Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5186 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Mail on Sunday
Clapton relates what happened with painful honesty. In other rock stars, such plump contentment might seem hypocritical, even vulgar. But with Eric Clapton, you feel that a little comfort is the least he deserves.

Observer
This is an essential read

Daily Telegraph
It's a raw and remarkable piece of self-exposure

Customer Reviews

Not the best, alot missing for an autobiography
Written very carefully ! - I am a huge Eric Clapton fan and was almost disappointed by this book, what about your guitars? what about the picture in the middle of book saying after surgery ... what surgery? no mention in the book - what about your guitar tech you have had for years.
If your a guitarist then theres a lot missing :( if you just want to know about Eric its a good start or an insight anyway. Started brilliantly then seemed to be very rushed and went downhill.

God writes...
'Clapton is God' may have read the grafitti, but the tone of Eric Clapton's first autobiography is shy, matter-of-fact, flat. This may disappoint some but to me it made it all the more real...this is, after all, just how we expect Eric to communicate: his music is sublime, but his personality understated, introverted, filled for much of his life with the fear yet the encouragement of rejection that contributed to his alcoholism and heroin addiction.

Nothing is left out. He is unsparing about himself, his honesty, even understated, shining through on every page. His life, after all, has been very full and included plenty of demons. His account of his feelings following the accidental death of his son is almost too painful to read. His passion for helping other addicts, however, is warm and heartfelt.

Also evident is his generosity to other musicians he admires. Comparing him to Hedrix is now a standard pub conversation and he has nothing but praise for him. He compliments musician after musician. For him it really does seem to be 'all about the music'. The other stuff is there too: the affair with George Harrison's wife; the fact that his parents hid his illigitimacy from him; the entertaining anecdotes such as the difficulty of having a slash on the White House lawn. But, despite the fact that he rarely does much more than name song titles and musicians, it is the music that shines through: you want to run to those CDs and listen to them all over again.

Clapton is a remarkable guitarist and this is a remarkable account of a life filled with real sadness and happiness. Thank God there are still a few older people writing autobiographies these days!

Eric Clapton biography 2007-pjb
As a fan and a guitar player myself I love the works of Eric Clapton and have been lucky enough to meet him at his home some years ago-he was super nice. I only mention this because I have read most things written about the man and in my opinion this book is really only a re-writing of the book " Survivor " by Ray Coleman ( great book ) but not anywhere near as good. As I see it, it only serves to give some detail -names, places, dates etc to the information previously given in the aforementioned book. I was so hoping for more information that I had not already read. Having said all that, for me he is still very special.