Derek and The Dominos - The Layla Album

The Layla Album

Although most commonly attributed to Clapton, the album was truly a group effort. Only two of the 14 songs on the album were written by Clapton alone and Whitlock wrote one of the tracks alone "Thorn Tree in the Garden". Rather, most of the songs were the product of Clapton and Whitlock's writing co-operation, but a number of blues standards were included as well, including "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" (Jimmie Cox), "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" (a Billy Myles song originally recorded by Freddie King), and "Key to the Highway" (William 'Big Bill' Broonzy).

The last of these was a pure accident—the band heard singer Sam Samudio ("Sam the Sham") in another room at the studio doing the song, liked it, and spontaneously started playing it. The startled Dowd heard what was happening, and quickly told the engineers to "hit the goddamn machine!" and start the tape recorder running—which explains why the track starts with a fade-in to playing clearly already underway.

"Tell the Truth" was initially recorded in June 1970 at Trident Studios during the All Things Must Pass sessions under the direction of Phil Spector as a fast upbeat song, and released soon after as a single. But during the Layla sessions, "Tell the Truth" was recorded again, this time as a long and slow instrumental jam. The final version of the song that appears on the album is a combination of these two takes: the frantic pace of the single is slowed down to the laid-back speed of the instrumental. The two previous versions of "Tell the Truth" were later released on "History of Eric Clapton" (1972).

The most critically acclaimed and popular song off the album, "Layla", was recorded in separate sessions; the opening guitar section was recorded first, with the second section several weeks later. Duane Allman contributed the opening notes for the song. Clapton thought "Layla" was missing an acceptable ending; an abrupt conclusion would diminish the intensity of the music and a fadeout would detract from the urgency of the lyrics. The answer was an elegiac piano piece composed and played by drummer Jim Gordon. Gordon had been separately writing and playing songs during the Layla sessions for a solo album when Clapton accidentally heard the piano piece, Clapton asked Gordon to use the piano piece as the ending for "Layla", Gordon agreed and the song was complete.

When the album was released in December 1970, it was a critical and commercial flop. The album failed to make the top 10 in the United States and did not even chart in the United Kingdom until a reissue on CD resulted in a one-week chart stay at No. 68 in 2011. It garnered little attention which some blamed on Polydor for a lack of promoting the record and general unawareness of Clapton's presence in the band.

But the song "Layla" was also included in History of Eric Clapton in 1972, and Atlantic issued the song as a single. It was a smash hit, charting in both the US (#10) and the UK (#7) and again charting in 1982. Clapton reworked the song as an acoustic ballad in 1992 for his MTV: Unplugged album. The song charted at #12 in the US and also won a Grammy Award.

Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs has continued to be noticed by critics and has been named one of the best albums of all time by VH1 (#89). and Rolling Stone (#115).