Derek & Dominos - Layla
|
Our Price: $18.12 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $4.87 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for Layla
Free Music Review: Spectacular
Hit: 5 Stars
Occasionally, something will enter your life and, from the very first moment, grab you and never let you go. Once (or twice) in a lifetime, a person can do this to us. In this case, it was the essential music on "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs". When I bought this record 7 years ago, the moment I heard the modestly pointed opening chords of "I Looked Away", I was locked in. But that was just the beginning. This is one of those rare records which improves and reveals more details with each listen, growing on you song by song. It clearly ranks with the 4 or 5 greatest albums of all time. "Layla" teems with passion and few other records inspire such emotion.
There's hardly time or space to cover even a fraction of "Layla's" brilliant moments. The soaring, shimmering solos on "I Looked Away", the gutbucket chorus on "Bell Bottom Blues", the emotive coda on "Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad?" and, of course, the magnum opus title track move you with their soulfulness and passion. The thematic consistency is also brilliant. Nothing immerses us more than unrequited love, and in every song, Clapton grapples with his from a myriad of angles. Duane Allman proves his greatness throughout and pushes Clapton to heights unseen before or since. The real surprise is how Bobby Whitlock (what happended to him??!) is equally inspirational. You can even hear him practically kick Clapton to the next level near the end of "Anyday" where he interrupts him, bellowing, "You Gotta Be a Man!!!", as if to say, get to the real point of this record, E.C. As for "Why Does Love..?".. whew. That song is even more tumultuous than the famed title track and is nearly as cathartic. During this fierce ninth track, Clapton and Allman solo constantly and the band sounds liable to fall apart before the boil gently cools to that adorable coda. The solo during the bridge of "Anyday" is one of the best and most expressive ever in rock.
One could write endlessly about the gifts this record offers. To sum it up in a word: powerful. Whether you are embroiled in passion for someone or are contently driving alone along a stretch of highway, this song cycle of spectacular music will move you--right up until the final chords on "Thorn Tree in the Garden" gently melt away. One for the ages.
Free Music Review: LAYLA: A PASSIONATE MONUMENT TO UNREQUITED LOVE (and a blues-rock guitar masterpiece)
Hit: 5 Stars
Just about every serious rock music fan knows the story of Eric Clapton falling head-over-heels-in-love with his friend George Harrison's wife and creating a testimonial plea to her in the form of the blues-rock double album, Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs.
Eric had taken the name, Layla, from a character in the poem, Leyla And Mejnun, written by the Persian poet Nizami. In the poem, Mejnun goes insane over the fact that Leyla's parents would not allow her to see him.
That poem is where the fiction ends on this album. The passion, pain and intense longing in these songs is very real. Clapton's singing voice is pure emotion as he cries out in passionate longing. Keyboardist Bobby Whitlock's backing vocals complement Eric perfectly.
Guitar great (and according to Whitlock, Eric's kindred spirit) Duane Allman came in to play on one or two songs, but fortunately (for us) ended up playing on the rest of the album, making this the blues-rock guitar masterpiece that it is.
From the emotional pleading of Bell Bottom Blues and the frantic sorrow of Why Does Love Have To Be So Sad to the pure, unadulterated blues of Nobody Loves You When You're Down And Out and Have You Ever Loved A Woman, the two guitarist spur each other on to heights of guitar magnificence that still stands among both legendary axemen's greatest work.
Guitar greatness is everywhere on this album. From Allman's slide guitar magic on Anyday to Clapton's blistering lead on Key To The Highway. They do a great rocking version of the Hendrix song, Little Wing, as a tribute to Jimi, and then go unplugged and acoustic on I Am Yours.
Layla is a masterpiece in itself, and one of the greatest songs in the history of rock music. From Clapton's impassioned vocals and Allman's fiery slide guitar solo to the sad beauty of Duane and Eric's twin slide guitars during the piano coda at the end of the song, Layla reaches heights of passion unparalleled in modern music.
Without question, Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs is a masterpiece. It's a sonic Van Gogh, a landmark in rock music and a monument to the saddest of all love, unrequited love.
Free Music Review: Dang near perfect
Hit: 5 Stars
Imagine you are Eric Clapton in 1970. Your best friend's wife has gone and made the moves on you- whoops, you fall in love. She didn't mean for that to happen. It's not like you were the only one she was cheating on her husband with...
Anyways, you figure that the best way to win her heart is to let her know via song. You take three guys you've met through earlier session work- Whitlock, Radle and Gordon- and get on down to Miami for a fortnight or so to lay down your testament on tape, using originals and covers to convey the message.
You are soon joined by a fifth, the elder brother Allman, who breathes life into the sessions, doing among other things re-interpreting an old Bessie Smith number for you and turning that soft ballad you wrote, "Layla", into a tour de force, a true number for the ages.
The sessions wrap, and you traverse around Miami, finding a left-handed white Stratocaster, perfect for your friend Jimi, who's over in England, resting. You've brought an acetate of your group's cover of his "Little Wing", which is going on the album. By the time you find out where he is, to play the acetate and give the guitar, he's up and died.
The album's done, and out on the shelves in December. There's little publicity, it lays dormant for two years or more. Worst of all, your friend's wife ignores it. It's got to be heartbreaking.
You try to get the group back together, sans Allman, in early '71, but whatever magic that had been there is gone. Allman and you never get a chance to work together again- he's dead on October 29, '71. Radle will eventually come back, but you'll probably have something to do with his 1980 death (you fired him the year prior.) Gordon goes schizo, kills his mother, and threatens to kill you. Whitlock goes into obscurity, and remains there. You do get your best friend's wife, years after the fact, but you lose her due to your various weaknesses.
Thirty-four years after this album was done, everybody knows who you are. The album was found belatedly, and is now cherished by most for the ages, hopefully for much more than its title track. Thanks, Eric.
Free Music Review: Chills, Thrills, Love, and Majesty
Hit: 5 Stars
Wow! I just finished reading all 65 reviews. What a treat! This is my all-time favorite album. Today I borrowed the 20th Anniversary Session, to compare it with my Remastered CD (I also have the double record). It was difficult to go back and forth from CD to CD, but I did notice that on the 20th Anniversary Session there was a shout on "Keep On Growin'" at the end of the instrumental introduction and it gave me chills. If I sound like a fanatic, well, I am. As a record critic from 1965 to 1971, I remember receiving the double album in the mail. I was crazy about the title, "....assorted love songs..." Cute! Clever. And self-deprecatory. The back cover photo with all those dominoes and all those great photos inside the record album jacket. And who is this Nizami? Well, the opening bars of "I Looked Away", and I was hooked for life. I want to talk about Eric's vocals. They are astonishing. I'm thinkin', "hmmm, maybe a little heroin..." Just kidding. I've never had such a great cd friend as this. It is my inspiration to play, and push myself to my musical limits on guitar as well. I'm so happy to know this record. Eric has said that he couldn't sing so he just, I don't remember what, something about mustering it up and screaming. It works so incredibly. And the guitars, the guitars, the guitars. These are the best guitar duels I have ever heard. All the players work together so beautifully. I hope Bobby Whitlock is okay, I never hear about him. This album is a one-of-a-kind labor of love. I can't talk about which songs are best, they are all so damn good. There was so much love and care put into this undertaking. It is a total inspiration for me and the music I am wrenchingly struggling myself, to make. The way the organ follows the acoustic opening of "I Am Yours"; Jim Gordon's tasty licks, Bobby Whitlock's and them singin' harmony. Tom Dowd was a genius producer. Thanks.Free Music Review: Clapton's Magnum Opus
Hit: 5 Stars
After wrapping up his first solo album early in 1970, Eric Clapton pulled together the core of his session musicians -- Carl Radle, Bobby Whitlock and Jim Gordon -- to create Derek & the Dominos. Later, Duane Allman temporarily signed on too, and this monumental album was the result.LAYLA really is a concept album of sorts. He wrote and recorded it at a time when he was desperately in love with Patti Boyd Harrison, wife of his best friend George Harrison. (That was one strange friendship). Almost every song brims with a kind of determination and passion that Clapton has rarely shown before or since. "Bell Bottom Blues" and the title track "Layla" are raging epics of love. The cover songs, especially "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out," "Have You Ever Loved a Woman," and "Key to the Highway," are chock full of invigorating instrumental interludes. It's as if Clapton's and Allman's guitars are talking to one another. Then there is the cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing." Hendrix passed away around the time this album was recorded. It was actually one of his more subdued songs, but the Dominos turned it into a roaring and moving tribute. Yet through it all, it's Bobby Whitlock's acoustic solo ballad "Thorn Tree in the Garden" that puts the icing on the cake.
In the summer of 1970, the Dominos worked as session musicians on yet another classic album: George Harrison's ALL THINGS MUST PASS. Clapton's CROSSROADS box set has a couple of outtakes from those sessions. One is a song called "Roll It Over" which was written by Clapton and Whitlock featuring Harrison and Dave Mason on guitars and backing vocals. The other is an early incarnation of "Tell the Truth" that was performed at a faster tempo than the LAYLA version. CROSSROADS also has five tracks from the Dominos' abortive second album. The more dedicated Clapton fans might want to look into these to get a more fully rounded view of this prime phase of his career.