Clapton's got it covered

music review

Dubbed as the ‘guitar hero’, Eric Clapton is best known in India for his song ‘Wonderful Tonight’, often played at Christian weddings.

I Still Do is his 23rd album with 12 tracks. It largely goes back to his roots and the blues musicians that inspired him. Clapton shot into limelight with his cover version of Bob Marley’s ‘I Shot The Sheriff’. Since then, he has had several successful cover versions. So it is not surprising that I Still Do contains several cover versions and a few originals.

The opening song, ‘Can’t Let You Do It’, a J J Cale song, retains the breezy style of the original song. ‘I Will Be There’ features vocals and acoustic guitar by someone named Angelo Mysterioso. It is the pseudonym late George Harrison used on Cream’s 1969 album, Goodbye. It is a leftover recording — featuring Harrison — that was finished up for the new album.

‘Alabama Woman Blues’ is Leroy Carr’s 1930 recording. Carr’s piano-and-acoustic guitar arrangement for a full-on band is substituted with accordion and Clapton’s raw electric style, tracing the Great Migration of Chicago Blues via less-travelled roads. Clapton adds his version to the cornucopia of cover versions of ‘Little Man, You’ve Had a Busy Day’.

‘Stones in My Passway’ is the cover of Delta blues legend Robert Johnson with handclaps, squeezebox and a wild slide guitar. ‘I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine’ is a smoother cover version of Bob Dylan’s original. ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ is great American songbook standard popularised by Billie Holiday. In this song Clapton lets his vocals outshine his guitar.

‘Spiral’, one of the 2 original tracks, is vintage Clapton on the guitar, so also the other original track, the Latin-flavoured ‘Catch the Blues’, which captures the essence of Clapton’s career.