The “Golden Hits Of The 70s”
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DEREK & THE DOMINOS
“LAYLA”
(Eric Clapton, James Beck Gordon)
Atco 6809
No. 51 March 27, 1971
No. 10 August 5, 1972
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“This business devours so much of your time. You don’t know if you’re doing the right thing or the wrong
thing–or even who you are!” Having said this (according to Irwin Stambler’s Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock,
& Soul), Eric Clapton and the rest of Cream–Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker–split up in mid-1968. The
strain of playing loud and long night after night had taken its toll: Clapton needed to recuperate, and
sought the lower profile offered by Blind Faith and an equally short-lived group, Derek & The Dominos.
The Dominos were Jim Gordon (b. 1945, Los Angeles) on drums and (on “Layla”) piano, Carl Radle (b.
1942, Oklahoma) on bass, and Bobby Whitlock (b. 1948, Memphis) on keyboards and vocals. All of them
had worked with Leon Russell and Delaney & Bonnie, and they backed Clapton on his first solo album
(Eric Clapton, 1970). Eric and the Dominos gathered in the fall of 1970 at Atlantic’s Criteria Studios in
Miami. No one knew it, but only one studio album–Layla and Other Assorted Love With Songs (1970)–
would result from this Eric Clapton gathering.
The Allman Brothers’ Duane Allman (b. Nov. 20, 1946, Nashville) became a major contributor to the
album and something of a pseudo-member, later making limited personal appearances with the band.
Producer Tom Dowd had told Duane of the impending sessions; work was already underway when he
arrived. “Eric knew me, man, greeted me like an old friend,” Allman told Irwin Stambler. “He said,
‘Come on, you got to play on this record’–so I did. We’d sit down and plan it out, work out our different
parts… Everybody contributed. Most of it was cut live, no overdubbing and it was all done in 10 days.”
Commenting on the loose atmosphere, Bobby Whitlock told Gene Santoro columnist with The Nation,
“Tom [Dowd] couldn’t believe it, the way we had these big bags laying out everywhere. I’m almost
ashamed to tell it, but it’s the truth. It was scary, what we were doing, but we were just young and dumb
and didn’t know. Cocaine and heroin, that’s all–and Johnny Walker.”
“When we finished it,” said Dowd to Rolling Stones’ Robert Palmer, “I felt it was the best goddamn album
I’d been involved with since The Genius of Ray Charles. But we couldn’t get the goddamn thing [“Layla”]
on the air; couldn’t get a single out of it. Nothing. I kept walking around talking to myself for a year.
Now, suddenly, it’s a national anthem.”
Their label was only to issue three singles. A Phil Spector-produced version of “Tell the Truth” (a hopped-
up variation on the album version) missed the charts entirely. “Bell Bottom Blues” made the lowest
reaches of the Hot 100 (#91, 1971). Finally, within weeks of the “Bell Bottom” release, a truncated version
of “Layla” was issued–inspired by Clapton’s unrequited love for Patti Harrison, George Harrison’s wife. It
managed only a mild showing on the charts, number 51.
“Layla” is often considered a pinnacle in Clapton’s early career, and is a much-requested part of his live
set. The tune features soaring slide guitar from Duane Allman–Clapton even reported at one time that
Allman plays all the electric guitars on the track–and a piano section composed by Jim Gordon. In 1972,
the song was reissued, this time in its entirety–all 7 minutes and 10 seconds of it; becoming possibly the
longest Top 10 tune in rock’n’roll history.
The group received a critical drubbing during its tour in 1972. “By the end of the tour, the band was get
ting very, very loaded, doing way too much,” said Clapton to Rolling Stones’ Robert Palmer. “Then we
went back to England, tried to make a second album, and it broke down halfway through because of the
paranoia and the tension. And the band just … dissolved. I remember to this day being in my house,
feeling totally lost and hearing Bobby Whitlock pull up in the driveway outside and scream for me to come
out. He sat in his car outside all day, and I hid.”
Surviving tracks from the planned second album appeared on Clapton’s Crossroads compilation. To fill
the commercial void, a half-hearted live LP for RSO, Derek & The Dominos in Concert, appeared in 1973.
With the Dominos fallen, Clapton went into hiding. He did some session work and appeared at 1971’s
Concert for Bangladesh, but was otherwise out of public view. Clapton had acquired a serious heroin
habit–it was reported–due to a deep depression from the sudden death of Duane Allman, and from what
he perceived as a lack of public acceptance for Derek & The Dominos.
Time has treated “Layla” as a gem; life has extracted a price. Jim Gordon–co-writer with Clapton of
“Layla” was convicted of murdering his mother and has been imprisoned since 1984. Jim had a long
history of music-making, beginning with Frankie & The )esters in Hollywood in the early ’60s; followed by
a slot in TV’s “Shindig” house band, stays with Delaney & Bonnie, Leon Russell’s Mad Dogs and English
Men, SOUTHER, HILLMAN, FURAY BAND. He also had a lengthy and tortured history of living with a
foreign voice in his head–his mother’s voice; attempted suicides followed as did 14 self-inflicted stays in
psychiatric hospitals. On the night of June 3, 1983, Jim killed his 76-year-old mother with a hammer and
knife. He has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was found guilty of second-degree
murder; receiving a 16-year-to life sentence. Reportedly, Jim no longer hears her voice.
Duane Allman died in a motorcycle crash in October, 1971. Carl Radle died of alcohol poisoning in 1981.