Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (CD - 1970)

Derek & The Dominos: Eric Clapton (electric & acoustic guitars, vocals), Duane Allman (electric & acoustic guitars, slide guitars), Bobby Whitlock (organ, piano, acoustic guitar, vocals), Carl Radle (bass, percussion), Jim Gordon (drums, piano, percussion).

Engineers include: Ron Albert, Steve Rinkoff, Chuck Kirkpatrick.

Producers: Tom Dowd, Derek & The Dominos, Bill Levenson.

Recorded at Criteria Studios, Miami, Florida from August to October 1970.

This box set was digitally remixed and remastered by Bill Levenson and Steve Rinkoff at The Power Station, New York from May to June 1990. Includes a 16-page booklet with session notes, annotations and an essay by Gene Santoro.

Derek & the Dominos: Eric Clapton (vocals, guitar); Bobby Whitlock (vocals, acoustic guitar, piano, organ); Duane Allman (guitar); Jim Gordon (piano, drums, percussion); Carl Radle (bass guitar, percussion).

This three-CD box did a lot of good for rock reissues, though not necessarily for the Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs album. It was the first high-profile reissue to treat rock with the same respect that scholars had long accorded jazz, going beyond the finished tracks to the outtakes and anything else usable that turned up in the vaults. Getting to that point, however, involved a mistake that compromised the most attractive element of the box, the remastering of the original album. Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs had been a vexation since the dawn of the CD era, its first issue marred by harsh textures and lots of noise, a result of the multiple overdubs on the original album. Then Polygram issued the Eric Clapton box Crossroads in 1988, which included a new remastering of "Layla" and the handful of other songs from the album; in the course of preparing that set, the producers stumbled upon the long-missing multi-tracks from the Layla album sessions. Thus, they had access to all of the outtakes as well as the raw material needed to remix the whole album. That was what they did on this box, rebuilding each song from its original multi-track session recordings on disc one, assembling various unused alternate masters of six of the songs on disc two, and filling up disc three with 76 minutes of studio jamming by the band, divided into four extended tracks. And the result of all of that work was more harsh criticism from the public and reviewers, who felt that the remixed album lacked the Phil Spector-ish Wall of Sound element that had made the original LP a larger-than-life experience. Still, the concept behind the box was sound, and it is possible for the real fan to appreciate the nuances of the playing on the original tracks as never before, and fascinating to hear, say, the newly exposed solo guitar part on "Anyday" or the layers of instruments throughout. The annotation -- featuring detailed recollections by the late Tom Dowd, who engineered the album -- told of precisely how intense, creative, and quick those recordings were. The producers even included copies of the tracking sheets for the individual songs, the notes by the engineer detailing which recorded tracks to use and how and where solos, vocals, guitar harmony, fades, and other elements of the song related to each other when assembling the finished songs. The jams are primarily for the hardcore fan, though they're not bad -- they're of a piece with (but much more interesting than) the "Apple Jam" tracks off of George Harrison's All Things Must Pass (which, coincidentally, comprised the sessions whence the Dominos were spawned). Clapton and Duane Allman take their playing in consistently interesting directions, with Bobby Whitlock's keyboards not far behind and Carl Radle and Jim Gordon providing a rock-steady rhythm section, even if little of the material is as attractive as the songs off of the finished album; besides, it's difficult to complain of being given the opportunity to hear two of the greatest guitarists in the world stretching out for over an hour of spontaneous playing. Each of the jams has a different beat and character, the first being rather blues-soaked, the second rocking harder, the third more laid-back, and the fourth delving into Booker T. & the M.G.'s territory. This set isn't the ultimate, enveloping experience of the Layla album that it could have been -- a couple of years later, Mobile Fidelity released a CD that captured the majesty of the original album much better, and at the end of the 1990s Polygram followed suit as part of the "Clapton Remasters" series -- but it is still a choice listening experience for any hardcore fan of Eric Clapton, Duane Allman or the Allman Brothers, or the Dominos. ~ Bruce Eder

Wishing to escape the superstar expectations that sank Blind Faith before it was launched, Eric Clapton retreated with several sidemen from Delaney & Bonnie to record the material that would form Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. From these meager beginnings grew his greatest album. Duane Allman joined the band shortly after recording began, and his spectacular slide guitar pushed Clapton to new heights. Then again, Clapton may have gotten there without him, considering the emotional turmoil he was in during the recording. He was in hopeless, unrequited love with Patti Boyd, the wife of his best friend, George Harrison, and that pain surges throughout Layla, especially on its epic title track. But what really makes Layla such a powerful record is that Clapton, ignoring the traditions that occasionally painted him into a corner, simply tears through these songs with burning, intense emotion. He makes standards like "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" and "Nobody Knows You (When You're Down and Out)" into his own, while his collaborations with Bobby Whitlock -- including "Any Day" and "Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad?" -- teem with passion. And, considering what a personal album Layla is, it's somewhat ironic that the lovely coda "Thorn Tree in the Garden" is a solo performance by Whitlock, and that the song sums up the entire album as well as "Layla" itself. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

By digitally remixing and remastering these sessions, the producers have resurrected one of Eric Clapton's greatest achievements, his instrumental and songwriting peak. Musically, Clapton was inspired by his new rhythm section and challenged by fellow guitar hero Duane Allman, whose torrid slide guitar makes blues-blasts like "Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out" and "Key To The Highway" so compelling. And from the classic title song (with drummer Jim Gordon's famous piano coda), to rivetting performances of "Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad," "Have You Ever Loved A Woman," and Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing" each and every metaphor is etched in blood and longing, framed in wailing guitars.

Disc 1 is the legendary LAYLA double-LP. The jams which comprise disc 2 illustrate the evolution of the session, while the alternate masters, jams and outtakes on disc 3 will certainly be of interest to casual fans and completists alike. All in all, few rock albums from this era have the staying power and poetic immediacy of LAYLA.

In the years after Cream disbanded and his collaboration with Steve Winwood in Blind Faith had sunk, Eric Clapton teamed with keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, drummer Jim Gordon, bassist Carl Radle, and guitarist Duane Allman under the name Derek & the Dominos to write and record some new material. The result was this 1970 masterpiece. Shot through with a passion informed by the tumultuous nature of Clapton's own life and career at the time, LAYLA AND OTHER ASSORTED LOVE SONGS plays like a primer for classic rock, with incendiary dueling guitars, swirling organ, blues-styled vocals, and punchy bass and drums.

Covers of "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" and Hendrix's "Little Wing" are given fresh interpretations, and the originals, most of which Clapton co-wrote with Whitlock, are by turns fierce, melancholic, and celebratory. The epic "Layla," clocking in at seven minutes and featuring blazing solos all around, pushes the album to its culmination. Throughout, Clapton's playing, spurred by Allman's stellar leads, is beautiful enough to induce cardiac arrest, and LAYLA ranks among the most inspired, soulful, and affecting works in his entire discography. minimize