Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8354 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

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!

Not very revealing.
Large parts of this book are already well known to anyone who is a fan, or even just reads the newspapers regularly. I was hoping for more of the kind of things that the papers don't talk about, like the music perhaps & how it was written & made etc. Whilst technical info may have been boring to a non musician it would have been a great read for those that are interested. And, it would have certainly been no more boring than the parts that were included such as Eric's love of fashion clothes,cars,bird shooting,designer watches,& houses etc. The wealthy entertaining types often have their indulgences but that is not (usually) how/why they became wealthy.
Don't get me wrong, I did find the read enjoyable but I expected more.

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.