Eric Clapton Best

Sizzling tracks from across his career: his performances on All Your Love John Mayall's Bluesbreakers; Rockin' Daddy Howlin' Wolf; Rollin' and Tumblin' Cream; Crossroads (live) Derek and the Dominos; Mean Old World Eric Clapton and Duane Allman and more!

Clapton Chronicles ignores Eric Clapton's 1983 Reprise debut, Money and Cigarettes (which sounded more like an RSO album, anyway), starting with the pair of Phil Collins-produced mid-'80s albums, Behind the Sun and August. Though these had a pop sheen, they were album rock holdovers. Clapton didn't get the balance between hard rock and commercial gloss right until 1989's Journeyman, whose featured songs – "Before You Accuse Me," "Bad Love," and "Pretending" – form the heart of this compilation. Journeyman was overshadowed by the phenomenal success of "Tears in Heaven" and 1992's Unplugged. Not only did Unplugged go platinum ten times, it established a new public image – classy, stylish, and substantial. That's the image that prevails on Clapton Chronicles. His triple-platinum blues album From the Cradle is written out of the picture, with songs from movie soundtracks taking its place.

Clapton Chronicles ignores Eric Clapton's 1983 Reprise debut, Money and Cigarettes (which sounded more like an RSO album, anyway), starting with the pair of Phil Collins-produced mid-'80s albums, Behind the Sun and August. Though these had a pop sheen, they were album rock holdovers. Clapton didn't get the balance between hard rock and commercial gloss right until 1989's Journeyman, whose featured songs – "Before You Accuse Me," "Bad Love," and "Pretending" – form the heart of this compilation. Journeyman was overshadowed by the phenomenal success of "Tears in Heaven" and 1992's Unplugged.

This is a reissue of the Time Pieces comp, a good single-disc collection of Eric Clapton's solo hits – including "I Shot the Sheriff," "After Midnight," "Wonderful Tonight," Derek and the Dominos' "Layla," and "Cocaine" – that has since been supplanted by the more thorough The Cream of Eric Clapton, which combines his solo work with selections of his Cream and Blind Faith work. Nevertheless, the compilation still provides a good introduction for neophyte Clapton fans, especially those who just want copies of his '70s hits.

20th Century Masters – The Millennium Collection: The Best of Eric Clapton is a compilation album by the British rock musician Eric Clapton. It was released on 15 June 2004, by Polydor Records and is part of Universal's 20th Century Masters – The Millennium Collection series. The compilation album has eleven tracks that Clapton recorded in the 1970s both as a solo artist and with Derek and the Dominos. Glyn Johns produced the album in association with Tom Dowd. Although the release sold 1,366,610 copies in the United States, it has not been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Time Pieces is a good single-disc collection of Eric Clapton's solo hits – including "I Shot the Sheriff," "After Midnight," "Wonderful Tonight," Derek and the Dominos' "Layla," and "Cocaine" – that has since been supplanted by the more thorough The Cream of Eric Clapton, which combines his solo work with selections of his Cream and Blind Faith work…

Clapton Chronicles ignores Eric Clapton's 1983 Reprise debut, Money and Cigarettes (which sounded more like an RSO album, anyway), starting with the pair of Phil Collins-produced mid-'80s albums, Behind the Sun and August. Though these had a pop sheen, they were album rock holdovers. Clapton didn't get the balance between hard rock and commercial gloss right until 1989's Journeyman, whose featured songs – "Before You Accuse Me," "Bad Love," and "Pretending" – form the heart of this compilation. Journeyman was overshadowed by the phenomenal success of "Tears in Heaven" and 1992's Unplugged. Not only did Unplugged go platinum ten times, it established a new public image – classy, stylish, and substantial. That's the image that prevails on Clapton Chronicles. His triple-platinum blues album From the Cradle is written out of the picture, with songs from movie soundtracks taking its place.

Two artists had an enormous impact on Eric Clapton's music in the '70s: Delaney & Bonnie and J.J. Cale. Clapton joined Delaney & Bonnie's backing band after Cream dissolved, an experience that helped him ease away from the bombast of the power trio and into the blend of soul, blues, pop, and rock that defined his solo sound. Delaney Bramlett helped steer Clapton's eponymous 1970 solo debut, which not only came very close to replicating the sound of Delaney & Bonnie's records from that time, but also had a rollicking version of J.J. Cale's "After Midnight" that was Clapton's first solo hit…

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. This album was the culmination of a very successful year of playing with John Mayall, a fully realized blues creation, featuring sounds very close to the group's stage performances, and with no compromises.