Eric Clapton needed a new path after he decided Cream was no longer going to be his way forward. Derek and the Dominos, an all-star collection of players that cohered like a band that had been together forever instead of an ad hoc supergroup, provided that direction for him.
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Although they made just one album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970), Derek and the Dominos is often cited as the peak of Clapton’s career on record, and for good reason. The double LP contains pretty much nothing but greatness, but these are the five songs that are just a notch above the rest.
5. “Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad?”
Perhaps because he wanted to dial it back a bit after the frenzied three-man racket that Cream tended to make, Clapton, in conjunction with Bobby Whitlock, his main songwriting partner on the project, mostly kept things at a slower to mid-tempo pace throughout the record, at least on the originals. But “Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad?” revs the motor up into overdrive, and this collective has no trouble with the speed. It’s meant to be a bluesy lament, obviously, but because of the rapidity of the thing, it ends up being an exhilarating listen.
4. “I Looked Away”
Clapton reveled in the influence of the American musicians that helped him out in Derek and the Dominos. But for the album-opening track, he chose a song, co-written with Bobby Whitlock, that owed a debt to the more lushly melodic style that was favored by his British counterparts. Still, Whitlock’s contributions on vocals give “I Looked Away” just the hint of a Southern blues feel. And coming out of the tightness of the main sections, Clapton’s high-wire guitar work packs even more punch than it otherwise might have.
3. “Bell Bottom Blues”
Perhaps the most underrated aspect of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs is the songwriting. Obviously, the group’s chemistry makes a huge difference. On this track, listen for Jim Gordon’s inventive percussion work, Clapton’s soulful licks, and the vocal blend between Clapton and Whitlock, which goes from gritty and impassioned in the run-up to the refrains to elegant and textured when they sing, I don’t want to fade away. That’s all great, but it’s nothing without a composition that is rock-solid from the start, from the clever title to the narrator’s eloquent desperation.
2. “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out”
The cover songs on this brilliant album couldn’t have been better chosen, but this classic track that came out of the vaudeville era is the gem of the bunch. You can’t say enough about the way Clapton and Duane Allman hold a back-and-forth conversation on guitar, ending each other’s musical sentences. Bobby Whitlock’s piano fills provide the saloon-style color. Beyond all that, attention needs to be paid to Clapton’s vocals. Perhaps because the emotion of these songs was at the surface of his heart at the time, his singing was at a career-best level on this album, with this song providing obvious evidence.
1. “Layla”
If you were to split “Layla” into its separate sections, each of the two individual parts would be an all-time great song on its own. Putting the two of them together is almost too much goodness, which is why this is as revered as classic rock gets. Clapton’s mash note to the woman he loved but couldn’t have (at least not yet at that point) is accompanied by bruising brute-force music, as if the narrator is trying to smash his pain to bits. Then there’s a sudden shift to Jim Gordon’s piano part, which is all sad resignation. Clapton and Duane Allman get the last words, pouring all the narrator’s bottomless anguish into every guitar note they play.
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