Artist: Clapton, Eric
Label: Warner Bros. Records
Release: 1983
Runtime: 37.08
Rating: 3/5
Money and Cigarettes is a major milestone in the Eric Clapton story, a veritable maturity test of his creative powers, even if (sadly) it doesn’t mark any serious departure from the guitarist’s well-worn expressive habits. It’s the first album Clapton recorded after his rough recovery from alcoholism. Reborn as a person, he decided to make a clean break with the past. The sobering purge took the heads of the big names in his backing crew, with the exception of the versatile Albert Lee. Besides calling in favors from that buddy, Clapton unexpectedly roped in a pair of eminent music heavyweights to jump-start his artistic pulse. So the Money and Cigarettes project saw American slide wizard Ry Cooder and the superb bassist Donald Dunn, a hero of the legendary instrumental r&b forgers Booker T. & The MG’s, line up on the tapestry.
Clapton headed into his fresh career start with his usual dive into the distant past. The guitarist’s inspired sniffing around the roots of popular music bore fruit with the telling album opener Everybody Oughta Make a Change, where Eric pays fitting tribute to yet another blues legend, this time the all-too-often overlooked misfit Sleepy John Estes. Less successful, mostly thanks to the lifeless, laid-under rhythm and a shamelessly copied solo spot, is Albert King classic Crosscut Saw. Apart from restoring forgotten gems of the blues, though, Money and Cigarettes mostly reads as a musical nod to the sonic arrangements of Eric’s great friend J.J. Cale. Case in point: the carefree country sway of Slow Down Linda, a lively serving of vital musical backing meeting Clapton’s unmistakable guitar playing, a symbiosis that sparks all too rarely, including on the slightly subtler album favorite I’ve Got a Rock n’ Roll Heart. A hefty dose of Cale blood courses through the veins of the energetic blues rocker The Shape You’re In, crossed with elements of country, which comes across as a kind of emotionally fired-up anti-alcohol manifesto. Ain’t Going Down, whose frame Eric quite brazenly borrowed from Hendrix’s All Along the Watchtower, has more than obviously inherited its rebellious fury. Eric’s biggest step toward redefining his own musical profile is surely the confessional ode to Pattie Boyd, Pretty Girl, built on a very simple melodic framework with a soft Hammond bed, in the middle of which Eric stamps his seal with a subtle outpouring of unique guitar magic.
Money and Cigarettes is an album of middling artistic merit, and measured against the high standards of Clapton’s past achievements, it actually lands well below par. There are several reasons for that. Besides the obvious insecurity and lack of faith in the strength and impact of his own material, from a musician who was finally fully sober, a large share of the blame for the album’s pale look falls on the well-intentioned swap of his tried-and-true, artistically tight-knit band (which had proved the expectations right on the previous Another Ticket, after all) for a “build it yourself” kit of first-rate session players, who were in no way up to paving the new expressive paths Eric Clapton so desperately fought for in the so-called second spring of his life. Quite the opposite: on the road to the rebirth of Eric Clapton the man and his work, Money and Cigarettes stands as a reminder of one of the lowest points of the guitarist’s creative journey.
Lineup
Eric Clapton: vocals, guitar
Ry Cooder: slide guitar
Donald Dunn: bass
Albert Lee: backing vocals, keyboards, guitar
Roger Hawkins: drums
Production
Tom Dowd
Tracklist
1. Everybody Oughta Make a Change
2. The Shape You’re In
3. Ain’t Going Down
4. I’ve Got a Rock n’ Roll Heart
5. Man Overboard
6. Pretty Girl
7. Man In Love
8. Crosscut Saw
9. Slow Down Linda
10. Crazy Country Hop
