Derek and the Dominos - Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs
Written by: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 01.12.1970 UK / 09.11.1970 International
On July 21, 1865, in Springfield, Missouri, the first quick-draw duel of the Wild West took place between Wild Bill Hickok and Davis Tutt. Hickok, who killed his opponent, went on to become the fastest and deadliest gunfighter of the Wild West, and as far as is known killed at least seven men in gunfights.
109 years later, a clash of titans of a completely different kind took place. The year is 1974, and Eric Clapton and George Harrison met for a guitar duel over the heart of Pattie Boyd, Harrison's wife at the time.
Clapton recalls: "I remember that evening. I dropped by to sit in for a bit, he pulled out two guitars and we played," he says. "But it was nothing out of the ordinary."
The relationship between Harrison and Boyd was already heading nowhere, and all Clapton had to do was play for the girl and win her over.
Clapton's friendship with Harrison survived his involvement with Boyd. The former Beatle once said, "I'd rather she was with him than with some idiot." "For George, everything was maya," says Clapton (maya being the cosmic illusion in Hinduism). "Something would come up, and we'd meet to play, because that is what drew us to each other. His point of view was entirely spiritual: that we can always rise above the physical world."
Clapton had desired Pattie Boyd since 1969, and he fought his feelings in two ways: with heroin, and by writing songs about falling in love.
When he sang to her on his knees, begging her to calm his troubled mind, it was in the song "Layla", a central song on the album "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs", the only album by "Derek and the Dominos", released on November 9, 1970 in the United States and on December 1, 1970 in the UK.
This semi-fictional band that Clapton built grew out of his frustration with the hype surrounding his previous bands, the supergroups "Cream" and "Blind Faith". After "Blind Faith" broke up, he joined "Delaney & Bonnie & Friends", whom he had met when they were the opening act on "Blind Faith"'s US tour in the summer of 1969.
After that band broke up too, Clapton decided to retreat from the spotlight, and together with the keyboardist Bobby Whitlock he spent weeks from April 1970 writing a number of songs "just so they'd have something to play", as Whitlock put it.
These songs would later make up the bulk of the material on their only album. After finishing their stint with Joe Cocker, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon reunited with Clapton and Whitlock in England. Clapton tried to stay out of the spotlight, and to have his name mentioned as little as possible, under the cover of an anonymous band called "Derek and the Dominos".
The band's name, according to reports, stemmed from a mistake by the announcer at their first show, who mispronounced the temporary band name, "Eric & The Dynamos". Clapton, for his part, did not object to the new name, since he did not want his name and fame to get in the way of maintaining the band's image.
After the tour ended, they headed to Criteria Studios in Miami to record an album. The origin of the central song "Layla", as mentioned, lies in Clapton's infatuation with Pattie Boyd, the wife of his friend, the Beatles guitarist George Harrison.
Dave Marsh, in the book "The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll", wrote that "there are few moments in recorded rock when a singer or writer goes so deep inside himself that the effect of hearing it is like watching a murder or a suicide... For me, 'Layla' is the greatest of them."
The veteran producer Tom Dowd was at Criteria working on the Allman Brothers Band's second album, "Idlewild South", when he got a phone call saying that Clapton was bringing the Dominos to Miami to record.
When he heard this, the guitarist Duane Allman said he would be glad to drop by and watch, if Clapton approved. Allman later called Dowd to let him know that his band was in town to play a benefit concert on August 26.
When Clapton heard about it, he insisted on going to see them play, saying: "You mean the guy who plays on Hey Jude (the Wilson Pickett one)?... I want to see him play... Let's go."
Stagehands sat Clapton and his friends in front of the barrier separating the audience from the stage. As they sat down, Allman was playing a solo. When he turned around, opened his eyes and saw Clapton, he froze. Dickey Betts, the Allmans' other lead guitarist, picked up the passage where Duane had left off, but when he followed Allman's eyes to Clapton, he had to turn his back so as not to freeze himself.
After the show, Allman asked Clapton if he could come to the studio and watch some of the recording sessions, but Clapton invited him directly, saying: "Bring your guitar; you've got to play!"
The two, who spent a night together, bonded. Dowd reported that they "traded licks, traded guitars, talked about things, knew and enjoyed each other greatly without any restrictions, just admiration for each other's technique and skills."
Clapton later wrote in his autobiography that he and Allman were inseparable during the Florida sessions, and spoke of Allman as "the musical brother I never had but wished I had."
Allman joined the "Derek and the Dominos" recordings as a second lead guitarist, although he refused to join the band right away, and played a few shows with the band while they were in Florida.
The album was recorded at Criteria between late August and early October 1970, in concentrated sessions, and according to Whitlock there were some very talented people in the studio who made it work: "When you let a horse run in a race, it will run its best race on its own. When you get some musicians and some creative people, you give them the chance to do what they're meant to do, and they will do exactly that. In the right circumstances, they will perform at their peak."
Whitlock added: "We were just instruments, like the instruments in our laps. We were given a chance to lock ourselves in and let the creative principle of the universe flow through us."
Besides "Layla", Clapton's plea to Boyd, "Bell Bottom Blues" stands out. According to Clapton, the song was written for Boyd after she asked him to bring her a pair of bell-bottom trousers from the United States, but Whitlock claims it was inspired by a meeting between Clapton and a Persian princess.
Whitlock told it this way: "Eric met a girl, she was like a Persian princess, and she wore bell-bottoms. She was infatuated with him. He gave her a slide that Duane Allman had given him, wrapped it in leather, and she wore it around her neck. She didn't speak a word of English, and they had to go on dates through an interpreter. That relationship didn't last more than a week."
Clapton and Whitlock wrote "Keep on Growing" together, developing it from a jam they played in front of 50,000 people. They intended to leave it off the record, until Whitlock asked to be allowed to write lyrics so that the song would make it onto the album.
"I Am Yours" was inspired by the Persian poem "The Story of Layla and Majnun" by the Persian poet Nizami, which also inspired the song "Layla". The songwriting credit on this song is "Clapton/Nizami". Clapton used so much of Nizami's text that he gave the poet a songwriting credit. Duane Allman played guitar on this song.
Whitlock wrote "Tell the Truth" in early summer 1970, while temporarily living with Clapton in England. "I wrote it one night after we'd been up for days in one of our marathons. We used to just play and play and play. We'd play for 3 days without stopping. Anyway, I was alone in Eric's living room when it just hit me. I was a young guy, gaining experience and growing up. That's what I was thinking about." As fans of Sam & Dave, Clapton and Whitlock shaped the song as a "call and response", with the two singing alternating verses.
The song was initially recorded at a happier tempo with Phil Spector, but as Whitlock recalled, Spector's "Wall of Sound" approach didn't suit the band's style, and they pulled the single from the album. On August 28, with Allman playing slide, the song was recorded as a long, slow instrumental jam. The vocal version that finally appeared on the album is built around the slower tempo of the jam.
The five covers on the album included the blues songs "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" (Jimmie Cox), "Key to the Highway" (Charles Segar and Big Bill Broonzy) and "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" (Billy Myles), a version of "Little Wing" by Jimi Hendrix, and a version of the doo-wop ballad "It's Too Late" by Chuck Willis.
According to Dowd, the recording of "Key to the Highway" was unplanned, and happened after the band heard Sam Samudio performing the song from his album "Sam, Hard and Heavy" in another room in the studio.
When the members of "Derek and the Dominos" began playing it spontaneously on their own, Dowd instructed the engineers to roll tape, which led to the song's abrupt opening. Bobby Whitlock's version of the story is that tape was rolling nonstop throughout the session, but Dowd took a bathroom break and left the faders on the mixer open. When the jam started, he ran back into the control room, still pulling up his pants and shouting: "Push up the faders!"
The closing song, "Thorn Tree in the Garden", was written by Whitlock as a rebuke of a guy who made his dog disappear when he left the house. He called him "the thorn tree" and promised him that one day he would record this song and everyone would know what he had done.
Throughout the album, Clapton pours out his heart. The best songs on the album tell the story of a desperate man at the very edge of his abilities. Clapton never sang with such soul, pain and urgency, neither before nor since.
The album cover is a reproduction of the painting "La Fille au Bouquet" (Girl with a Bouquet) by Emile-Theodore Frandsen de Schomberg, in which Clapton saw a likeness to Pattie Boyd, and which became the cover of "Layla".
In a sense, "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs" is a concept album about unrequited desire, and there is no denying the effect that his love for Boyd had on the sessions. There is real pain and confusion here. Few albums in rock history carry the scars that are found here.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
"Face/Off" - Israel's Rock Blog
Comments