Derek and the Dominos
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Derek and the Dominos were a blues-rock supergroup formed in the spring of 1970 by guitarist and singer Eric Clapton with Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon, who had all played with him in Delaney & Bonnie & Friends. The band would release only one studio album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs which featured "a guitar tour de force sparked by the contributions of guest artist Duane Allman",<ref>Romanowski, , Patricia (2003). Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll Rolling Stone Press, ISBN 0671434578 </ref> from the Allman Brothers Band. The album would go on to receive critical acclaim but initially falter in sales and in FM radio airplay. Although released in 1970 it wasn't until March 1972 that the album's single "Layla", (a tale of unrequited love inspired by Clapton's relationship with his friend George Harrison's wife, Pattie Boyd Harrison) would make the top ten in both the United States and the United Kingdom. The album, which has received praise from both critics and fans alike, is often considered to be the defining achievement of Clapton's career.<ref>nndb.com. Retrieved on 2006-08-06.</ref><ref>superseventies.com. Retrieved on 2006-08-06.</ref>
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[edit] Beginnings
The seeds of Derek and the Dominos can be found in their involvement with Delaney, Bonnie & Friends of which they were all members, including Duane Allman who had played prior to Clapton. The members' departures from the group were caused by the constant infighting between Delaney and Bonnie, Whitlock explains:
| Delaney was a little James Brownish, real hard to work with, him and Bonnie fighting all the time and carrying on. Everyone got disenchanted with the situation. |
Soon after, they called the rest of their former Delaney and Bonnie musicians, Dave Mason, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon and together the quintet became the backing band for George Harrison's album All Things Must Pass. <ref>The Layla Sessions liner notes, page 5.</ref>
The group officially debuted at the Lyceum Theatre in London on June 14 1970 advertised as Eric Clapton and Friends. The band was unnamed at the time and its final name, Derek and the Dominos, was an accident, by all accounts. Whitlock claims the previous performer, Tony Ashton of Ashton, Gardner and Dyke mispronounced their provisional name of "Eric and the Dynamos" as Derek and the Dominos.<ref>artistfacts.com. Retrieved on 2006-08-06.</ref> However, in Clapton's biography a different story emerges claiming Ashton told Clapton to call the band "Del and the Dominos", Del being his nickname for Clapton. Del and Eric were combined and the final name became "Derek and the Dominos."<ref>Schumacher, Michael (1992). Crossroads: The Life and Music of Eric Clapton. Citadel Press. ISBN 0806524669.</ref> Either way, the band took up the new name and embarked on a summer tour of small clubs in England where Clapton chose to play anonymously, still weary from the fame and high profile chaos that he had felt plagued Cream and Blind Faith.<ref>The Layla Sessions liner notes, page 4.</ref>
From late August to early October 1970, working at Criteria Studios in Miami under the guidance of Atlantic Records producer Tom Dowd, the band recorded Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, a double album now regarded by many critics as Clapton's masterpiece. Most of the material, including Layla (which soon became an FM radio staple) was inspired by Clapton's unrequited love for Pattie Boyd who was married to his best friend George Harrison.<ref>msnmusic.com. Retrieved on 2006-10-05.</ref> It was not until several years that Pattie would consent to an affair and later move in with Clapton in 1974 and married him in 1979. They separated in 1985 when Clapton started a relationship with Yvonne Khan Kelly and they divorced in 1988. Whitlock reminiscing would later say:
| The basic concept of Derek and the Dominos was that we didn't want any horns, we didn't want no chicks, we wanted a Rock n' Roll band. But my vocal concept was that we approach singing like Sam and Dave did: he sings a line, I sing a line, we sing together |
[edit] Duane Allman's inclusion
A few days into the Layla sessions, Dowd, who was also producing for the Allmans for their album Idlewild South, invited Clapton to an Allman Brothers outdoor concert in Miami. After several hours in the studio earlier that day the band was snuck into the show with the help of Dowd and sat between the riser and fans below. At the concert, Dowd distincly remembers:
| Duane was in the middle of a solo; he opens his eyes and looks down, does a dead stare, and stops playing. Dickey Betts is chugging along, see Duane's stopped playing, and figures he'd better cover, that Duane must've broken a string or something. Then Dickey looks down, sees Eric, and turns his back. That was how they first saw each other.<ref>The Layla Sessions liner notes, page 6.</ref> |
The next day Duane arrived at the Criteria studios around 3 o' clock and would quickly befriend Clapton; Dowd says their easiness with one another was instantaneous <ref>The Layla Sessions liner notes, page 7.</ref>, saying they were
| trading licks, they were swapping guitars, they were talking shop and information and having a ball, no hold barred, just admiration for each other's technique and facility. We got back, turned the tapes on, and they went on for fifteen, eighteen hours like that. I went through two or three sets of engineers. |
Those jams can be found on the second CD of The Layla Sessions: 20th Anniversary Edition. After the jam sessions Clapton invited Allman to become the fifth and final member of the Dominos. When Allman and Clapton met, the Dominos had already recorded three tracks (I Looked Away, Bell Bottom Blues and Keep On Growing); Allman debuted on the fourth cut, Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out, and played co-lead and slide guitar on the remainder of the LP. Many critics would later notice that Clapton played best when in a band composed of dual guitars; working with another guitarist kept him from getting "sloppy and lazy and this was undeniably the case with Duane Allman."<ref>Schumacher, Michael (1992). Crossroads: The Life and Music of Eric Clapton. Citadel Press. ISBN 0806524669.</ref>
[edit] The Layla album
The Layla LP was recorded by a five-piece version of the group, thanks to the unforeseen inclusion of slide guitar virtuoso Duane Allman of The Allman Brothers Band. Eric later asked Duane to join the band a permanent member, but Duane declined as he wished to continue his work with the Allman Brothers Band. He did, however, rejoin the Dominos after the recording process in concert on 1 December 1970 at Curtis Hixon Hall in Tampa, Florida.<ref>Eric Clapton Fanclub Magazine. Retrieved on 2006-09-26.</ref>
Although most commonly attributed to Clapton, the album was truly a group effort.<ref>Reason to Rock. Retrieved on 2006-09-26.</ref> Only two of the fourteen songs on the album were written by Clapton alone and Whitlock writing one of the tracks alone "Thorn Tree in the Garden." Rather, most of the songs were the product of Clapton and Whitlock's writing co-operation, but a number of blues standards were included as well, including "Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out" (Jimmy Cox), "Have You Ever Loved A Woman" (a Billy Myles song originally recorded by Freddie King), and "Key To The Highway" (William Broonzy).
The last of these was a pure accident – the band heard an artist in another room at the studio doing the song, liked it, and spontaneously started playing it. The startled Dowd heard what was happening, and quickly told the engineers to start the tape recorder running — which explains why the song fades in the middle on the album.<ref>The Layla Sessions liner notes, page 6.</ref>
"Tell the Truth" was initially recorded in June 1970 under the direction of Phil Spector as a fast up-beat song and released soon after as a single. But during the Layla sessions, "Tell the Truth" was recorded again, but this time as a long and slow instrumental jam. The final version of the song that appears on the album is a combination of these two takes: the frantic pace of the single is slowed down to the laid-back speed of the instrumental. The two previous versions of "Tell the Truth" were released on The History of Eric Clapton (1972).
- 27 second sample of the song Layla as performed Derek and the Dominos
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[edit] Live shows
After the recording of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, the group undertook a drug-riddled and vice-prone U.S. tour that didn't include Allman, who had returned to The Allman Brothers Band after the recording process. However, Allman did perform one show with the group at Curtis Hixon Hall, Tampa, in Florida, on December 1, 1970, and that was recorded. Whitlock recalls their drug situation as:
| We didn't have little bits of anything. There were no grams around, let's just put it like that. Tom couldn't believe it, the way we had these big bags laying out everywhere. I'm almost ashamed to tell it, but it's the truth. It was scary, what we were doing, but we were just young and dumb and didn't know. Cocaine and heroin, that's all and Johnny Walker.<ref>The Layla Sessions liner notes, page 12.</ref> |
[edit] Tragedy and dissolution
Tragedy dogged the group throughout its brief career. During the sessions, Clapton was devastated by the death of his friend Jimi Hendrix; eight days previously the band had cut a version of Little Wing, which was added to the album as a tribute. One year later, on the eve of the group's first American tour, Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident. Adding to Clapton's woes, the Layla album received only lukewarm reviews and weak album sales upon release; Clapton took this personally, accelerating his spiral into drug addiction and depression.<ref>Biography on Clapton Fanclub Magazine. Retrieved on 2006-09-27.</ref> In 1985 when talking about the band Clapton remarked:| We were a make a believe band. We were all hiding inside it. Derek and the Dominos--the whole thing....assumed. So it couldn't last. I had to come out and admit that I was being me. I mean, being Derek was a cover for the fact that I was trying to steal someone else's wife. That was one of the reasons for doing it, so that I could write the song, and even use another name for Pattie. So Derek and Layla - it wasn't real at all.<ref>Decurtis, Anthony (May 1998). Rocking My Life Away, Duke University Press, ISBN 082232184X </ref> |
The band disintegrated messily in London just before they could complete their second LP. Much later in a interview with music critic Robert Palmer, Clapton said the second album "broke down half-way through because of the paranoia and tension. And the band just...dissolved."<ref>Decurtis, Anthony (May 1998). Rocking My Life Away, Duke University Press, ISBN 082232184X </ref> Although Radle worked with Clapton for several more years, the split between Clapton and Whitlock was apparently a bitter one. Radle would die of alcohol poisoning in 1980 and Jim Gordon, who was an undiagnosed schizophrenic, killed his mother with a hammer some years later during a psychotic episode. He was confined to a mental institution in 1984, where he remains today.<ref>Romanowski, Patricia (2003). Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll Rolling Stone Press, ISBN 0671434578 </ref>
After the dissolution, Clapton turned away from touring and recording to nurse an intense heroin addiction <ref>VH1.com Derek and the Dominos. Retrieved on 2006-09-21.</ref> resulting in a career hiatus interrupted only by George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh in 1972 and the Rainbow Concert in 1973 (see 1973 in music), the latter organised by The Who's Pete Townshend to help Clapton to kick the drug and build momentum for a Clapton return.<ref>Romanowski, Patricia (2003). Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll Rolling Stone Press, ISBN 0671434578 </ref>
Song material from the group has been present on many of Clapton's compilation albums (i.e. Crossroads) and music from the abortive second album sessions was later released in a 3 CD/cassettes box set aptly titled The Layla Sessions.
The group's sole studio album, Layla and Other Assorted Lovesongs although initially a critical and commercial flop in 1971.<ref>Shapiro, Harry (1992). Eric Clapton:Lost in the Blues Da Capo Press Inc., ISBN 0306804808 </ref> has since charted in 1972 and 1982 and is now considered among Clapton's most outstanding achievements.<ref>allmusic.com. Retrieved on 2006-10-05.</ref> The band's producer, Tom Dowd said of it that he "felt it was the best...album I'd been involved with since The Genius of Ray Charles" and was disappointed at the lack of acclaim it garnered in its release.<ref>About.com. Retrieved on 2006-10-05.</ref>
[edit] Members
- Eric Clapton (guitar, songwriter and lead vocals)
- Bobby Whitlock (keyboard, songwriter and lead vocals)
- Carl Radle (bass guitar)
- Jim Gordon (drums, piano on Layla)
- Duane Allman (guitar)
[edit] Discography
<center>November 1970 #32 (US) |
 (January 1973) |
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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