Great Moments in Vinyl plays Derek and the Dominos
January 31, 2020 • Martyrs’ • Chicago, IL
Let’s set the stage.
Eric Clapton was God. Some eager fan had expressed his rabid appreciation for Clapton’s abilities on the guitar by scrawling the graffiti “Clapton is God” on a wall in London. It was only 1965, maybe 1966, but already Clapton’s accomplishments with The Yardbirds and John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers had gotten him noticed. When he went on to form a power trio Cream, he only cemented his fame.
Meanwhile, Duane Allman’s skills as a guitarist caught the eye of a record company who put him in the studio as sideman to everyone from Aretha Franklin and Herbie Mann to Laura Nyro and Boz Scaggs. It was a short step from there to recording with his brother Gregg and their hand picked musician friends under the name The Allman Brothers.
And, of course, looming large over every musical effort of that era were the four lads from Liverpool. Eric Clapton got to know George Harrison when he and his band at the time, The Yardbirds, shared the bill with The Beatles. It’s not surprising that the two lead guitarists bonded. But when George Harrison married model Pattie Boyd in 1966, their relationship soon became complicated as Eric found himself falling deeply in love with her.
The final player in this story is a 12th century, a Persian poet who wrote a tale about a boy and girl who fall in love with each other while they are young, but as they get older, the girl’s father forbids her to see him. The boy becomes obsessed (the townspeople nickname him Majnun which means crazy), and he begins writing poem after poem about this woman he cannot have.
A translation of this Persian poem was given to Eric Clapton by a friend, and the guitarist found it extremely moving. Here was a tragedy he could identify with easily, the story of a young man who longed for a woman who was unavailable and found himself tortured by the realization. Clapton saw himself all too clearly in the tale of Layla and Majnun.
For this tribute, Great Moments in Vinyl will spend an evening with the songs Eric Clapton created and recorded that were fueled by his passion for Pattie Boyd, the songs that became the legendary album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.
Recorded January 31, 2020 at Martyrs’, Chicago, IL.
Featuring Bill Grady, Scott Tipping, Dan Ingenthron, Jonathan Reed, and William Lindsey Cochran.
Sound mixed by Tony Baker. Lighting by Stan Pszeniczka.