response excitements on Muddy Waters’ “Rollin’ and Tumblin’”; a spine-tingling vocal on the Willie Dixon classic, “Spoonful”; as well as the self-penned “Sleepy Time Time”, which gave Clapton a free hand to wake up all and sundry. Their rousing treatment of the traditional standard, “Cat’s Squirrel” alerted listeners to just how well Clapton, Baker and Bruce musically complemented each other.

 

Music

Eric Clapton’s amazing concert captured on CD and vinyl

Eric Clapton devotees have reason to clap . . . wildly applaud actually . . . now that we’re spilling the beans: EC’s latest CD, Live in San Diego With Special Guest JJ Cale, will  be offered as a 2-CD set or 3-LP vinyl set and digital album, will be released September 30 on Reprise/Bushbranch Records.

Fans who pre-order the album from Ericclapton.com will receive the track “Anyway the Wind Blows” instantly and two additional songs in advance of the release date. The 180-gram version of the vinyl is exclusively available at the website, as well as a T-shirt and album bundle.

A live video of Clapton and Cale performing “Anyway The Wind Blows” from San Diego is available now at YouTube.com/EricClapton.

Recorded at Clapton’s March 15, 2007 performance at the iPayOne Center in San Diego, CA, this concert was part of a world tour that was much loved by Clapton fans and featured a stellar band that included guitarists Derek Trucks (now of the Tedeschi Trucks band) and Doyle Bramhall II. The two-hour San Diego concert was a highlight of the tour as it featured JJ Cale as a special guest on five tracks (including “After Midnight” and “Cocaine”), as well as Robert Cray on the final song of the record, “Crossroads.”

After successfully covering several JJ Cale songs over his career, Clapton finally collaborated with Cale in 2006 on the original album Road to Escondido.  At the time, Clapton said: “This is the realization of what may have been my last ambition, to work with the man whose music has inspired me for as long as I can remember.”

So it is fitting that one year later, Cale joined Clapton on stage for this special concert where they performed five songs together – underlining the mutual respect the two musicians had for each other.

The concert features a set list from across Eric’s career. Notably, it includes songs from Eric’s classic Derek and the Dominos album Layla, with Derek Trucks playing many of Duane Allman’s original guitar parts.