Derek and the Dominos-Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970)

 

Artist: Derek and the Dominos

Title: Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs

Label: Polydor

Format: CD

Cat #: 31453 1820-2

Year of Release: 1970

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1996  BMG Club Edition

Listed Condition: VG+/VG+

Sell Date: 11/23/21

Sell Price: $3.99

Discogs Last Sold: 9/17/21 M/M $6.99

Low: $2.99

Median: $3.88

Average: $4.22

High: $6.99

Current low price: $2.37

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 13

Have/Want: 164/119

Where Sold: Hemet, CA

Time it took to sell: 10 years

Where and When Bought: consignment sale

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A+

Sad To See It Go: No

This caps off the Clapton is God phase of Clapton from Bluesbreakers to Yardbirds to The Cream to Blind Faith to here before an ever diminishing, spotty but decades long run of Pop hitmaking for mass consumption and professionally played Blues Rock for an established arena sized audience.

Although released the year before Duane Allman's untimely passing in 1971, the immovable granite that is the Rock Canon has carved this as a timely epithet.  We like to make sense of tragedy and what better way to do it than a songbook of someone's dysfunctional love life disguised as a songbook.  Duane's contribution, while an  important counterpoint, was still sideman status in this band and he opted to continue as an Allman Brother of the Road save for a couple live guest appearances with the Dominos.

The tabloids have been loyal to Slowhand and whatever demon has been lurking in his mild mannered existence.  Except, Clapton ain't so mild.  On a bad day he downright sucks, but at least to public knowledge he didn't kill anyone.  A fitting rock and roll God, he'll even take on vaccinations because he thinks his shot fucked up his golden hands.  Wasn't he damn near terminally ill just a couple years before Covid rolling around in a wheelchair for the Paparazzi?  Somehow, if there is some sort of societal woe, Clapton has managed a place in the conversation. You almost wonder if living the blues has been a publicists blueprint all along to get numbers up.  Nothing sells like controversy except maybe scandal involving sex and death.  It's a fairytale of a modern era.   Man lusts after another man's wife.  Of course, that man is a fellow God.  Man seduces her.  Marries her. Comes off dope addiction into heavy blackout alcoholism.  Abuses her.  Tries and fails to have a child with her.  Has one instead with an Italian model.  Layla is divorced and the love child falls out the window to his death.  After a catatonic period of mourning God comes back and jumpstarts his pop career with a tribute to the fallen child.  That's just the relationship with Layla from a tabloid perspective.   You think that's complicated, you should see his relationship with Black people.  I'm not just talking about his 1976 National Front supporting,  "foreigners out" outburst that has spawned him to be a first case talking point of statue demolishers.   With Clapton's music, as with his public persona, the good is really sublime, the bad is unforgivable and the middle of the road is marginal at best and inconsequential at it's worst.  You can't make the totality of this shit up.  

So what of the final start to finish masterwork of Clapton's God era?  Well "Layla" is the centerpiece for good reason in it's epic glory.  Overplayed and overplayed again in the unplugged era, it loses something out of context in the arena and FM classic rock short list where it always makes cut despite being 7 minutes long.  What would you chop to get it under four minutes?  That instrumental coda?  In the context of this song cycle as the second to last cut, there is little doubt of the songs greatness.  So much so that the closing track "Thorn Tree In The Garden" is easily ignored.

What makes Layla the Album great is the loose feel in both presentation and execution.  On my favorite tracks: "Keep on Growing," "Anyday" and "Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad" there a shambling soulful glory amidst the straighter Blues.  "Bell Bottom Blues" is more in the 60's rock  spectrum of things.  Hendrix 'Little Wing" is reworked from quiet to loud, the way Hendrix might rework someone elses quieter melody.   That my friends is a worthy intro.

This particular CD I sold from a consignment box.  I bought an ok edition vinyl copy for $6 in the early 80's before my teen years.   This was the 20th anniversary that was remastered from the box set a few years earlier but also sold separately.  This particular one came from a record club and dates to the mid-90's.  There has since been a fancier 50th anniversary edition that came out.   Discogs has 293 variants of this album when you add up all the countries, vinyl, cd's, cassettes, 8-tracks, reels and whatever mass produced object that has sold this music the last half century.  There will be more.  You can count on it.

We are in the era of reexhausting the exhausted.