Tragedy and Dissolution
Tragedy dogged the group throughout its brief career. During the sessions, Clapton was devastated by the death of his friend and professional rival, Jimi Hendrix; eight days previously the band had cut a version of "Little Wing", which was added to the album as a tribute. One year later Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident. 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." Adding to Clapton's woes, the Layla album received only lukewarm reviews and weak album sales upon release; Clapton took this personally, accelerating his spiral into drug addiction and depression. In 1985 when talking about the band Clapton remarked:
| “ | We were a make-believe band. We were all hiding inside it. Derek and the Dominos—the whole thing ... assumed. So it couldn't last. I had to come out and admit that I was being me. I mean, being Derek was a cover for the fact that I was trying to steal someone else's wife. That was one of the reasons for doing it, so that I could write the song, and even use another name for Pattie. So Derek and Layla—it wasn't real at all. | ” |
The band disintegrated messily in London just before they could complete their second LP. Much later in an interview with music critic Robert Palmer, Clapton said the second album "broke down halfway through because of the paranoia and tension. And the band just ... dissolved." Although Radle worked with Clapton for several more years, Whitlock did not. Radle died in 1980 of complications from a kidney infection associated with alcohol and drug use. Jim Gordon, who was an undiagnosed schizophrenic, killed his mother with a hammer in 1983 during a psychotic episode. He was confined to a mental institution in 1984, where he remains today.
After the dissolution, Clapton turned away from touring and recording to nurse an intense heroin addiction resulting in a career hiatus interrupted only by George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh in 1971 and the Rainbow Concert in 1973 (see 1973 in music), the latter organised by The Who's Pete Townshend to help Clapton kick the drug and build momentum for his return.
Song material from the group has been present on many of Clapton's compilation albums (e.g., The History of Eric Clapton), and music from the abortive second album sessions was later released in a 4CD/cassette box set Crossroads.
The group's sole studio album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, although initially a critical and commercial flop in 1971, has since charted in 1972 and 1982 and now is not only considered one of Clapton's most outstanding achievements, but also consistently appears in listings of the best rock albums ever recorded. The band's producer, Tom Dowd, said of it that he "felt it was the best ... album I'd been involved with since The Genius of Ray Charles" and was disappointed at the lack of acclaim it garnered on its release.
Read more about this topic: Derek And The Dominos
Famous quotes containing the words tragedy and/or dissolution:
“The English Writers of Tragedy are possessed with a Notion, that when they represent a virtuous or innocent Person in Distress, they ought not to leave him till they have delivered him out of his Troubles, or made him triumph over his Enemies.”
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