Izvajalec: Clapton, Eric
Založba: Polydor Records
Izid: 1980
Just One Night brings fourteen Eric Clapton “toe-tappers”, recorded way back in December 1979 at Japan’s Budokan theater. While the album itself doesn’t mark any particularly noteworthy creative peak in Eric’s career (which is hardly surprising given such ruthless competition), it’s still a historically important and at times thrilling musical document that, among other things, reveals the live stage versions of some of the artist’s biggest commercial hits for the first time. During this period, packed with all sorts of personal troubles, Eric gradually builds up his musical expression, which can definitely be seen as an enviable achievement. His style, which felt more or less unsettled throughout the seventies, swings back toward more personal territory at the turn of the decade, leaning heavily on the approach of the blues masters Clapton so admired and respected. Even if Eric sometimes seems to overdo that element a little, you can’t deny the appeal of his music, often poured into almost consoling blues motifs that, to the more attentive ear, reveal a vivid picture of insecurity in Clapton’s inner self beneath the mask of a tidy, dominant gentleman.
You could hardly say that with Just One Night Eric Clapton is discovering new frontiers in the endless musical universe, especially next to the far mightier legacies of E. C. Was Here (RockLine review tukaj) and Rainbow Concert (review tukaj), but that probably wasn’t his intention in the end anyway. In essence, Just One Night shows Clapton for the first time in a somewhat (overly) polished guise, completely at peace with himself, which will only intensify in its “gentlemanliness” over the following decade. The common denominator of all his live wanderings naturally remains the blues, whose often nonchalant delivery dominates even the more country-inspired numbers like Tulsa Time and Lay Down Sally. This time both songs brim over in true Clapton fashion with that idiosyncratic, unmistakably stubborn self-persuasion we’d previously only come to expect from Eric in his soulful interpretations of Clapton’s bluesy side, where Worried Life Blues and Early In The Morning reign in the first half of the album. Serenity and inner peace adorn the heavily stretched-out Wonderful Tonight, which, alongside the merciless pounding of Otis Rush’s Double Trouble and the simply incredible performance of Blues Power, wrapped in subtle humor, lends the whole show a special, capricious character. By far the most sympathy goes to the aforementioned Double Trouble, a personal, confessional lament without pathos, with which Eric, in his honest self-questioning, carefully touches the soul of every single individual.
Clapton’s greatest love (after Pattie Boyd, it simply has to be Robert Johnson), with yet another phenomenal “bluesy” epic, Rambling On My Mind, an invaluable gem of the blues that Eric identified with more than any other bluesman, brings a pleasing dose of freshness. That’s Eric Clapton for you. Always on the trail of new musical directions, he once again wins you over with his incredible feel for interpretation. Played this time in a more courteous, friendlier manner, Rambling On My Mind takes on new dimensions, of course without any risk of losing the charm of its original message. The cherry on top of this personal outpouring of emotion is the cunning yet, in its own way, similarly heartless and direct Cocaine, whose cruel reality, in a typically bluesy parade of indifference, at times almost optimism, is rounded off in grand style by Further On Up The Road.
Lineup
Eric Clapton: guitar, vocals
Henry Spinetti: drums
Chris Strainton: keyboards
Albert Lee: guitar, vocals
Dave Markee: bass
Production
Jon Astley
Track List
Disk 1.
1.Tulsa Time
2.Early In The Morning
3.Lay Down Sally
4.Wonderful Tonight
5.If I Don’t Be There By Morning
6.Worried Life Blues
7.All Our Past Times
8.After Midnight
Disk 2.
1.Double Trouble
2.Setting Me Up
3.Blues Power
4.Rambling On My Mind
5.Cocaine
6.Further On Up The Road
Trajanje albuma: 83.57
