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Musician's Life Story Excludes The Music

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By CURTIS ROSS

Published: November 18, 2007

"Clapton: The Autobiography," by Eric Clapton (Broadway, $26)

Eric Clapton reveals plenty about his family background, love life, addiction and recovery. Readers also will learn about his love of fashion, art and cinema and his penchant for outdoor activities such as hunting and fishing.

What Clapton doesn't cover - at least not to the extent one might wish - is his music. Clapton, a mostly reticent interview subject, has spoken through his music since emerging with The Yardbirds in the early 1960s.

The prospect of his autobiography, then, raises hopes of reading his insights on the musical - as opposed to personal - relationships of the always contentious Cream, of the dope-fueled Derek and the Dominos or the many world-class musicians he's played with over the years.

Clapton's writing - formal, if not stiff - suggests it was a struggle for him to reveal so much of himself, so perhaps his music - clearly the focus of so much of his existence - was emotionally off-limits.

Readers will learn of Clapton's illegitimate birth and troubled relationship with his mother; about the heroin addiction that sidelined him during the early '70s and the alcoholism that consumed him later; and, of course, about the tragic death of his young son.

Clapton emerges a sober, happily married and doting husband. He is quick to point out his own foibles and is gentlemanly and generous in his descriptions of others.

For all the sex and drugs, this is hardly a lurid portrait. It is, however, wonderfully readable, only lagging toward the end when domestic tranquillity - and a tendency to carp about hotels and air travel - bring the book to a slow halt.

Curtis Ross is the Tribune's music critic.

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