Eric Clapton-461 Ocean Boulevard (1974)

 

Artist: Eric Clapton

Title: 461 Ocean Boulevard

Label: RSO

Format:  LP

Cat #  RS-1-3023

Year of Release: 1974

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 80's gatefold silver label reissue

Listed Condition: VG+/VG+

Sell Date: 5/6/22

Sell Price: $6.99

Discogs Last Sold: 4/20/22 $12.98

Low: $3.75

Median: $9.00

Average: $9.88

High:$19.99

Current low price:$6.87

Current Number on Sale at Discogs:15

Have/Want: 708/111

Where Sold: Cummings, GA

Time it took to sell: 7 years

Where and When Bought: Strawberries New mid 80's

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A-

Sad To See It Go: No

When I was completing my Clapton collection in the mid 80's, this was one of the final holes so I broke down and bought it brand new at Strawberries at full retail price right before the CD era.  This was somewhere around me seeing him on the Behind The Sun tour and when the Crossroads box came out.  At the time I thought this was a lesser Clapton record, but looking back it may very well have been my first exposure to him.

How?  My elementary school, Elm Park Community School in Worcester had an exhibition in the gym where we watched the older kids perform skits.  I must've been in Kindergarten or 1st grade, and the kids did a reenactment to "I Shot The Sheriff."  Long before Marley's posthumous Legend compilation ten years later brought the song to masses in a way that possibly exceeded the remake, it was indeed Clapton that had a number one hit with the song in 1974.  So it was to Clapton that mid 70's 5th and 6th graders were dressed up in Western costumes complete with the same kind of toy guns I had, single shot cap guns.  Hero/Villain shoots Sherriff to the delight of children, but the deputy lived on.  I really only have a memory of a draw and the guy with the Sherriff's star on his hat falling to the ground.

My teenage snobbery thought and maybe still thinks the originals of "I Shot The Sheriff" and "Willie and the Hand Jive" are better, but goddamn the opening traditional "Motherless Children" is quite good pathos and sets the stage for my complete enjoyment of this album.  Eric really nails it on this one in a way I somehow glazed over when I first heard it.  Who cares if there are other versions out there better than the covers here?  Robert Johnson to Johnny Otis to Duane Allman, to yes Bob Marley are their own sphere and Clapton is his, and he made something original with the material different from the past and what he became.  It's a crossroads record if there ever was one.

After all Motherless Children have a hard time when mother is dead.