Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs

Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs
Studio album by Derek and the Dominos
Released	November, 1970
Recorded	August–September 1970, at Criteria Studios, Miami
Genre	Blues-rock
Length	76:43
Label	Polydor, Atco
Producer	Tom Dowd
Derek and the Dominos chronology
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (November 1970) In Concert (1973)
Eric Clapton chronology
Eric Clapton (August 1970) Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (November 1970) The Concert for Bangla Desh (December 1971)

Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs is a blues-rock album by Derek and the Dominos, released in November 1970, best known for its eponymous title track, "Layla". The album is often regarded as Eric Clapton's greatest musical achievement, in ensemble with a talented supporting cast of Bobby Whitlock on keyboards and vocals, Jim Gordon on drums, Carl Radle on bass, and special guest performer Duane Allman on lead and slide guitar.

Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs peaked at #16 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart and was certified gold by the RIAA. The album again made the Billboard 200 in 1972, 1974 and in 1977. In 2011, it was charted in Britain, peaking at No. 68.

In 2000, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2003 the TV network VH1 named Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs the 89th greatest album of all time. In 2003, the album was ranked number 115 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2012, the album won Best Surround Sound Album at the Grammy Awards.

Background

The short-lived collaboration which created Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, Derek and the Dominos, grew out of Clapton's frustration with the hype associated with the supergroups Cream and the short-lived Blind Faith. After their dissolution, he joined Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, whom he had come to know while they were the opening act for Blind Faith on a British tour.

After that band also split up, a Friends alumnus, Bobby Whitlock, joined up with Clapton; the two spent some months writing a number of songs "just to have something to play", as Whitlock put it. These songs would later make up the bulk of the material on Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.^{[citation needed]}

After a tour with Joe Cocker, some more of the personnel from Delaney and Bonnie joined up with Clapton. He attempted to avoid the limelight under cover of the anonymous Derek and the Dominos, booking a British tour of small clubs. The group's name had reportedly resulted from a gaffe made by the announcer at their first concert, who mispronounced the band's provisional name, "Eric & The Dynamos," as "Derek & The Dominos". In fact, Clapton chose the name because he did not want his name and celebrity to get in the way of maintaining a "band" image. When the tour was over, they headed for Criteria Studios in Miami to record an album.

At this point the album's future centerpiece Layla did not yet exist. Its source was rooted in Clapton's personal life; he'd fallen in love with Pattie Boyd, the wife of his friend George Harrison. Not even heroin, which Clapton had then begun to use, could dull the pain. Dave Marsh, in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, wrote that "there are few moments in the repertoire of recorded rock where a singer or writer has reached so deeply into himself that the effect of hearing them is akin to witnessing a murder, or a suicide... to me, 'Layla' is the greatest of them."

Duane Allman joins

A serendipitous event put guitar greats Eric Clapton and Duane Allman in contact shortly after the Dominos had begun to record at Criterion Studios in Miami, Florida, in August 1970. Veteran producer Tom Dowd was behind the mixing board for the Allman Brothers second album, Idlewild South, when the studio received a phone call that Clapton was bringing the Dominos to Miami to record. On hearing this, Allman indicated he'd love to come by and watch, if it would be OK with Clapton.

A week or so after the Dominos arrived, Allman called Dowd to let him know his band was in town to perform a benefit concert on August 26. When Clapton learned of this from Dowd he insisted on going to see their show, saying, "You mean that guy who plays on the back of (Wilson Pickett's) 'Hey Jude'?...I want to see him play... let's go." Clapton and company managed to sit in front of the barricade separating the audience from the stage. When they sat down, Allman was playing a solo. When he turned around and opened his eyes and saw Clapton, he froze. Dickey Betts, the Allmans' other lead guitarist, took up where Duane left off, but when he followed Allman's eyes to Clapton, he had to turn his back to keep from freezing, himself.

After the show, Allman asked if he could come by the studio to watch some recording sessions, but Clapton invited him there directly: "Bring your guitar; you got to play!" Overnight, the two bonded; Dowd reported that they "were trading licks, they were swapping guitars, they were talking shop and information and having a ball — no holds barred, just admiration for each other's technique and facility." Clapton wrote later in his autobiography that he and Allman were inseparable during the sessions in Florida; he talked about Allman as the "musical brother I'd never had but wished I did."

Recording

The majority of songs on Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs were products of Clapton and Whitlock's writing co-operation. In addition to nine originals, five covers were included.

Original songs

Among the original songs are "I Looked Away" (Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock), "Bell Bottom Blues" (Clapton), "Keep on Growing" (Clapton, Whitlock), "I Am Yours" (Clapton, Nizami), "Anyday" (Clapton, Whitlock), "Tell the Truth" (Clapton, Whitlock),"Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad?" (Clapton, Whitlock), "Layla" (Clapton, Jim Gordon), and "Thorn Tree in the Garden" (Whitlock).

"Tell the Truth" had been initially recorded in June 1970 as an up-beat song, with George Harrison's producer, Phil Spector. It was issued as a single, with "Roll It Over" on the B-side. However, as Bobby Whitlock recalls, Spector's Wall of Sound production did not fit the band's style, and they had the single pulled. During the Layla sessions "Tell the Truth" was recorded as a long and slow instrumental jam. The final version combines the original lyrics with the jam's slower pace. Both vocal versions were later released on The History of Eric Clapton (1972).

The last track on the album, "Thorn Tree in the Garden," was according to Tom Dowd "the perfect stereo recording": Whitlock, Clapton, Allman, Radle, and Gordon sat in a circle with the mic placed strategically in the center and they played live.^{[citation needed]}

Covers

The covered songs consisted of the blues standards "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" (Jimmy Cox), "Key to the Highway" (Charles Segar, Willie Broonzy), "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" (Billy Myles), Jimi Hendrix's ethereal "Little Wing", and an up-tempo version of Chuck Willis's doo-wop ballad "It's Too Late".

According to Dowd the recording of "Key to the Highway" was a pure accident. The band heard Sam the Sham in another room at the studio doing the song for his album Hard and Heavy. They liked it and spontaneously started playing it. Dowd told the engineers to start running the tape, which is why that song begins with a fade-in.

Reception

Commercial performance

Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs was released in November 1970 on Atco Records in the United States. Although it did not chart in the United Kingdom, the album was successful in the US, where it reached number 16 on the Billboard Top LP's chart. It debuted at number 195 on November 21, 1970, and it subsequently spent 63 weeks on the chart. On August 26, 1971, the album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for shipments of 500,000 copies in the US.

Critical response

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Robert Christgau	A+
Circus	favorable
Down Beat
The Independent
Q
Rolling Stone	favorable 1970
Rolling Stone	2005
Uncut
Yahoo! Music	favorable

The album received generally positive reviews from music critics. Although he noted some "filler", Rolling Stone's Ed Leimbacher wrote that "what remains is what you hoped for from the conjunction of Eric's developing style, the Delaney and Bonnie styled rhythm section, and the strengths of 'Skydog' Allman's session abilities." He found Clapton's singing "always at least adequate, and sometimes quite good" and concluded, "forget any indulgences and filler — it's still one hell of an album." In his consumer guide for The Village Voice, critic Robert Christgau gave the album an A rating, indicating "a great record both of whose sides offer enduring pleasure and surprise." He complimented the contrast of "the high-keyed precision of [Clapton's] guitar" with "the relaxed rocking of Allman/Whitlock/Radle/Gordon" and stated, "even though this one has the look of a greedy, lazy, slapdash studio session, I think it may be Eric Clapton's most consistent recording [...] one of those rare instances when musicians join together for profit and a lark and come up with a mature and original sound."

In a review upon the album's 1972 reissue, Ed Naha of Circus called the album an "amazing collection of Clapton tumblers" and stated, "Clapton shines once again as the high priest of rock guitar."

Retrospect

Since its intial reception, the album has been acclaimed by critics and regarded as Clapton's greatest overall work. In a 1981 review, Robert Christgau gave it an A+ rating, indicating "an organically conceived masterpiece that repays prolonged listening with new excitement and insight." Dubbing it "Clapton's most carefully conceived recording", Christgau complimented the album's "relaxed shuffle and simple rock and roll" and Clapton's "generally warm" singing, and wrote in conclusion, "his meaning is realized at those searing peaks when a pained sense of limits—why does love have to be so sad, I got the bell-bottom blues, Lay-la—is posed against the good times in an explosive compression of form." Anthony DeCurtis of Rolling Stone called the album "a masterpiece" and praised its raw nature, writing that "the playing on the album, too, teeters on the edge of chaos but never tips."

Allmusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised Allman's slide guitar work for "push[ing] Clapton to new heights" and stated, "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." Andy Gill of The Independent complimented the album's "blues standards and sensitive originals" and noted Clapton's fiery affinity with Allman, whom Gill writes "would ensure the epochal status" of the album. Yahoo! Music's Dave DiMartino also noted Allman's "stinging guitarwork" and dubbed the album "Clapton's masterwork, and one of the finest rock 'n' roll albums of the '70s", commenting that "this best-selling double LP established Clapton's post-Cream superstardom."

Live performances

Derek and the Dominos went on tour to support Layla and performances from the November/December 1970 US tour were released in January 1973 on In Concert. Allman never toured with Derek and the Dominos, but he did make three appearances with them on December 1, 1970 at the Curtis Hixon Hall (Soulmates LP) and the following day at Onondaga County War Memorial, and one appearance (or possibly just Delaney Bramlett or both Duane and Delaney) November 20, 1970 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Calif.

Clapton continued to play the song Layla live, such as in 1985, at Live Aid (in Philadelphia). In 2006, Clapton and J.J. Cale recorded The Road to Escondido, on which Allman Brothers guitarist Derek Trucks played guitar; following that album, Clapton went on tour with Trucks as part of his band. Clapton explained later that the presence of Trucks made him feel like he was playing as Derek and the Dominos again, and as the tour progressed, the set changed to where the first half of the show consisted entirely of songs from Layla, the show ending up with the song "Layla" itself.

Compact disc releases

There are at least six distinct releases of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs on compact disc:

1. The 1983 two-CD set (one per LP) on RSO Records, 16-bit remastering;
2. The Layla Sessions, the September 18, 1990, remixed on one CD, with two additional "sessions discs";
3. The September 15, 1993, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab 24-kt limited edition gold CD release, 20-bit remastering.
4. The August 20, 1996, Polydor 20-bit remaster, part of the Eric Clapton Remasters series;
5. The November 9, 2004, Polydor hybrid SACD/CD remaster.
6. The March 21, 2011, UMC, 40th Anniversary Remaster

The first CD release (manufactured in 1983 in Japan) is a two-CD version. Because this album is more than 77 minutes it did not fit onto early CDs, which had a maximum play time of approximately 74 and a half minutes. The first CD was full of tape hiss, since it was made from a tape copy many generations removed from the original 1970 stereo master. Because the first CD release was disappointing to fans,^{[citation needed]} there was at least one more attempt to remaster the CD during the 1980s. Improvements, however, were not very significant because the original 1970 stereo master tapes could not be found at the time.

To mark the album's twentieth anniversary in 1990, an extended version of the album was released as a deluxe three-CD set, with extensive liner notes titled The Layla Sessions: 20th Anniversary Edition. The first disc has the same tracks as the original LP, remixed in stereo from the 16-track analog source tapes and digitally remastered. This 1990 remix, issued by Polydor, has also been released as a single CD apart from the box set. The remix has some significant changes including center placement of the bass, which in the original mix was often mixed into either the left or right channel. The other two discs of The Layla Sessions include a number of jam sessions, including the historic jam from the night that Clapton and Allman met. Also included were out-takes of some of the songs, and the previously unreleased tracks "Mean Old World," "It Hurts Me Too," and "Tender Love."

In 1993, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab gave the original 1970 stereo master tapes meticulous treatment for the first time and pressed the album on an expensive, limited edition 24kt gold CD. This MFSL 20-bit remastering of Layla preserved more of the fidelity of the original recordings than had previously been heard on CD. The MFSL version was significantly cleaner than the first CD releases, but also removed some of "Wall of Sound"-like technique that was added during mastering for vinyl. Polydor's 1996 remaster as part of the Eric Clapton Remasters series was done in much the same manner as the MFSL version, but on a standard aluminum CD at a normal price. The Polydor 2004 SACD/CD dual layer hybrid release remixed the album in 5.1 surround sound on the SACD layer and remastered the 1970 stereo version yet again on the CD layer.

The 2011 40th Anniversary Edition comes in two versions. The two-CD "Deluxe" edition features five previously unreleased tracks, "It's Too Late", "Got To Better In A Little While", "Matchbox" (with Carl Perkins) and "Blues Power" (from the The Johnny Cash Show (TV series)) and a jam version of "Got To Better In A Little While". The "Super Deluxe" version comprises the two-CD "Deluxe" album, a 5.1 Surround Sound DVD of the album, a newly remastered In Concert two-CD set, a double LP version of the album, a hardcover book, and a number of other extras.

Track listing

Side one

1. "I Looked Away" (Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock) – 3:05
2. "Bell Bottom Blues" (Clapton) – 5:02
3. "Keep on Growing" (Clapton, Whitlock) – 6:21
4. "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" (Jimmy Cox) – 4:57

Side two

1. "I Am Yours" (Clapton, Nizami) – 3:34
2. "Anyday" (Clapton, Whitlock) – 6:35
3. "Key to the Highway" (Charles Segar, Willie Broonzy) – 9:40

Side three

1. "Tell the Truth" (Clapton, Whitlock) – 6:39
2. "Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad?" (Clapton, Whitlock) – 4:41
3. "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" (Billy Myles) – 6:52

Side four

1. "Little Wing" (Jimi Hendrix) – 5:33
2. "It's Too Late" (Chuck Willis) – 3:47
3. "Layla" (Clapton, Jim Gordon) – 7:05
4. "Thorn Tree in the Garden" (Whitlock) – 2:53

All four sides of the original LP were combined into one disc in most CD versions. The LP was re-released on 180g vinyl by Simply Vinyl in the 1990s and re-mastered and re-released on 180g vinyl by Universal Music in 2008.

Personnel

• Eric Clapton – Lead, rhythm, slide and acoustic guitars, lead vocals
• Bobby Whitlock – Organ, piano, vocals, acoustic guitar
• Jim Gordon – Drums, percussion, piano
• Carl Radle – Bass, percussion
• Duane Allman – Slide and lead guitar (tracks 4 through 14)

Personnel – production (Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs)

• Tom Dowd – Executive producer
• Ron Albert – Engineer
• Chuck Kirkpatrick – Engineer
• Howie Albert – Engineer
• Carl Richardson – Engineer
• Mac Emmerman – Engineer
• Albhy Galuten – Piano & Assistance
• Dennis M. Drake – Mastering
• Emile Théodore Frandsen de Schomberg – Cover painting "La Fille au Bouquet"

Personnel – production (The Layla Sessions)

• Bill Levenson – Producer
• Steve Rinkoff – Mixer
• Dan Gellert – Assistant engineer
• Bob Ludwig – Mastering
• Scott Hull – Digital editing
• Gene Santoro – Notes
• Mitchell Kanner – Art direction
• George Lebon – Art direction

Singles

• "Tell the Truth" / "Roll It Over" (Non LP "B" side) (Atco Records, 1970) (Withdrawn)
• "Layla" / "Bell Bottom Blues" (Polydor, 1970)
• "Layla" / "I Am Yours" (Atco Records, 1971)
• "Bell Bottom Blues" / "Keep On Growing" (Polydor, 1971)
• "Bell Bottom Blues" / "Little Wing" (RSO, 1973)

Bibliography

• jake s. "115: Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, Derek and the Dominos". The RS 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6598683/115_layla_and_other_assorted_love_songs. Retrieved 2009-12-16. 
• "Allman, Duane". Where's Eric. http://whereseric.com/faq/biographies-band-members-and-collaborators/allman-duane. Retrieved 2009-12-21. 
• Clapton, Eric (2007). Clapton: the autobiography. Random House. p. 128. ISBN 9780385518512. http://books.google.com/books?id=Dz9y0xjR8tIC&pg=PA128. 
• "Derek and the Dominos – "Layla" hand-embellished digital print on canvas". http://rockpopgallery.com/items/gifts~50~100/derek-and-the-dominos-layla-hand-embellished-digital-print-on-canvas-oedp-hgddlay1c-detail.htm. Retrieved 2009-12-21. 
• Gambaccini, Paul (1987). The Top 100 Rock 'n' Roll Albums of All Time. Harmony Books. http://www.superseventies.com/spderekdominoes.html. 
• Poe, Randy (2008). Skydog: The Duane Allman Story. New York: Backbeat. ISBN 9780879309398. 
• Robbins, Ira (1990-04-10). "Rev. of The Layla Sessions". Rolling Stone. http://www.superseventies.com/spderekdominoes.html. Retrieved 2009-12-15. 

Further reading

• The Layla Sessions liner notes (Polydor, 1990)
• Jan Reid, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek and the Dominos (Rock of Ages, 2007)

External links

• Longer description of Clapton and Duane's first meeting
• Collected reviews
• Layla Sessions