Synopsis

Born on March 30, 1945, in Surrey, England, this musician is ranked among the
greatest rock and roll guitarists of all time.
Early Life
One of the great rock and roll guitarists of all time, Eric Patrick Clapton was
born March 30, 1945, in Ripley, Surrey, England. Clapton's mother, Patricia
Molly Clapton, was only 16 years old at the time of his birth; his father, Edward
Walter Fryer, was a 24-year-old Canadian soldier stationed in the United
Kingdom during World War II. Fryer returned to Canada, where he was already
married to another woman, before Clapton's birth.
A single teenage mother, Patricia Clapton was unprepared to raise a child on
her own, so her mother and stepfather, Rose and Jack Clapp, raised Clapton as
their own. Although they never legally adopted him, Clapton grew up under the
impression that his grandparents were his parents and that his mother was his
older sister. Clapton's last name comes from his grandfather, Patricia's father,
Reginald Cecil Clapton.
Eric Clapton grew up in a very musical household. His grandmother was a
skilled pianist, and his mother and uncle both enjoyed listening to big-band
music. As it turns out, Clapton's absent father was also a talented pianist who
had played in several dance bands while stationed in Surrey. Around the age of
8, Clapton discovered the earth-shattering truth that the people he believed
were his parents were actually his grandparents and that the woman he
considered his older sister was in fact his mother. Clapton later recalled, "The
truth dawned on me, that when Uncle Adrian jokingly called me a little bastard,
he was telling the truth."
The young Clapton, until then a good student and well-liked boy, grew sullen
and reserved and lost all motivation to do his schoolwork. He describes a
moment shortly after learning the news of his parentage: "I was playing around
with my grandma's compact, with a little mirror you know, and I saw myself in
two mirrors for the first time and I don't know about you but it was like hearing
your voice on a tape machine for the first... and I didn't, I, I was so upset. I saw
a receding chin and a broken nose and I thought my life is over." Clapton failed
the important 11-plus exams that determine admission to secondary school.
However, he showed a high aptitude for art, so at the age of 13 he enrolled in
the art branch of the Holyfield Road School.
Musical Start
By that time, 1958, rock and roll had exploded onto the British music scene; for
his 13th birthday, Clapton asked for a guitar. He received a cheap German-

made Hoyer, and finding the steel-stringed guitar difficult and painful to play, he
soon set it aside. At the age of 16, he gained acceptance into the Kingston
College of Art on a one-year probation; it was there, surrounded by teenagers
with musical tastes similar to his own, that Clapton really took to the instrument.
Clapton was especially taken with the blues guitar played by musicians such as
Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Alexis Korner. The latter inspired Clapton
to buy his first electric guitar -- still a relative rarity in England.
It was also at Kingston that Clapton discovered something that would have
nearly as great an impact on his life as the guitar: booze. He recalls that the first
time he got drunk, at the age of 16, he woke up alone in the woods, covered in
vomit and without any money. "I couldn't wait to do it all again," Clapton
remembers. Unsurprisingly, Clapton was expelled from school after his first
year.
He later explained, "Even when you got to art school, it wasn't just a rock 'n' roll
holiday camp. I got thrown out after a year for not doing any work. That was a
real shock. I was always in the pub or playing the guitar." Finished with school,
in 1963 Clapton started hanging around the West End of London and trying to
break into the music industry as a guitarist. That year, he joined his first band,
The Roosters, but they broke up after only a few months. Next he joined the
pop-oriented Casey Jones and The Engineers but left the band after just a few
weeks. At this point, not yet making a living off his music, Clapton worked as a
laborer at construction sites to make ends meet.
Already one of the most respected guitarists on the West End pub circuit, in
October 1963 Clapton received an invitation to join a band called the Yardbirds.
With The Yardbirds, Clapton recorded his first commercial hits, "Good Morning
Little Schoolgirl" and "For Your Love," but he soon grew frustrated with the
band's commercial pop sound and left the group in 1965. The two young
guitarists who replaced Clapton in The Yardbirds, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck,
would also go on to rank among the greatest rock guitarists in history.
Making History
Later in 1965, Clapton joined the blues band John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers,
the next year recording an album called The Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton,
which established Clapton's reputation as one of the great guitarists of the age.
The album, which included songs such as "What'd I Say" and "Ramblin' on My
Mind," is widely considered among the greatest blues albums of all time.
Clapton's miraculous guitar-playing on the album also inspired his most
flattering nickname, "God," popularized by a bit of graffiti on the wall of a
London Tube station reading "Clapton is God."

Despite the record's success, Clapton soon left the Bluesbreakers as well; a few
months later, he teamed up with bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker
to form the rock trio Cream. Performing highly original takes on blues classics
such as "Crossroads" and "Spoonful," as well as modern blues tracks like
"Sunshine of Your Love" and "White Room," Clapton pushed the boundaries of
blues guitar. On the strength of three well-received albums,Fresh
Cream (1966), Disraeli Gears (1967) and Wheels of Fire (1968), as well as
extensive touring in the United States, Cream achieved international superstar
status. Yet they, too, broke up after two final concerts at London's Royal Albert
Hall, citing clashing egos as the cause.
Hard Times
After the breakup of Cream, Clapton formed yet another band, Blind Faith, but
the group broke up after only one album and a disastrous American tour. Then,
in 1970, he formed Derek and the Dominos, and went on to compose and
record one of the seminal albums of rock history, Layla and Other Assorted
Love Songs. A concept album about unrequited love, Clapton wroteLayla to
express his desperate affection for Pattie Boyd, the wife of the Beatles' George
Harrison. The album was critically acclaimed but a commercial failure, and in its
aftermath a depressed and lonely Clapton deteriorated into three years of
heroin addiction.
Clapton finally kicked his drug habit and reemerged onto the music scene in
1974 with two concerts at London's Rainbow Theater organized by his friend
Pete Townshend of The Who. Later that year he released 461 Ocean
Boulevard, featuring one his most popular singles, a cover of Bob Marley's "I
Shot the Sheriff." The album marked the beginning of a remarkably prolific solo
career during which Clapton has produced notable album after notable album.
Highlights include No Reason to Cry (1976), featuring "Hello Old
Friend"; Slowhand (1977), featuring "Cocaine" and "Wonderful Tonight";
andBehind the Sun (1985), featuring "She's Waiting" and "Forever Man."
Despite his great musical productivity during these years, Clapton's personal life
remained in woeful disarray. In 1979, five years after her divorce from his friend
George Harrison, Pattie Boyd (of "Layla" fame) finally did marry Eric Clapton.
However, by this time Clapton had simply replaced his heroin addiction with
alcoholism, and his drinking placed a constant strain on their relationship. He
was an unfaithful husband and conceived two children with other women during
their marriage.
A yearlong affair with Yvonne Kelly produced a daughter, Ruth, in 1985, and an
affair with Italian model Lory Del Santo led to a son, Conor, in 1986. Clapton
and Boyd divorced in 1989. In 1991, Eric Clapton's son Conor died when he fell

out of the window of his mother's apartment. The tragedy took a heavy toll on
Eric Clapton and also inspired one of his most beautiful and heartfelt songs,
"Tears in Heaven."
New Beginnings
In 1987, with the help of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, Clapton finally
quit drinking and has remained sober ever since. Being sober for the first time in
his adult life allowed Clapton to achieve the kind of personal happiness he had
never known before. In 2002, he married Melia McEnery, and together they
have three daughters, Julie Rose, Ella Mae and Sophie.
Ranked the fourth greatest guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone magazine,
Clapton is an 18-time Grammy Award winner and the only triple inductee of the
Rock and Roll of Fame (as a member of The Yardbirds, as a member of Cream
and as a solo artist). He continues to record music and tour relentlessly while
also performing extensive charity work. In 1998, he founded the Crossroads
Centre, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility. He published his autobiography
in 2007.
However, perhaps the most impressive achievement of Clapton's recent life is
that he has finally moved past his days of drug addiction, alcoholism and
womanizing, and settled into a happy and stable family life. "I am very happy,"
he said in a recent interview. "I think I've found a way to live as a result of all
these near disasters, which keeps me remembering how fortunate I am and
how lucky I am and how much of a responsibility I have to stay the way I am
right now."