Eric Clapton “Journeyman”
Is Eric Clapton god, as Londoners of the 60s claimed? Is he the world’s greatest guitarist? Is he a good songwriter? Can he even sing? Honestly, I have no clue. Without question, though, his most underrated talent is his fashion sense. Hands down. In the late 80s, when acid wash and mullets reigned and the proto-”Friends'” silhouettes were emerging, Clapton had a perfect five o’clock shadow, wore well-fitted, comfortable clothes and had this wavy bob hairstyle that both Peter Gabriel and Robbie Robertson would try with much less success. Don Henley’s attempt, for what it’s worth, was criminal. Clapton wore tortoise shell glasses and carried himself like the love child of Sting and Indiana Jones. At that time, his music may have sucked for all I knew. He may have been a jerk. But, shit, he looked good. And I don’t mean “cool.” I mean “good.”
Of the 60s and 70s classic rock icons, Clapton is perhaps the one about whom I know the least. My experience with his music is almost entirely through Classic Rock radio, Cream’s greatest hits album (“Strange Brew”) and “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.” I only actively listened to “Strange Brew” during two summers at sleepaway camp in the mid 1980s and “Layla” a few years later. Then, I filed them away, never once pressing play on them again. I correctly assumed that 92 point whatever or 102 point whatever would feed me Clapton when I needed it.
To be clear, though, I really enjoy and admire several Cream songs -- “Badge,” “Tales of Brave Ulysses” and “White Room” all hold up. They’re weird and psychedelic and bluesy and virtuosic. And “Layla” is just plain perfect.
So, that, plus maybe the occasional humming of “Lay Down Sally” or “Cocaine,” and an eye roll for “Wonderful Tonight,” would have been the extent of my Clapton fluency before 1989. As a teenager, I hadn’t revisited (or even visited, really) The Yardbirds and I knew his solo career only as album titles and covers on display at Tower. I could hold myself in a conversation about the man. I could describe his guitar playing as “deft,” “fluid” and “muscular.” I could extol the virtue of “Layla.” I could conjure tears at the mere mention of the solo from “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
This would have been the end of the story except, in 1989, Eric Clapton released “Journeyman,” an album of modern and traditional blues rock that, ironically given its title, features over 40 session musicians. “Journeyman” was a comeback for Clapton, following two critically ravaged albums, his divorce from Patti Boyd and his sobriety. The guy who cut my dad’s hair, who claimed to have once played with Stevie Ray Vaughn, was so enthralled with “Journeyman” that my dad went out and bought the CD immediately. I think he also may have convinced my father into getting an ill-fated “bob,” like the one Slowhand sports on the album’s cover. My dad, in turn, played the album endlessly in the winter of 1989/90. The singles, “Pretending” and “Bad Love” were radio staples. I couldn’t not listen to the album.
With “Journeyman,” I confirmed that, if nothing else, Eric Clapton has excellent taste. It’s the sound of a practiced, sober, comfortable middle aged man worrying much less about the new and the next and determined to make the album that every person who drove a BMW or wanted to drive a BMW could agree on.
“Journeyman” starts where “It’s In The Way That You Use It,” which he co-wrote with Robbie Robertson, leaves off. There’s the bluesy, chugga chugga set up in the verses and incessant guitar leads in “Pretending,” the album’s opener. All of that is a hand off to a big, chipper chorus, perfect for a late 80s movie soundtrack or for a hair salon soundtrack or to play while driving your BMW to work or for imagining any of the above.
And there’s also “Bad Love,” an infectious (and I don’t mean that entirely as a compliment) song, with a repetitive, slightly distorted lead guitar loop that barely carries the song for 3 minutes. After that point, having nothing more to say, the song literally stops and allows Clapton to plug back in and solo like Eric Clapton for another minute. The song was co-written with Mick Jones from Foreigner. But, it feels like something Mick Jones had no use for and just gave to Clapton to surround guitar with. Eric Clapton wrote exactly half of two songs on this album.
Across the other ten songs, there’s a little bit of everything that could fit into polite blues rock. Did I mention that forty people played on this record? There’s a lot of Robert Cray. A lot of guitar solos in general. Solos tucked in everywhere, like bric a brac on the shelves, walls, counters and window sills in an old English countryside home. There’s a fairly straight cover of “Hound Dog.” There’s a Ray Charles cover. The songs are mostly mid-tempo. There are gospel choirs in the background. There’s some slide guitar. Horn sections here and there. There’s a song that I bet Harry Connick Jr. could have improved upon. It’s all somehow “blues-ish” without ever being bluesy. It’s “rockin” without ever really rocking. Every song seems to be a showcase for the artist’s selections -- the writers, the session players, the sound of the ivories being tickled and the many, many, many also-somehow-unwasted solos.
And, yet, this album sold over 2,000,000 copies in America alone. It won Clapton a Grammy for “Bad Love.” It was played at every 40-something cocktail party, east coast bar mitzvah cocktail hour and anywhere else men wore Armani or Hugo Boss.
It’s hard to call “Journeyman” “enduring” or “memorable.” But go take a look at Clapton photos from 1989 and 1990. Really look. At the hair. The clothes. The glasses. The beard. In my dictionary, under the words “middle-aged man,” there is 1989 Eric Clapton. The man had taste.