Eric Clapton:
Slowhand (SACD)
Music: A- PCM
CD sound: B DSD Stereo: B+ DSD Multi-Channel: A-
I have had the privilege prior to this review to check out
the Derek and the Dominoes SACD Layla
and Other Love Songs, as well as Clapton’s 461 Ocean Boulevard, which are both featured elsewhere on this
site. This helped give me a good
perspective for Slowhand, which is
certainly one of his most popular selling albums of all time, due mostly to the
overplayed Wonderful Tonight, and
just about every Karaoke machine comes standard with Cocaine these days, but still this album remains a solid one
throughout and the SACD format brings to life old favorites and new insights.
Clapton starts off this 1977 album with J.J. Cale’s Cocaine,
a song that was unintentionally written for Whitney Houston and perhaps Clapton
himself it would seem. The song is
mostly straight blues and a signature sound that helped forge Clapton to this
point. The structure of the song is
classic Clapton with an opening riff that repeats throughout with variations of
that and then a twangy bit of blues lead here and there to give it some dynamic
with the lyrics spread in a consistent manner throughout. Similar to Layla, minus the outro, both songs remain two of his most popular,
most requested, and most imitated by beginner and intermediate guitar
players.
Follow that up with Wonderful
Tonight it takes the album down a notch to ‘Hey, let’s get a bottle of wine
and dance’ land, which is probably why every wedding or prom gets this requested
at least a dozen times. The song is a
slower bluesy sound that Clapton would not really go back to in any of his
other material, rather this is a unique song all on it’s own and as a matter of
fact, most people who are unfamiliar with his work, rarely realize that this
song is a Clapton tune. Or even better
yet people seek this song out without bothering to listen to his other songs
(i.e. the rest of this album).
Coming off Wonderful
Tonight is a song I always enjoyed called Lay Down Sally, which to me represented the free-spirited sound
that would soon end for Clapton once he entered the 80’s and began doing more
serious work, due mostly to the circumstances surrounding his life during that
period. This is a fun blues song
straight to the core with your female backups adding some character to the
mix.
Now the rest of the album contains the following six
tracks Next Time You See Her, We’re All
the Way, The Core, May You Never, Mean Old Frisco, Peaches and Diesel, which
like some listeners I never gave must attention to, but this SACD changed a lot
of that mentality for me. Because the
first three tracks are overplayed this SACD offered a fresh listen to those
tracks, but it’s the remainder of the album that really benefits from the
format the most. What you will notice
is that you will hear a slightly cleaner sound when playing the PCM CD layer in
comparison to a basic CD of the album, but the DSD stereo mix offers a less
compressed, fuller, and a punchier sound that resonated quite well. The DSD Multi-Channel takes you to a whole
new world with instruments bouncing around the mix and allowing for better
separation and distinction with vocals and band.
Layla
and Other Love Songs as well as 461
Ocean Boulevard contained great mixes and the same case goes here. There are still some minor problems with the
overall fidelity at times, which still bury some of the backing vocals and
other instruments making them still seem buried in the mix. This is something rare for SACD, especially
since the format can handle taking the original master tapes and dividing out
each channel from that into a new mix, but perhaps time was not spent doing
that to it’s fullest here. Or perhaps
another factor is that every mixer has different preferences as to what should
and shouldn’t be heard. It’s hard to
gauge something like that with this since it was never designed for 5.1, but
rather stereo.
Two other albums from Clapton that would be great to hear
on SACD would be Journeyman (1989)
and From the Cradle (1994), but I
think the best move would be to release his MTV Unplugged performances as well as the Riding With the King
album with B.B. King, or perhaps a Clapton greatest hits that includes material
from Cream, any takers?
- Nate Goss
