Eric Clapton: Old Sock - 2013


Eric is pictured in the sun on the cover and this album is quite a bright, sunny serving of latter-era Clapton. It is less formulaic than Clapton or I Still Do. (The rear cover has him trussed up for winter, however).

It kicks off with some typical Clapton-reggae in Further On Down The Road (featuring Taj Mahal) and later on we get a cover of Peter Tosh's Till Your Well Runs Dry. Your One And Only Man and Every Little Thing dip into easy reggae too. J.J. Cale's Angel is, as often with his songs, very Mark Knopfler-ish in its laid-back, folk-rocky feel. The Folks Who Live On The Hill, a Hammerstein/Kern song dating from 1937 finds Eric straying into Rod Stewart/Bob Dylan great American songbook territory, something that was seemingly de rigeur at the time. 

The steady rock of Gotta Get Over (featuring Chaka Khan on vocals) resumes normal service, however. An old 1931 jazz standard, All Of Me is collaboration with Paul McCartney that mines the old easy listening seam once more. Goodnight Irene is a bit of a hackneyed cover but overall this is a bit of an underrated album, and a superior one to Clapton.

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