Eric Clapton i Still do

Meanwhile is the twenty-second solo studio album by Eric Clapton. It was released on 4 October 2024 through Bushbranch Records/Surfdog Records. Along with six new tracks, the album also features eight songs Clapton has previously released as singles beginning from 2020, including collaborations with Van Morrison and Jeff Beck. This record marks Clapton's first studio album since Happy Xmas in 2018, and his first non-holiday studio album since I Still Do in 2016. Meanwhile was released on 4 October 2024. Physical vinyl and CD versions of the album released on 24 January 2025.

Happy Xmas, Eric Clapton's first Christmas record in a career that's spanned over four and a half decades, certainly bears its share of seasonal charm, but it's also of a piece with the warm, amiable music he's made in the 2010s. Like Old Sock and I Still Do before it, Happy Xmas relies on songs from other songwriters (he wrote only one tune, the slow-burning "For Love on Xmas Day") and cooks to a cozy groove that's grounded in the blues but also encompasses soul, reggae, rock, and a bit of vaudeville shuffle ("Xmas in My Hometown"). This homey atmosphere is certainly suited for the season, even if it rarely sounds like a typical holiday record.

But I have for a very long time liked what Eric Clapton liked, the Delta Blues, and in particular Robert Johnson, the Delta bluesman who would be more myth than fact if it were not for the incomparable legacy of recordings we were lucky enough to be left to posterity. So it was therefore with some trepidation (and the faint hope that I might actually like it) that I came to hear 2004's Me and Mr. Johnson (Reprise, 2004). Call me prejudiced, but I was right. Immaculately recorded, perfectly played, I hated it.

There's not much live Harrison stuff, and of what there is this is one of the best. It's a DAT recording in stereo, although the balance is a little lop-sided in the cans, it sounds great through the speakers. Not exactly soundboard, but very good for an audience recording, although you may want to mess around with your graphic. As for the music, it's great…

Ten years after his first all-blues album, From the Cradle, Eric Clapton released Me and Mr. Johnson, an album-length tribute to his hero, the legendary bluesman Robert Johnson. Not that this is the first time Clapton has paid tribute to Johnson…

Ten years after his first all-blues album, From the Cradle, Eric Clapton released Me and Mr. Johnson, an album-length tribute to his hero, the legendary bluesman Robert Johnson. Not that this is the first time Clapton has paid tribute to Johnson…