5 Clapton Facts
Eric Clapton recently celebrated his 76th birthday. Thus, I present to you five Clapton facts you may or may not already know.
Clapton grew up thinking his grandparents were his parents and his mom was his sister. That’s right. When 16-year-old Patricia Clapp had an affair with a married man and found herself pregnant, grandpa Jack and grandma Rose came up with the plan to protect both their daughter and grandson from any stigma.
Clapton is the only three-time inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame – once with The Yardbirds, once with Cream and once as a solo artist. Two other legendary guitar players were also inducted with The Yardbirds: Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. Both Beck and Page are two-time inductees, Beck as a solo artist and Page, of course, with Led Zeppelin. Incidentally, if they had inducted The Jeff Beck Group instead of Beck as a solo artist, Rod Stewart would also be a three-time inductee, the other two being with Faces and as a solo artist.
Clapton is the only artist to perform as a guest on a Beatles album and as a guest on solo albums from each of the Beatles. I can only assume his performance on George Harrison’s album came before the whole Pattie Boyd fiasco. What fiasco, you ask. Read on.
Eric Clapton is kind of a dick. Although he and Harrison were best of friends, Clapton became obsessed with Harrison’s wife, Pattie Boyd, and tried for years to win her over. It’s widely known that Harrison wrote Something for Boyd. Clapton one-upped him by writing Layla for her. She eventually did leave Harrison for Clapton, but dumped Clapton when he impregnated another woman. Like I said, he’s kind of a dick.
Dickish as he may be, you can’t deny that he’s a talented musician. In addition to his work with The Yardbirds, Cream, Derek and the Dominos, as a solo artist and with numerous other bands and performers, he’s also composed the soundtracks for a number of movies, including Lethal Weapon and Wayne’s World.
