Artist: Clapton, Eric
Label: Reprise Records
Released: 1994
Running time: 60.10
Rating: 5/5
From The Cradle is an anomaly in the world of polished, or let’s say sonically up-to-date, gussied-up popular music production. A real black sheep, both in how it’s played and in how the production pen gets wielded. The album delivers the bare essence of blues as an art form, served up in the rawest possible shape. The rough-hewn sound of the record comes from a direct approach to the recording process, meaning From The Cradle was served up “on the spot,” live, with no overdubs and no covering up of unwanted flubs, which gives the album an organic, if gritty, sonic character. For this one-of-a-kind occasion, Clapton pulled a whole fistful of rock-solid blues standards out of mothballs. It’s an old Eric habit, really, one that plenty of his fellow guitarists have been happy to copy, but rarely with the success and conviction of a great master of blues guitar. Eric Clapton is certainly the right man for this kind of conjuring of blues ghosts from the past: this is a musician who, over a sprawling career, has breathed in plenty of the authentic aromas of the Mississippi and its later Chicago offshoots. As you chew on those thoughts, From The Cradle will knock you out of your pants with its eerie, dark blues atmosphere, which nonchalantly reminds us that blues gems forgotten by the civilized world can, in the right hands, still be downright frightening a good 50 years after their unfortunate conception!
With the rather surprising absence of anything by Robert Johnson, Eric Clapton this time busies himself reviving a varied batch of thoroughly fossilized tunes, with a touch of malice you could even call them museum pieces, and in any case mostly songs that aren’t exactly part of the regular repertoire of the vast majority of guitarists who deal with blues on a regular basis. From The Cradle finds its inspiration by devouring classics of postwar blues, that is, creations by artists who flourished creatively in the 50s and 60s, among which the traditional “Motherless Child” stubbornly holds its ground, and Clapton, with a heaping dose of interpretive boldness, delivers them all practically as his own. Clapton’s interpretation is alive and full, passionate and deeply emotional, and it travels on a level of pure intimacy. Eric’s ego doesn’t sit still. You can feel his authority, for example, in the excellent rendition of Elmore James’ “It Hurts Me Too,” where, understandably, we run into the wonderfully original weeping of the slide guitar. Themes that are already pretty well worn come off fresh and convincing, such as Dixon’s “Hoochie Coochie Man,” Freddie King’s “Someday After A While” and Waters’ “Standin’ Round Crying.” With an inspired rendition of “Third Degree,” Clapton’s musical voice finally merges with the image of the incorrigible blues purist. The track builds its firm bond between melancholy and rock-solid character on a raw, unadorned, in fact rather rough-and-ready dialogue between piano and guitar sound, pushed to the front lines by pure musical intuition. “Driftin” treads a similarly thorny path, an otherworldly dark and emotional confession where only Eric’s vocal and guitar trade solo ideas. A spooky melodic pairing, with the corrupting influence of traditional blues.
From The Cradle is a one-of-a-kind musical document in every respect. It’s a masterfully balanced collage of 16 blues-standard covers, showing off the many faces and guises of the die-hard blues interpreter. With this move, after years of sticking it out in the popular music mainstream, Clapton set off to rediscover his own musical roots. It’s worth noting that in most cases this kind of move would quickly smell like a very risky career decision, but of course, whenever Clapton is the subject, it’s all taken as perfectly natural. You always have to keep in mind that Eric Clapton is really the only one among the musical greats with enough character, or if you like, enough balls, to take on the confessional and consequently idiosyncratic content of the blues, along with, of course, the essential sense for grasping the bare fundamentals of blues rhetoric.
Lineup
Eric Clapton: vocals, guitar
Andy Fairweather Low: guitar
Dave Bronze: bass
Chris Stainton: keyboards
Jim Keltner: drums
Jerry Portnoy: harmonica
Roddy Lorimer: trumpet
Simon Clarke: baritone sax
Tim Sanders: tenor sax
Production
Eric Clapton & Russ Titelman
Track list
1. Blues Before Sunrise (Leroy Carr)
2. Third Degree (Eddie Boyd/Willie Dixon)
3. Reconsider Baby (Lowell Fulson)
4. Hoochie Coochie Man (Willie Dixon)
5. Five Long Years (Eddie Boyd)
6. I’m Tore Down (Sonny Thompson)
7. How Long Blues (Leroy Carr)
8. Goin’ Away Baby (Lane)
9. Blues Leave Me Alone (Lane)
10. Sinner’s Prayer (Lowell Fulson/Glenn)
11. Motherless Child (Traditional)
12. It Hurts Me Too (Elmore James)
13. Someday After A While (Freddie King/Sonny Thompson)
14. Standin’ Round Crying (McKinley Morganfield)
15. Driftin’ (Brown/Johnny Moore/Williams)
16. Groaning The Blues (Willie Dixon)
