Eric Clapton Thee Definitive 24

Clapton’s groundbreaking run of 24 concerts at London’s Royal Albert Hall were some of the most ambitious shows of his career. Each night featured him performing a career-spanning set with one of three lineups – a rock band, a blues band, or an orchestra conducted by Michael Kamen.

United by dalliances with purism as young men and an abiding love of classic blues and jazz, Eric Clapton and Wynton Marsalis are a more comfortable fit than it may initially seem. Both musicians are synthesists, not innovators, stitching together elements from their idols in an attempt to preserve the past while bringing it into the present, so their sensibilities are aligned and, in 2011, they’re amenable to a partnership that explores their common ground…

The only three-time Rock `n' Roll Hall Of Fame inductee (The Yardbirds, Cream & as a solo artist), Eric Clapton is one of the very few artists whose enormous popularity is equaled by the respect given him by critics and peers alike. And rightly so, as demonstrated by these two new collections. The single ICON focuses on Clapton's career from the landmark Derek & The Dominos recordings through the remarkable hits that established "Slowhand" as the important solo artist he continues to be. The double CD ICON expands upon that vision to include key tracks from Cream and Blind Faith, while digging further into his massively successful career from Derek & The Dominos onward.

Eric Clapton's Crossroads Festival, which features world-class guitar players from all over the globe and has been held every three years since 2004, works as a fundraiser for the Crossroads Centre in Antigua, a treatment and educational center Clapton founded in 1998 to help people suffering from chemical dependency. The first three concerts were single-day outdoor events held in Dallas in 2004, and in Chicago in 2007 and 2010, with the fourth, the concert represented by this two-disc set, moving indoors to Madison Square Garden in New York and expanding to two nights in 2013…

Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton was Eric Clapton's first fully realized album as a blues guitarist – more than that, it was a seminal blues album of the 1960s, perhaps the best British blues album ever cut, and the best LP ever recorded by John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Standing midway between Clapton's stint with the Yardbirds and the formation of Cream, this album featured the new guitar hero on a series of stripped-down blues standards, Mayall pieces, and one Mayall/Clapton composition, all of which had him stretching out in the idiom for the first time in the studio…

The Historic Classic Recordings are from the early years of The Yardbirds. The double CD features studio and live recordings from the London Marquee Club and the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, Surrey. Not only Eric Clapton, but also the legendary Sonny Boy Williamson, with whom the band toured in December 1963, were involved in the fantastic recordings. Also, the contributions of Jimmy Page in some pieces are unmistakable. With For Your Love, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, Shapes Of Things, Draggin 'My Tail (with Jimmy Page), Evil Hearted You, I Is not Got You, A Certain Girl, Got To Hurry, Too Much Monkey Business, Mr. You're a Better Man Than I, Choker (with Jimmy Page), Honey In Your Hips, West Coast Idea, I Wish You Would, Freight Loader (with Jimmy Page), Snake Drive, Jeff's Blues and others, a total of 36 titles.