Clapton: Slowhand at the crossroads

Eric Clapton: Slowhand at the Crossroads.
‘In order to keep what I had, I had to give it away. In order to stay sober, I had to help others get sober. This is the main principle that governs my life today.’ — Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton performs on stage at Royal Albert Hall on May 17, 2011
(Photo by Marc Broussely/Redferns)
Getty Images Standard editorial license

On September 20^th and 21^st 2019, Eric Clapton held his fifth Crossroads Guitar Festival. The event was held to raise funds for the Crossroads Centre in Antigua. An extraordinary array of guitar talent, seldom seen in one location at one time, appeared before packed audiences at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas. The audiences were treated to two days of extraordinary musicianship and musical collaboration. Many of the performers seemed just as starstruck as members of the audience.

Crossroads Guitar Festival, September 20-21, 2019
Credit: Weldon Turner, September 20, 2019

While the Festival was an extraordinary event from a musical perspective, what made the event even more special was the cause—funding for the treatment of substance and alcohol addiction.

Mr. Clapton’s story, as chronicled in Clapton: The Autobiography and the feature length documentary Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars, is marked by rejection, emotional pain, despair, and tragedy that fueled a decades-long addiction to drugs and alcohol. It is also a story of ultimate victory and triumph. The Festival, and the rehabilitation centre it supports, symbolizes a journey where gut-wrenching tragedy was transformed into a positive and inspiring force for good.

‘On My Own’

On March 30, 1945, a sixteen-year old girl, Patricia (Pat) Clapton, gave birth to a baby boy in the wooded county of Surrey, just south of London, England. The baby’s father was not present. The 24-year old married Canadian soldier had returned to his native country while Pat was pregnant.

Pat’s mother and stepfather, Rose and Jack Clapp, unofficially adopted the baby. Pat eventually married another Canadian and moved to his native country. Young Eric grew up thinking Rose and Jack were his parents, and Pat, his sister.

When Eric was nine his mother returned to Surrey for a visit with her family in tow. Eric was told the truth. He aske her: “You’re my mum--are you going to be my mum?’ She replied: ‘No, I think it’s best we leave it the way it is.’ When his half brother asked, ‘Are you my brother?’ His mother, overhearing the question, replied, ‘He’s not your brother.’ ‘I was so angry with her. I didn’t talk to anybody. I just felt rejection. I was more on my own than I had ever been.’ — Eric Clapton. (Note: Unless otherwise referenced, all direct quotes in this article are taken from the documentary film, Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars.)

A radio broadcast for children aired every Saturday morning. It featured ‘novelty’ songs, but also played an eclectic mix of music, including tunes by American Blues musicians: B.B. King, Albert King, Muddy Waters and others. The pain expressed in the music resonated with Eric. ‘I thought, “Oh, man, this is for me!”’ ‘Something about it got me. Something about it stirred me without me even being aware of it…it took all the pain away.’

In his mid-teens Eric and his grandparents visited Pat’s family in Germany, where her husband was stationed with the Canadian military. This visit with his mother’s family, like the first, had an emotionally devastating effect on Eric. Coming into his own as an adolescent, he grew his hair long as a sign of his emerging identity as a young man. He had also become inseparable from his guitar, which he played relentlessly. He brought his prized possession with him on the trip. While in Germany, Pat’s husband suggested Eric cut his hair. Eric objected, but was forced to have a crewcut anyway. He cried. Days later, his younger half-brother sat on his beloved guitar and broke the neck. ‘It was as though everything was done to demolish my personality and make me null and void. I was full of hatred and anger and resentment. So I thought, “Okay, that’s the last time I trust anyone.”’

He became obsessed with the Blues—and developed a ravenous appetite for listening and playing the music. The album that ‘started it all’ for him as a player was B.B. King’s ‘Live at the Regal.’ He also listened to Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters, [1] but ‘[t]he main one for me was Big Bill Broonzy, and I tried to learn his technique.’ [2] He was also influenced by ‘Little Walter’, whose harmonica playing he would later attempt to emulate with his guitar playing. Robert Johnson, the Delta Blues virtuoso and influencer of other rock ‘n’ roll giants like the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, was a different matter. Eric immediately identified with the shy Bluesman, given his own ‘paralyzing’ shyness as a kid, but he initially put Johnson’s music aside. The complexity of Johnson’s technique–playing bass lines, rhythm, and lead all at the same time—made the music impossible to duplicate. Nonetheless the raw, ‘intense’, ‘hard-core’ nature of the music made him realize he had ‘found the master, and that following this man’s example would be my life’s work.’ [3]

Slowhand

In 1963 Clapton joined the Yardbirds and became a full-time musician. The Yardbirds, five members strong, had earned a regular gig at a London nightclub called CrawDaddy’s, owned by the Rolling Stones’ first de facto manager, Giorgio Gomelsky. The Yardbirds replaced the Stones after Mick, Brian, Keith and Co. signed with an associate of Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein. By 1964 Gomelsky obtained a recording contract for the Yardbirds with Columbia records. [4]

Clapton expresses disappointment with their first recording ‘[A]s exciting as it was to be actually making a record, when we listened back and compared it to the stuff we were supposedly modeling ourselves on, it sounded pretty lame.’ [5] Playing live was different. Their first LP, ‘Five Live Yardbirds,’ a live album, proved to be quite ‘groundbreaking.’ ‘What singled us out from other bands was the way we were experimenting with band dynamics…’. For instance, they would jam in the middle of a song, with a bass line getting progressively louder and louder, ‘rising to a crescendo before coming back down into the body of the song.’ [6]

The band’s performances would drive the audiences crazy, and it was not uncommon for Clapton to break at least one string during the more frenetic bits of playing. While there was a pause in the performance as he replaced his string, ‘the frenzied audience would break into a slow handclap’, inspiring the band’s manager, Giorgio Gomelsky, to dream up the nickname, ‘Slowhand.’ [7]

The Yardbirds soon received their first commercial hit, ‘For Your Love’, but Clapton, forever the Blues purist, was disenchanted with the commercialization of their sound and soon quit the band.

In 1965 he joined John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and firmly established his reputation as a guitarist. It was while with the Bluesbreakers an intrepid admirer spray painted ‘Clapton is God’ on the wall of a London Tube station. [8]

‘Blues Breakers: John Mayall and Eric Clapton’ was the breakthrough album that brought my playing to peoples’ attention. It was made at a time when I’d really felt I’d found my niche, in a band where I could remain in the background yet at the same time develop my skills, driving the band in the direction I thought it ought to go.’ [9] The album was recorded in three days and had a ‘raw edgy quality…It was almost like a live performance.’ It was a record that would come to define his signature sound:

‘What I would do was use the bridge pickup with all of the bass turned up, so the sound was very thick and on the edge of distortion. I also always used amps that would overload. I would have the amp on full, with the volume on the guitar also turned up full, everything was on full volume and overloading. I would hit a note, hold it, and give it some vibrator with my fingers, until it sustained, and the distortion would turn into feedback, It was all of those things, plus the distortion, that created what I suppose you could call my sound.’ [10]

He became restless again. A band with three members—a guitarist, a drummer and a bass player—appealed to him after seeing Buddy Guy perform with a similar lineup. Soon after he, drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce–both of whom were playing in another band—began rehearsing secretly. [11]

After an interview with a local music magazine, word of the budding group became public. They met with a flamboyant Australian, Robert Stigwood, who became their manager. Then, what should the band be called? Clapton came up with a name that captured the central idea of the group: the best in their respective fields, three virtuosos, the cream of the crop. [12] In 1966 Cream released their first album, ‘Fresh Cream.’ The following year they produced the commercially successfully ‘Disreali Gears’ and the smash hit single, ‘Sunshine of Your Love.’ [13] A year later, ‘Wheels of Fire,’ with the Robert Johnson cover, ‘Crossroads,’ was released.

By now he had become friends with George Harrison, and the success of Cream created the opportunity to work with several established musicians, including Aretha Franklin and B.B. King. It also provided his first contact with LSD. [14]

In October 1966 a new guitar phenome visited the UK for the first time and jammed with Cream at London’s Regent Street Polytechnic. ‘He got up and blew everyone’s mind. I just thought “ahh, someone that plays the stuff I love in the flesh, on stage with me.”’ – Eric Clapton. [15] A deep friendship developed between Clapton and Jimi Hendrix. The two young virtuosos developed a mutual respect for each other’s talents, and hung out together when Hendrix visited London or when Clapton visited New York’s Greenwich Village.

‘Its so lovely now, I kissed Eric Clapton. I kissed him right on the lips. I kissed the fairest soul brother in England.’ – Jimi Hendrix

‘(Jimi) used to come ‘round to the flat a lot and stay there. We had a great time, really. He was so shy and quiet, withdrawn, and gentle. We’d talk about everyday kind of ambitions, you know, and the way we’d want to be. The conversation never stayed that way for very long ‘cause Jimi had such a surreal mind. Once he’d started going, talking about anything, he’d end up talking about flying saucers, you know, and of purple velvet moons…You couldn’t keep him on the ground for any length of time.’ – Eric Clapton

‘You see, music and life itself go together so closely. Its sort of like a parallel that turns on. Music is nothing but imagination, sent out from somebody’s soul, man, sent out from somebody’s real heart…that they can only express through notes.’ – Jimi Hendrix

‘The only thing you can give to anyone, like the only thing I can give to my darling Jimi here, is time.’ – Eric Clapton

Restless again with the direction of the band and the stress of touring, Clapton left Cream in 1968. He spent time with George Harrison and his wife Pattie Boyd. The Beatles were recording the follow-up to their ground-breaking ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band’. ‘George said, I’m gonna do this song, I want you to play the guitar.’

The song, ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, was featured on the 1968 double album ‘The Beatles (The White Album).’

After George Harrison was arrested for drug possession [16] — the documentary, Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars, charges the drugs were planted by the police — Clapton retreated to Surrey, and purchased a home, Hurtwood Edge, not far from the estate George Harrison shared with his wife. [17] There the two friends hung out, jammed, and wrote songs. Clapton however soon fell in love with his friend’s wife.

He played on George Harrison’s solo album, ‘All Things Must Pass,’ which featured the unforgettable ‘My Sweet Lord’ and ‘What is Life’ . Recording started in May of 1970. During the recording sessions ‘this guy’ would drop by with bags of cocaine and ‘smack’ (heroin).’ [18]

He and four musicians contributing to the album formed ‘Derek and the Dominoes’ [19] and started work on their first album. The record included a track written by his friend, Jimi Hendrix – ‘Little Wing.’ Also on the album was a song based on a famous Persian love story. A friend with an interest in Sufism introduced him to the story of Majnun and Layla—a story of unrequited love. Majnun is in love–literally possessed–with Layla, but Layla is married off to another, leaving Majnun alone with his obsession, which he expresses in elegiac poetry. [20] For Clapton, Layla and Majnun was his story with the unattainable Pattie Boyd. The anguish of the impossible situation made its way into the title song, ‘Layla’, and throughout the entire album, ‘Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.’

In August 1970, Jimi Hendrix performed at the Isle of Wight Music Festival. On Friday, September 18th, ‘darling’ Jimi Hendrix was found in a coma in a flat in the Notting Hill section of London. Nine sleeping pills were missing from a bottle found in the flat. He was pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital. [21]

Already experiencing emotional trials for being in love with the wife of his friend, the one woman he could not have, Clapton had now lost his musical soul-mate, his musical ‘soul brother’: ‘I went out into the garden and cried all day, because he’d left me behind. Not because he’d gone, but because he hadn’t taken me with him. This made me so fucking angry.’ – Eric Clapton

George Harrison’s three-LP ‘All Things Must Pass’ was released on November 27th. [22] It went to number one in the U.S.A and number four the U.K. [23]

‘Layla and Other Associated Love Songs’ was released two weeks earlier. It was billed as a Derek and the Dominoes album, not an Eric Clapton work, and it did not do well. Pattie Boyd, the woman who inspired the record, retreated from Clapton, to the arms of her husband, George Harrison.

Six weeks after Hendrix’s death, Clapton learned that his step-grandfather had been taken to the hospital. The suspected cause was cancer. Seeing his grandfather in the hospital bed, ‘diminished’ by illness, paralyzed from a stroke suffered the previous year, he was ‘stricken’ by guilt, telling himself he had taken away his grandfather’s pride by providing for him financially. [24]

Pink Cotton Wool

The death of Jimi Hendrix, the death of his step-grandfather, the rejection of Pattie Boyd. By the end of 1970 Clapton retreated to his home in Surrey. ‘I feel much more alone these days. What I want right now is ‘”out” – out of everything. All I can see is the suffering of today and the suffering of tomorrow.’ There he remained in seclusion with three constant companions: girlfriend Alice Ormsby-Gore, his guitar, and heroine.

‘All the time I was taking heroin, I thought I knew exactly what I was doing. In no way was I the helpless victim. I did it mostly because I loved the high, but on reflection, also partly to forget the pain of my love for Pattie and the death of my grandfather. I also thought I was endorsing the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle…I enjoyed the mythology surrounding the lives of the great jazz musicians like Charlie Parker and Ray Charles, and bluesmen like Robert Johnson, and I had a romantic notion of living the kind of life that had led them to create their music.’ [25]

Heroin came first. ’[I]t’s like surrounding yourself in pink cotton wool, you know. Nothing bothers you…nothing will phase you out in any way. I also have this death wish…I didn’t like life. I’m not going to live very long.’

Playing in public was rare, and when he did play, the appearances were fraught with problems: late for concerts and missing rehearsals. In the summer of 1971, in New York for a benefit concert with George Harrison to aid victims of unrest in Bangladesh, he was unable to score the usual high-quality heroine he was used to in England, and went into involuntary withdrawal, missing rehearsals. [26]

Alice became his ‘runner’, ensuring a constant supply, a supply that cost a ‘crippling’ thousand British pounds a week. [27] This equates to 14,400 British pounds in 2019 [28] (or $18,000 U.S) [29]. Because of a fear of needles, the drug was always snorted, never injected.

He was finally given an ultimatum by Alice’s father, British ambassador to the United States during the Kennedy administration, David Harlech (David Ormsby-Gore, 5^th Baron of Harlech). Either get help or be turned in to the police. Clapton agreed, and began treatment with a doctor recommended by Lord Harlech. ‘Treatment’ was electrical acupuncture that mimicked the euphoric effects of heroin, and, supposedly, slowly weaned you off the drug. But patients appear to be treated like children. Clapton, who was made to live with the doctor and her family, relates one episode where his host, who, unbeknownst to him, had rifled through his private belongings and found methadone syrup he had smuggled into his room. He was humiliated in front of her family for the offence. [30]

He was shipped off to a farm near the Welsh border, run by Alice’s younger brother. [31] With the distractions of farm life, and getting fit by basically becoming a farm hand, he finally kicked heroine for good. Even so the ‘treatment’ met with mixed results at best: one form of addiction was soon replaced with another.

In July, 1974 he released ‘461 Ocean Blvd’, featuring the Bob Marley cover and number one hit single, ‘I Shot the Sheriff.‘ His band then went on tour to promote the album. Pranks with his friends and management team became common, together with a growing dependence on alcohol. ‘I was drunk most of the time and having fun, fooling around and playing with the guys. Brandy was my drink of choice. Like most alcoholics I have met since, I didn’t like the taste of alcohol, so I would mix it with something sweet, like ginger ale or Seven-Up. I drank round the clock, and it didn’t matter to me whether or not there was a show that night, because I was always convinced I could handle it.’ [32]

In 1979 he married Pattie Boyd [33] who had been divorced from George Harrison for five years. [34] But the drinking continued. By the summer of 1979, while promoting the album ‘Backless’ he was ‘drinking at least two bottles of anything’ a day. [35]

Predictably, relationships suffered: ‘We would do all sorts of things together, and he would say he loves me, but he’d wanted to drink all the time, and it just increased. But then when he’d had too much to drink or became really seriously unpleasant and I felt he didn’t love me either. So this was really ghastly, until the next day, and he’d be loving again. He was quite scary and would scream at me across hotel lobbies. He was just listening to a different drummer when he was that drunk.’ – Pattie Boyd

His performances suffered as well. His drummer at the time, Jamie Oldaker, wondered: ‘What’s up with this guy? I’ve got to lock my doors every night. I’ve got to hide from this guy cause he’s out of his mind.’

At concerts, some with up to thirty thousand people, Clapton would berate and curse members of the audience, some of whom would respond by throwing bottles and other debris on stage. On occasion he would play for a mere thirty minutes of the ninety he was contractually obligated to play, then simply walk off the stage.

He has characterized his behavior as ‘chauvinistic’, ‘fascistic’ and ‘semi-racist’. At one concert he’s reported to have expressed support for the Conservative MP, Enoch Powell, who called for the repatriation of African, Pakistani and West Indian immigrants, whose increasing numbers, he claimed, would eventually lead to a ‘bloody race war.’ [36] Clapton is reported to have said of the foreigners: ‘get them out…get the coons out…send them all back…the black wogs and coons!’

‘When I realized what I said, I was just so disgusted with myself. I was so fucking angry and I thought, I needed to apologize to the people I said that to, because it was shocking and unforgivable, and I was so ashamed of who I was….I mean, half of my friends were black. I dated black women and listened to black music and championed black music. But it didn’t matter at all. They could have all gone to the wall as long as I had the bottle. I hated everything, everything…The only reason I didn’t commit suicide was the fact that I wouldn’t be able to drink anymore if I was dead.’ – Eric Clapton

The dependence on alcohol was so acute that going without it had disastrous results. One weekend he visited friends who, aware of his problem, refused to have alcohol. The involuntary withdrawal caused a ‘grand mal seizure’ and he collapsed at the dinner table. [37]

After a few embarrassing episodes in front of family, friends and strangers, the ‘last vestiges’ of his ‘self-respect’ were ‘ripped away’. In January, 1982 he checked himself into the Hazelden treatment centre (since 2014, part of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation) near Minneapolis, Mn [38]

The month-long program required residents to become a part of a ‘democratic’ community. He was not allowed to have his guitar, which was a new experience. Prior to Hazelden ‘[I] was either towering above as Clapton the guitar virtuoso, or cringing on the floor, because if you took away my guitar and musical career, then I was nothing. Hazelden incorporated the 12-Step approach for treating alcohol and substance abuse. Alcoholism was treated as a disease, not a moral failing. The patient had to complete a medical detox program followed by group activities, where he or she was expected to be ‘accountable’ and not unethical or abusive. ‘We were expected to be honest and supportive, love one another, act with decorum…’ There was also a family component to the program, where family members were taught ‘what to expect, and how to approach their relationships when the patient finally returned home.’ [39]

After treatment the clinic assigned him a ‘sponsor’, an AA counselor in his area with whom they recommended he live ‘until he had a little time under [his] belt.’ [40] They also recommended that he not embark on any ‘momentous voyages’ of work for about a year. Within four months however, he was back on tour. [41]

Unable to adapt to a life of sobriety, he grew resentful of his wife. ‘[I] started to blame Pattie for everything— “After all, hadn’t I got sober for her? Where was her gratitude” …I missed drinking and jealous of her for being able to do all that stuff in moderation.’ [42] They agreed to a trial separation. He embarked on a path of ‘controlled social drinking.’ [43]

In 1984 Clapton was in Montserrat with Phil Collins working on new material at AIR (Associated Independent Recording) studios. AIR was owned by Beatles producer George Martin. The music would eventually be released on the album ‘Behind the Sun.’ Clapton, who was still married to Pattie Boyd, managed to ‘seduce’ the studio’s young ‘manageress’, Yvonne Kelly. Yvonne, also married, wished to keep the affair a secret. [44] After recording, the tapes were sent off to the record company, and he went on tour with Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, who was promoting his own album, a follow-up to ‘The Wall’. By this time Clapton had started drinking heavily again, and had suffered two ‘mini’ seizures.’ [45]

The record company initially rejected the Clapton album, citing the lack of potential hit singles. Later that year he learned that Yvonne was pregnant with his child. He found out, too, that while he had been away, Pattie had been having an affair. [46]

In January 1985, Yvonne gave birth to Clapton’s first child, Ruth.

Surrender

In the fall of 1985, while on tour in Milan, Italy, he was introduced to Lori del Santo, a TV personality and fashion photographer. They moved in together. Soon after he realized the relationship would not work and told her he was returning to his wife. She then informed him that she was pregnant. After hearing the news, and given her own failure to conceive, Pattie was ‘devasted’ and their relationship was over. Now, faced with a pregnant mistress, and the loss of his wife to another man, Clapton contemplated what felt like the only viable solution. He had a full bottle of Valium in his possession. He ‘drowned them all. The whole bloody lot.’ Ten hours later however, amazingly, he awoke ‘stone cold sober.’ [47]

On August 21, 1986, Lori del Santos gave birth to Conor Clapton. [48] Clapton had then relapsed and had become a ‘full blown’ alcoholic again. [49] He couldn’t live with a drink and couldn’t live without one. As far as his playing was concerned, he was just ‘scraping by’ [50] It was obvious he required treatment, if only for his son. ‘Conor was the first thing that happened to me, in my entire life, that really got to my core and told me “time to grow up.” I could not fuck around any longer. I could not damage this.’

Fifteen months after Conor’s birth he again checked into Hazelden for a month of treatment. On the last day of treatment, he realized that very little had changed within, and was struck with a sense of panic.

‘The noise in my head was deafening, and drinking was in my thoughts all the time. It shocked me to realize that here I was in a treatment center, a supposedly safe environment, and I was in serious danger. I was absolutely terrified, in complete despair.

‘At that moment, almost of their own accord, my legs gave way and I fell to my knees. In the privacy of my room I begged for help. I had no notion who I thought I was talking to, I just knew that I had come to the end of my tether, I had nothing left to fight with. Then I remembered what I had heard about surrender, something I thought I could never do, my pride wouldn’t allow it, but I know that on my own I wasn’t going to make it, so I asked for help, and, getting down on my knees, I surrendered.

‘Within a few days I realized that something had happened for me. An atheist would probably say it was just a change of attitude, and to a certain extent that’s true, but there was much more to it than that. I had found a place to turn to, a place I’d always known was there but never really wanted, or needed, to believe in. From that day until this, I have never failed to pray in the morning, on my knees, asking for help, and at night, to express gratitude for my life and, most of all, for my sobriety. I chose to kneel because I feel I need to humble myself when I pray, and with my ego this is the most I can do.’ [51]

Crossroads

After release from Hazelden Eric finally began to enjoy his sobriety. ‘The best times I had in those early years of sobriety were in the company of my son and his mother.’ [52]

Four and a half years after Conor’s birth his world would be turned upside down. The tragic story of his son’s death is well known. Conor fell through the open window of a Manhattan skyscraper on March 20, 1991. The story garnered worldwide attention.

He battled through this tragic period with the support of friends in a 12-Step recovery program he had joined in London.

‘I cannot deny that there was a moment when I did lose faith, and what saved my life was the unconditional love and understanding that I received from my friends and my fellows in the twelve-step program. I would go to a meeting and people would just quietly gather round and keep me company and let me talk about what had happened. I was asked to chair some meetings, and at one of these sessions, when I was doing a chair on the third step, which is about handing your will over to the care of God, I recounted the story of how, during my last stay in Hazelden, I had fallen upon my knees and asked for help to stay sober. I told the meeting that the compulsion was taken away at that moment, and as far as I was concerned, this was physical evidence that my prayers had been answered. Having had this experience…I knew I could get through this.’ [53]

He believed the horrendous tragedy of his son’s death could be turned into a force for good: ‘I would consider living my life from this point on to honour the memory of my son.’

He continued recovery treatment at the alcohol and addiction unit at Priory Psychiatric Clinic in South West London. The results were so positive he took a training course and engaged in peer support work at the clinic. ‘I loved it,’ he writes, ‘it gave me a sense of real responsibility…and the results could be extremely positive, sometimes miraculous.’ [54]

Antigua, too, played a significant role in his recovery. It had become a retreat, a place of spiritual healing, ‘one of the only places on earth where I can completely discard the pressures of my life and blend into the landscape.’ [55] He had however become disillusioned with several drunks and addicts who sometimes accosted him near one of his favourite hangouts. It was getting to the point where he was seriously considering not returning to the island. He confided to the director of the addiction and alcohol unit at Priory about this, not knowing what to do. She replied, ‘” Well, why don’t you take the program to Antigua…You’ve got the money, build a treatment centre.”’ [56]

Obstacles presented themselves as construction got underway. The project had to be restarted after shoddy workmanship was discovered. A business partner bowed out of the agreement leaving Eric to carry the financial burden on his own. [57] He had a falling-out with his long-time manager. [58] But he was committed, governed by an over-riding principle: ‘In order to keep what I had, I had to give it away. In order to stay sober, I had to help others get sober. This is the main principle that governs my life today…’ [59]

Crossroads Centre Antigua opened in 1998. Treatment for alcohol and drug addiction is based on the 12-Step program made famous by Alcoholics Anonymous and practiced at the Priory Clinic and at the Hazelden Betty Ford treatment center. It is a non-profit institution, catering to both foreign patients and others from around the Caribbean. There is a ‘scholarship’ bed system where those who can’t afford the full cost of treatment are subsidized by those who can.

‘The objective would be to build the clinic…with a view to servicing the entire Caribbean area. It was accepted that few clients would initially come in from the local communities, and that we would need to promote the centre elsewhere, drawing on people from America and Europe who would pay to come there and thus fund scholarship beds for the locals who couldn’t afford it. It was a Robin Hood scheme really, take from the rich to feed the poor…’ [60]

Then came the task of funding and promoting the Centre. On June 24, 1999 Christie’s, New York, auctioned a hundred of his guitars, several amplifiers and Versace guitar straps. The event netted $5 million U.S. Six days later he performed at a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden with Bob Dylan, Sheryl Crow and Mary J. Blige to raise funds.

A second guitar auction in 2004 and a third in 2011 netted $6 million (U.S.) and $1.25 million (U.S.) respectively.

In 2004 a three-day guitar festival was held in Dallas, Texas, to raise funds. Subsequent fund-raising festivals were held in 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2019.

There is an ongoing effort to engage the general public in the fight against alcohol and substance abuse. Visitors to the Crossroads Centre Antigua website are encouraged to get involved with the Turn Up For Recovery Movement, aimed at battling alcohol and substance addiction in local communities. At the guitar festival on September 20 and 21, 2019, Eric’s beloved wife, Melia, encouraged fans to get involved with TUFR.

2019 Crossroads Guitar Festival, Dallas Texas

The festival featured over thirty acts over two days–a mix of extraordinary guitar talent: young ‘up and comers’, long-time journeymen players, and artists with household names.

Final Thoughts

In 1972 Mr. Clapton was twenty-seven years old and was in the grip of a vicious heroin addiction. Two years earlier his friend Jimi Hendrix, then twenty-seven, died of a drug-related overdose. Three years earlier, in 1969, Brian Jones, a contemporary and founding member of the Rolling Stones, was found dead in his swimming pool, with drugs and alcohol in his system. He too was twenty-seven. Thirty-four years earlier, in 1938, the ‘master’, the King of the Delta Blues, Robert Johnson, died at twenty-seven. Its easy to imagine that Eric Clapton could have become another member of the infamous ‘27 Club’.

He was able to avoid entry into that club for a variety of reasons, but there is one trait that seems indispensable to his survival, a personal trait that is never mentioned explicitly in his writing or in the documentary, but one that weaves its way quietly through the subtext of his story. That trait is humility. After being deified with ‘Clapton is God’, he mustered the humility (and courage) to heed the threats of his girlfriend’s father and seek treatment— ‘treatment’ which at times would have been humiliating for a famous rock star. He was also humble enough to seek help, and to eventually fall to his knees and surrender to a higher power, for deliverance from The Bottle.

Almost fifty years later, music lovers have benefited not only from an extraordinary career but have born witness to a living example of how multiple, horrendous tragedies can be transformed into an inspiring force for good.

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Eric Clapton at Royal Albert Hall

Credit: Marc Broussely

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Crossroads Guitar Festival, September 20-21, 2019