Derek Layla Box

Extremely limited box set containing the expanded two CD edition of the Layla… album, the remastered double disc edition of Derek And The Dominos: In Concert, an audio-only DVD featuring DTS 5.1 and Dolby Surround 5.1 versions of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, mixed by legendary engineer Elliot Scheiner, a double 180gm vinyl reproduction of the original album, a hardcover book, artfully designed with rare and never-seen photographs, and featuring four meticulously researched essays and facsimiles of Derek And The Dominos concert tickets and various promotional items, including the famous "Derek is Eric" button…

Layla stands as one of a handful of pillars of classic rock. The short-lived ensemble that was the Dominos provided an outlet for Eric Clapton to vent his then unrequited (and secret) passion for the wife of his best friend, George Harrison. Romantic anguish inspired Clapton to write and collect an embroiling and interconnected song cycle. Meanwhile, latecomer Duane Allman prodded Clapton to tear it up on guitar, so as not to be overwhelmed by his even more talented foil. Of course, Clapton eventually won the hand of his lady love. And then he divorced her. Sometimes real life messes up a good plot line. ~ Steve Stolder

A four-disc box set spanning Eric Clapton's entire career – running from the Yardbirds to his '80s solo recordings – Crossroads not only revitalized Clapton's commercial standing, but it established the rock & roll multi-disc box set retrospective as a commercially viable proposition. Bob Dylan's Biograph was successful two years before the release of Crossroads, but Clapton's set was a bona fide blockbuster. And it's easy to see why. Crossroads manages to sum up Clapton's career succinctly and thoroughly, touching upon all of his hits and adding a bevy of first-rate unreleased material (most notably selections from the scrapped second Derek and the Dominos album). Although not all of his greatest performances are included on the set – none of his work as a session musician or guest artist is included, for instance – every truly essential item he recorded is present on these four discs. No other Clapton album accurately explains why the guitarist was so influential, or demonstrates exactly what he accomplished.

Disregard the title of this 2007 compilation: there is no way that any double-disc (or 4 LP), 36-track set could be called The Complete Clapton, not when Eric Clapton has had a career that's spanned over four decades. This doesn't even attempt to cover as much ground as his landmark four-disc 1988 box set Crossroads, which began with his first band the Yardbirds and then followed his winding journeys through John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith, Delaney & Bonnie, and Derek & the Dominos before settling into his solo records. Of course, The Complete Clapton covers the nearly 20 years that have elapsed since the release of Crossroads, a time frame which includes the blockbuster success of his 1992 Unplugged, its all-blues 1994 follow-up From the Cradle, and many soft adult contemporary hits from the late '90s…

They made one of the most essential classic rock albums of all time and - lucky us - they also laid down some live stuff. Here's how it holds up to their studio genius…

It's difficult to call a guitarist who routinely shows up in the upper reaches of "100 Greatest Guitarists Ever" lists underappreciated, and yet the first impression the towering seven-disc box set Skydog: The Duane Allman Retrospective makes is that Duane Allman does not receive his proper due…