Eric Clapton- Journeyman 35th Anniversary
Eric Clapton’s mid-Eighties trifecta of studio albums, starting in 1985 with Behind the Sun followed by August, peaked in November 1989 with Journeyman. Thirty-five years on it has aged remarkably well, a combination of some of Clapton’s strongest song choices, superb players to support him, and a sympathetic yet discerning producer the likes of which we had not seen since Slowhand.
Confident by then in newly-found sobriety, supported by veteran producer Russ Titelman and a superb band, Eric Clapton chose arguably his strongest songs to interpret in decades including his “Bad Love” co-written with Mick Jones; “Old Love” with Robert Cray; a truly swinging cover of Bo Diddley’s “Before You Accuse Me”; and no less than FIVE from the late great Texas songwriter Jerry Lynn Williams including “Pretending”,”Anything for Your Love”,” “Running on Faith”, and “No Alibis”! Eric Clapton joins me here In the Studio for the thirty-fifth anniversary of Journeyman. -Redbeard