Trying to Find an Identity: Eric Clapton's Changing Conception of “Blackness”

Abstract

This essay seeks to connect rock star Eric Clapton's music from the 1960s with the history of Norman Mailer's notion of the “white negro” in a particular British context. In his search for an authenticated identity, Clapton turned to a problematic construction of black masculinity. Clapton employed a more fluid approach to the racialization of musical genres with the group Cream, but eventually returned to essentialist notions of “race” in his music as well as in his endorsement of British politician Enoch Powell's anti‐immigration campaign in 1976.

You know, I'm not black, but there's a whole lot of times I wish I could say I'm not white. (Zappa)

Notes

1. Since I focus on the racialization of Eric Clapton's music in this essay, I only occasionally touch on the problematic intersections of “race” and gender that play out in the process of white males asserting power through constructions of black masculinity. For the psychological ramifications of this process, see Kovel; Pfeil; Stecopoulos and Uebel; DiPiero.

2. Eldridge Cleaver was not alone in attempting to bridge the gap between the white counterculture and black politics as the formation of John Sinclair's White Panther Party and their rejection of “white honkie culture” and appropriation of the Black Panther Party's masculinist discourse shows. See Waksman (217–21).

3. I borrow this term from Tate.

4. Not much research has been done on the British blues movement of the 1960s. In my description of the British jazz and R&B scene of the 1950s and ’60s, I am drawing on Groom, Brunning, and Red White and Blues .

5. Among the blues performers who played in Great Britain were Josh White (1950), Big Bill Broonzy (1951, 1952, 1955, 1957), Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee (1958), and Champion Jack Dupree (1959).

6. Of course, the British blues musicians were not alone in their fascination with US culture. During the 1950s, popular culture from the US was a dominant force in Great Britain (see Hoggart; Donnelly).

7. A number of Eric Clapton biographies have been published over the years (see Pidgeon; Coleman; Roberty; Shapiro; Schumacher; Sandford).

8. Houston Baker has described material poverty as an integral part of blues consciousness.

9. Eric Clapton devoted two of his major hits from the 1970s, “Layla” and “Wonderful Tonight,” to Pattie Boyd. They married in 1979 and divorced in 1988.

10. For a more in‐depth look at the Yardbirds, see Clayson.

11. The term “psychedelic” was initially coined to describe the sensory effects of LSD‐25 but it has been widely used to describe music and art related to these effects. Musical characteristics of psychedelia include the slowing down and lengthening of songs, non‐directional or contrapuntal solos, and electronic reverberation (see Hicks 58–59, 64–65).

12. The gender politics of the term “woman tone” can be read in various ways. Eric Clapton is expressing his “feminine” side by creating plaintive sounds, yet he is also animating and ultimately controlling the feminized guitar‐as‐fetish.

13. That the band was not taking itself completely seriously was also evident in the title Disraeli Gears, a play on words mixing derailleur gears for bicycles with the former British prime minister and colonialist.

14. See the timeline in Welch (160–87).

15. These albums with recordings from 1968 were entitled Live Cream Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. Cream did not play together again until their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in January 1993. The group also played four highly publicized reunion shows in May 2005, which were released on CD and DVD.

16. Sheila Whiteley has attempted to show the sociopolitical impact of psychedelic rock groups (including Cream). As I hope to have made clear, my positive assessment of Cream is solely on musical grounds. Contrary to Whiteley's claims, there is little evidence that the group was concerned with any kind of countercultural political agenda.

17. The only other 1960s acts on the poll were Jimi Hendrix, Blue Cheer, and Led Zeppelin (see Walser 174).

18. Eric Clapton's rejection of “pop” sounds needs to be seen in the context of the aforementioned feminization of pop music. After all, the sounds Clapton was authenticating were both black and male.

19. Christopher Sandford quotes an anonymous musician who overheard the telephone conversation as saying that “it read like a Harold Pinter script…he couldn't understand a word Bob said. Eric may have been a big fan of the Rastas, but coming from Guildford he wasn't exactly on their frequency” (140).