Further up on the road

Eric Clapton announces 23rd solo album, ‘I Still Do’

Legendary musician of the yesteryears, Eric Clapton will be releasing a new solo record this spring, reported Rollingstone magazine. In this connection, the 70-year-old has teamed up with producer Glyn Johns, who has previously worked with industry greats like the Rolling Stones, Eagles, Led Zeppelin and The Who. The duo has also collaborated on Clapton’s very own 1977 LP Slowhand, home of hits like Cocaine, Wonderful Tonight and Lay Down Sally. “This was a long and overdue opportunity to work with Glyn Johns again and also, incidentally, the 40th anniversary of Slowhand,” Clapton said in a statement.

I Still Do follows Clapton’s 2014 record Eric Clapton & Friends: The Breeze, An Appreciation of JJ Cale. Clapton had been planning on writing and recording another LP during the year when he heard about the death of singer-songwriter Cale in 2013. The new record is slated to release on May 20, via Clapton’s Bushbranch imprint, in association with Surfdog Records. Some of the songs on I Still Do are Clapton’s originals. The album also features an illustration of Clapton by Sir Peter Blake, an artist who has previously co-designed the sleeve for The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Who’s Face Dances, amongst others.

Speaking of his own musical habits, Clapton shared that he likes to plays into the unknown. “I don’t practice things that are known to me unless I am getting ready to do live work,” he said. “Most of the time, it’s abstract, like picking up a pencil and paper and drawing what is in front of me. It’s improvised, always.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 20^th, 2016.

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