Eric Clapton

Still dapper as ever, Clapton gets down and dirty on this tribute album to Robert Johnson -- instead of soaring over his band, he plunges deep in the middle of the music and mixes it up. Highest marks go to "Milkcow Calf Blues," where the man famous for his melodic leads turns into a rhythm guitar dynamo. Enthusiasm reborn.

Of the many reasons why middle-class white boys such as Eric Clapton and Aerosmith
flocked to the music of older, impoverished black men in the 1960s and early 1970s, here is
one of the best: The great bluesmen were also great pop songwriters. Robert Johnson,
Willie Dixon and Mississippi Fred McDowell, to name just three, told real-life stories in hot,
tight packages of poetic vernacular and hard-won joy. Clapton and Aerosmith ta... More >