Bill Nighy reads "Eric Clapton - The Autobiography" on BBC Radio 2
As mentioned in our previous article "Eric Clapton TV and Radio Appearances" BBC Radio2 will broadcast bits of Bill Nighy reading Eric Clapton: The Autobiography.
Bill Nighy also reads the audio book version of "Clapton - The Autobiography".
The first part of Bill reading the book will be send on: Friday the 5th of October at 9.15 pm (GMT) and the program will last 15 minutes. It is part 1 of 6, so there is more to come on the 5 following Fridays.
You can listen live online to BBC Radio 2
The BBC Radio 2 schedule is as follow:
Eric Clapton - The Autobiography Episode 1/6
Friday 5 October
9.15-9.30pm (GMT) BBC RADIO 2
Tonight's opener - Motherless Child - charts Clapton's early life. Born in 1945, he grew up in Ripley, Surrey, and, until he was nine years old, believed his grandparents, Rose and Jack Clapp, with whom he lived, to be his parents.
Eric was the illegitimate son of a Canadian airman, and his mother, Patricia, had left him with her parents when Eric was only two. A distant figure in his life, Clapton's uneasy relationship with Patricia and his sense of abandonment were to affect his later relationships with women and contribute to an eventual downward spiral of despair and addiction.
As a teenager, Eric was awkward with girls, and music became a solace and a healer for him. His early hero was Chuck Berry, and he was greatly influenced by Elvis and jazz artists including the Dorsey Brothers and Benny Goodman. The purchase of his first guitar, a Hoyer, cost his grandparents £2 and was a difficult instrument for a novice to master. But Eric knew he'd found his calling, giving him a personal freedom and a way out of Ripley.
Eric Clapton - The Autobiography Episode 2/6
Friday 12 October
9.15-9.30pm (GMT) BBC RADIO 2
In tonight's second episode, The Yardbirds, Eric is fast learning to play the guitar.
Eric visited Eel Pie Island and clubs in Soho to study how the leading guitarists of the day used their hands when they played their instruments. He also developed a taste for alcohol, which gave him the courage to talk to women. He joined his first band, The Roosters, before being invited to join The Yardbirds by lead singer Keith Relf. Manager Giorgio Gomelsky, who ran the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond and had recently lost the management of the Rolling Stones to Andrew Loog Oldham, started managing them and secured a record deal with Columbia Records.
Clapton, at this time, was a musical purist and thought that making records was a purely commercial exercise, and, therefore, not for him. He had a passion for the blues and loved playing with The Yardbirds but, when they recorded their first major hit, For Your Love, a "pop" song on which he played a small riff in the middle eight, Clapton was not keen to take this musical direction and resigned. The record went to No. 3 in the charts and Clapton seriously considered giving up the music business.
Eric Clapton - The Autobiography Episode 3/6
Friday 19 October
9.15-9.30pm (GMT) BBC RADIO 2
Tonight's episode, Fresh Cream, looks at how Eric, although distraught at the reality of leaving the Yardbirds following their huge hit For Your Love, was soon phoned by John Mayall, who invited him to join his band The Bluesbreakers.
Eric was quickly on a heavy working schedule and, indeed, made an iconic blues album with Mayall. Although he had some memorable times with Mayall and was playing his favourite music, Eric soon wanted to move on and formed his own band with Ginger Baker, from the Bond Organisation, and Jack Bruce. He called the band Cream, because he thought the musicians were the cream of the crop.
However, from the moment he told Baker that Bruce was joining he knew that, although their musical chemistry was brilliant, their personality clashes were likely to be less so - and that proved to be the case. But this three-piece band became colossal and they had immediate success with their first album, Fresh Cream. It was at that time that a "young, black American musician" joined them on stage in London and blew them all away ... he was a very young Jimi Hendrix.
Eric Clapton – The Autobiography Episode 4/6
Friday 26 October
9.15-9.30pm BBC RADIO 2
Bill Nighy continues reading extracts from guitar legend Eric Clapton's monumental life story. This episode opens in 1967 when Clapton was at the heart of Swinging London, living in the Kings Road, Chelsea, with the artist Martin Sharp. America remained the land of promise, however, and, in New York, his musical career went into overdrive as he promoted the Fresh Cream album and recorded Cream's next album, Disraeli Gears, in just one week.
Extensive touring around America took its toll on Clapton, though, and he started to question his involvement in the band. They give their final performance in London in November 1968.
Clapton followed up quickly with the formation of Blind Faith who reached astonishing success throughout 1969. But, again, once at the top of the tree, Clapton found things hard to sustain, and disbanded the group. He had fallen under the spell of support group Delaney and Bonnie. Delaney told Clapton he should be singing and leading his own band, and this planted the seed in Eric's mind to go solo.
In Clapton's personal life things changed, too. He moved out of London to a new home in Surrey, near his old family home in Ripley. He loved his new base, but things became complicated when he found himself falling in love with Pattie Boyd, a close friend and neighbour and George Harrison's wife. And heroin entered his life, too...
More information about the next episodes will be published as soon as available.
