Eric Clapton - One More Car, One More Rider (2002) [flac]

Tracklist

CD1
01. Key to the Highway
02. Reptile
03. Got You On My Mind
04. Tears in Heaven
05. Bell Bottom Blues
06. Change the World
07. My Father's Eyes
08. River of Tears
09. Goin' Down Slow
10. She's Gone

CD2
01. I Want a Little Girl
02. Badge
03. Hoochie Coochie Man
04. Have You Ever Loved a Woman
05. Cocaine
06. Wonderful Tonight
07. Layla
08. Sunshine of Your Love
09. Over the Rainbow

The cover of Eric Clapton's 2002 live album One More Car, One More Rider -- no less than the sixth live album in his solo career -- suggests the problems in the record. It's designed to look a classic blues album sleeve or poster, but it's self-conscious and affected, the work of somebody that knows the form but not the substance of the blues. Certainly that accusation can't be reasonably leveled at Clapton who, after all, has proved throughout his career that he knows the substance of the blues, but ever since his canonization to the MOR mainstream with 1992's Unplugged, there's a sinking feeling that EC dabbles in the blues instead of lives there. Sure, he had a fierce testimonial to his favorite music with From the Cradle, but One More Car, One More Rider arrives nearly a decade later, and the difference is stunning. Though he goes through the motions of playing the blues -- a cutting version of the perennial "Key to the Highway," "Hoochie Coochie Man," "Goin' Down Slow," among others here -- the heart of this album is closer to the NPR instrumental jam of "Reptile" than blues. This is mannered, "classy" playing which sounds perfectly fine but is never interesting, particularly since the song selection favors either warhorses or recent hits. In short, it's a record for those that like the idea of Clapton more than his music.

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