Mark Knopfler and Eric Clapton: Layla (Live)

By: Pamela Leavey On: June 17, 2009 at 8:00 pm

Mark Knopfler and Eric Clapton perform an accoustic version of “Layla”:

Eric Clapton, Jimmy Vaughan &Robert Cray: Six Strings Down

By: Pamela Leavey On: May 30, 2009 at 8:30 pm

Jimmy Vaughan, Robert Cray, Eric Clapton and Robert Randolph perform “Six Strings Down”:

“Six Strings Down” was written by Art Neville, Eric Kolb, Aaron Neville, Cyril Neville, Kelsey Smith, and Jimmie Vaughan.

The song was written as a eulogy to Jimmie Vaughan’s brother, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and, by extension, many other fallen guitarists.

In its original incarnation, the song takes the form of an acoustic blues. The opening line, “Alpine Valley/Middle of the Night” refers to the Alpine Valley Music Theater near East Troy, Wisconsin where the helicopter carrying Stevie Ray Vaughan and several others crashed following a concert in 1990. The song references many other deceased blues music guitarists including Jimi Hendrix (the “voodoo chile”), Albert Collins, Muddy Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins, T-Bone Walker, Eddie “Guitar Slim” Jones, Freddie King, and Albert King. The song’s refrain mourns that “Heaven done called another blues stringer back home”.

Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood – Presence of the Lord

By: Pamela Leavey On: April 17, 2009 at 9:24 pm

More tonight from Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood at Crossroads 2007:

“Presence of the Lord” was recorded by Blind Faith in 1969. Songfacts notes that Clapton wrote “Presence of the Lord” as a testimony of faith after leaving the band, Cream.

Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton – Can’t Find My Way Home

By: Pamela Leavey On: April 16, 2009 at 10:22 pm

Dereks Trucks, for readers not familiar with him, first garnered the attention of the music industry as a “nine-year old child prodigy on the guitar, first playing with his uncle, drummer Butch Trucks, and by age 12 was sitting in with several high profile artists, such as Buddy Guy, touring with The Allman Brothers Band for a decade, before finally becoming an official band member in 1999.”

Doyle Bramhall II, at age 16, “toured with Jimmie Vaughan’s band, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, as the second guitarist.” Bramhall has collaborated with Clapton in the studio and toured with him since 2000.

Clapton and Winwood are doing a short tour together in the U.S. in June.