Eric Clapton in the 60s: Film Revisits the Young Guitarist When He Took the Rock World by Storm

In recent decades, Eric Clap­ton has set­tled into a kind of com­mer­cial­ly com­fort­able respectabil­i­ty. His songs, like “Tears From Heav­en” and “My Father’s Eyes,” are easy on the ears but hard to get enthused about. So it might be dif­fi­cult for those of younger gen­er­a­tions to under­stand how Clap­ton’s gui­tar play­ing once inspired fanat­ics to spray-paint “Clap­ton is God” across walls all over Lon­don.

This two-hour doc­u­men­tary takes us back to those excit­ing times: to when Clap­ton joined the Yard­birds at the age of 18, only to leave a year and a half lat­er because he was unhap­py with the band’s com­mer­cial­ism; to his leg­endary blos­som­ing as an elec­tric blues gui­tar vir­tu­oso with John May­all & the Blues­break­ers; to his emer­gence as a super­star with Cream and his brief exper­i­ment with Blind Faith. The film explores the ear­ly devel­op­ment of Clap­ton’s play­ing through inter­views with fel­low musi­cians May­all, Chris Dre­ja, Ben Palmer, Neil Innes and oth­ers, along with Cream pro­du­cr Bill Halver­son and a group of vet­er­an music jour­nal­ists.

Eric Clapton–The 1960’s Review is not the film to watch for extend­ed musi­cal per­for­mances by Clap­ton, but it’s a great way to learn more about what made him, if not God, cer­tain­ly one of the great­est blues and rock gui­tarists of all time.

Relat­ed con­tent:

A Young Eric Clap­ton Demon­strates the Ele­ments of his Gui­tar Sound

Eric Clap­ton Tries Out Gui­tars at Home and Talks About the Bea­t­les, Cream, and His Musi­cal Roots

Eric Clap­ton and Steve Win­wood Join Forces at the His­toric Blind Faith Con­cert in Hyde Park, 1969