VA - All Blues'd Up: Songs of Eric Clapton (2002)

Eric Clapton has drawn so much from the blues -- a position he has admitted, endorsed, and never denied -- that it seems just a bit odd to see his songs (including songs he covered, like Robert Johnson's “Crossroads,” that have become Clapton songs in many people’s minds) translated back into a blues format when most of them were never far removed from the blues in the first place. Here we have it, though, versions of Clapton-associated songs done by blues veterans, including Carl Weathersby (“Lay Down Sally”), Buddy Guy (“Strange Brew”), Bo Diddley (he offers his own take on his own composition “Before You Accuse Me,” a song Clapton has played frequently in concert), and Honeyboy Edwards and James Cotton (they team up for a nice version of Johnson's “Crossroads”), and if it seems like one has heard all this before, well, that’s because Clapton did them.

Review by Steve Leggett