Slowhand: The Life and Music of Eric Clapton by Philip Norman

Read the autobiography instead

Published in 2018, Slowhand is a biography of guitar legend and three-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Eric Clapton, written by Philip Norman, a British rock journalist who previously published several biographies on the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Slowhand is ostensibly a full cradle-to-the-present biography, but it focuses heavily on Clapton’s early career and gives short shrift to anything that happens after about 1986.

Norman’s primary area of concern in this book is Clapton’s love affair and marriage with Pattie Boyd. Clapton’s love for Boyd inspired the song Layla, one of the most powerful love songs in the history of rock. The real story of their romance, however, is far from enchanting. Boyd was the wife of George Harrison, one of Clapton’s closest friends. Clapton stole her away, although George really didn’t seem to mind, and once Clapton had her, he really didn’t want her anymore. Poor Pattie. Why does Norman spend almost half the book on this relationship? Because Norman is first and foremost a biographer of the Beatles, so in this book what matters most to him is Clapton’s connection to the Beatles, which is through George by way of Pattie. Norman also clearly relishes cataloging horror stores of drug abuse, alcoholism, and infidelity. Once Clapton gets clean and sober, Norman doesn’t want to talk about him anymore.

Another favorite topic of Norman’s is the fact that Clapton was abandoned by his mother, which Norman repeatedly cites as the reason or excuse for just about every action Clapton has taken in his life. Norman has really nothing good to say about Clapton in this book, but, granted, a lot of that is Clapton’s fault. For most of his life, he wasn’t a very nice guy, at least not to women. It is just rather depressing and kind of annoying to read a book about a terrible person by someone who really doesn’t like him much. In his autobiography, Clapton is very open and reflective about the bad things he’s done in his life, yet you can also see him making strides to become a better person. Clapton writing about himself comes across more objectively than Norman’s take on him and gives a fuller, well-rounded portrait of the man. So why take Norman’s word for it, when you can get the story straight from the horse’s mouth?

If you don’t know anything about Eric Clapton, then this book will certainly give you a good overview of the general story of his life. If you are a fan of Clapton, however, and have followed his musical career, you’re likely to know just about everything Norman relates in this volume. He’s mostly synthesizing information from other biographies and prior rock journalism. In the book’s introduction, Norman says that he just found out that Jim Gordon, drummer for Derek and the Dominos, was in prison for killing his mother. I knew that thirty-odd years ago when I was in high school, because I’m an Eric Clapton fan, and I read Rolling Stone. The book also contains some dumb errors that should have been caught by a copy editor. At one point Norman confuses Duane Allman with Gregg Allman. “Greg” [sic] was neither Clapton’s “guitar blood-brother” nor did he die in a motorcycle accident (p. 286). Song titles aren’t always exact, like Phil Collins’s “Something in the Air Tonight”? These may seem like paltry complaints, but if any average-joe rock fan can point out these mistakes, then there’s no excuse for Norman getting them wrong.

For any number of reasons, you’re better off reading Clapton: The Autobiography. Though it’s far from a perfect book, you learn more about Clapton, and it’s just a more interesting read than Slowhand.