I think Eric still gets calls from Van Morrison…they just did a conspiracy themed song together. I’ve never been much of a consumer of news about performers, no “Rolling Stone” for me, so I was kind of shocked by Van’s recent behaviour. I gather he has a history of this sort of thing.
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To be sure, it is a lot easier once the artist is dead and has been for a while, especially since reading/viewing/listening to/watching his or her work no longer provides the artist with financial rewards.
In the case of Clapton, he is a racist asshole and he is good at playing the guitar, and it shouldn’t be that hard to understand both of those statements as true without seeing any contradiction between them. His guitar skills do not in any way make up for his being a racist asshole, while his being a racist asshole does not diminish his guitar skills.
The matter becomes much trickier when we ask, “Should we patronize racist assholes for their talent?” That question becomes simpler once the royalties are going to an estate, which (hopefully) is not made up of assholes.
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History “cancelled” him by finding him out as a dull, derivative, mediocrity. To be fair he’s a better guitar player than me, but not by as much as I’m better than The Edge.
He was a breakout star from John Mayall’s band, but by no means the most influential. He was never forward thinking enough for that.
He was the least talented member of Cream, which is why Ginger Baker’s music is still revered even if he was also an addict, a drunk, and a giant stinking arsehole.
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Old “Slowmind” Clappedout
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Well he’s always been a legendary arsehole. Everyone I’ve talked to who has encountered him has had a sour face on and described him in utterly unflattering terms. I’ve only heard one positive story about him, ever, and that was hearsay. And I wondered were people having my friend on It’s so out of character for anyone to have anything positive to say about his person.
ETA
Replying about Van Morrison (for clarity)
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You misspelled “consequence culture”.
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I propose a guitar ̶W̶a̶n̶k̶e̶r̶y̶ majesty thread be created to help keep this one on track.
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It is and it isn’t. Art is very subjective and a lot of what is “great” is only great to generations later because they’re told it’s what great looks like.
Technically it’s not so much that Clapton was a bad guitarist but rather that there are a lot of really really good guitarists in the past and present of rock. A lot of really good blues guitarists in the past never got their dues because they were black, so there’s that too. They innovated so that Clapton could be a famous racist. Some indignation is warranted there.
The rest is just the reality of subjectivity being exposed.
I grew up being told Allen was very funny. I can say honestly that I have never liked his humor because I find that kind of neurotic humor grating. Didn’t like Seinfeld either. Unpopular opinion for sure, but there’s no accounting for taste.
At least I don’t have to politely pretend to think Annie Hall was enjoyable to watch anymore. Thank god. Sorry Diane Keaton, but thank god.
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re: Defending Clapton
I am a fairly firm believer in being able to separate the art from the artist. If you wanna do that, go ahead. No one is saying one can’t enjoy something made by an asshole.
But if you try to defend that asshole, you end up looking like a clown.
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Yeah, many years ago I knew a few people with some connection to music industry, and had a friend who had a groupie experience or two. Another of my friends was a road manager for a mid level rock act. Almost everything I heard from them told me these were lives better left unexamined. I am scouring my brain for any positive experiences related by these people and all I recall is Jann Arden and Long John Baldry as examples. I am sure there are many good people in that industry, I just mean that one should be unsurprised when that is not the case.
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We all have to learn unfortunate truths sometime.
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I agree. I was just using this thread to air my standard complaints about Clapton-- I have never really liked his playing, politics aside, and I yet readily admit he’s not a bad guitarist at all. I think I just get annoyed at the whole “Clapton is god” thing (the standard joke is they just misspelled “good”)-- by my metric he’s a bit overrated.
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His mimicked guitar skills did, however, put him in a position where his decisions and influence could have affected artists he felt shouldn’t be allowed in his country. They put him in the position to promote a racist political agenda to tens of thousands of citizens. The fact he did well borrowing from the cultures he dislikes is very very pertinent to the conversation about the art itself.
It’s just like conversation I originally cited. They were enamored with Steve Winwood because they could have the sound they wanted without having to employ someone like Ray Charles. While they were good at making those sounds, that attitude has to be an attribute of the art itself. You can’t look critically at a work without understanding the desires and the biases of the artist, and his desire was to exclude.
In economies where profit comes before any other consideration, we don’t have the luxury of judging talent over every other consideration. That is the argument for Trump, and others that ignorant people think will make “the trains run on time.”
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The underlying assumption is that white people are inherently “superior” and hence anyone who is “better” than a white person at something is cheating somehow… The racist mindset is incredibly deep and entrenched in the minds of many, many, MANY white people…
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The excuse I have heard from that era is that they needed a white guy instead of a black guy because it was the only way to make it in the industry. They couldn’t get into clubs, couldn’t be represented by industry PR, etc., with black faces involved. Then they themselves become the industry, get rich, coked-up, and spout racist politics at concerts.
In the end the people who navigated those waters weren’t people who begrudgingly adapted, they were people with a propensity for doing those vile things to begin with.
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I had not known the thing about Clapton’s racism, and then remembered the quote about someone asking him how it felt to be the greatest guitar player where he supposedly replied “I don’t know, ask Prince.” But it turns out that was made up.
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As far as I can tell, he never recorded that song, but it is sometimes misattributed to him because Mason Williams’s recording of it is in a movie (The Story of Us) that Clapton did all the other music for (and because of how the internet works, a YouTube video with that misattribution as the title has furthered that misconception).
So your mom is in the clear as far as Classical Gas. Now, if she starts blasting Layla, you may have a problem 
.
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I wish that something had been the law and the courts. What kept jumping out at me were initial charges in 1997, and finally jailed in 2015 after so many cases I really didn’t want to keep count. I’m glad to see consequence culture speeding things up in terms of raising awareness of people’s words and actions.
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Yes, all of this. Especially authentic/interesting/versatile, re. Page, et al. Clapton was extremely overrated, possibly due to the sheer buying power of equally mediocre & racist boomer fans throughout the 70s & 80s.
Wait, you mean this Mason Williams?
