0 0 0 0 Eric Clapton Bio 
http://www.ericclaptonfaq.com/biography.htm (came up with a pop-up when i tried to "copy" mouse-click) 17dec03
Question:
What is the story of Eric Clapton's life and career?

Answer:
Eric Patrick Clapton was born on 30 March 1945 in his grandparents' home at 1 The Green, Ripley, Surrey, England. He was the son of 16-year-old Patricia Molly Clapton (b. 7 January 1929, d. March 1999) and Edward Walter Fryer (b. 21 March 1920, d. 1985), a 24-year-old Canadian soldier stationed in England during World War II. Before Clapton was born, Fryer returned to his wife in Canada. Pat's parents, Rose and Jack Clapp, raised him as their own child. The surname Clapton comes from Rose's first husband and Pat's father, Reginald Cecil Clapton (d. 1933). It was extraordinarily difficult for an unmarried 16-year-old to raise a child on her own in the mid-1940s. Thus, Clapton grew up believing that his mother was his sister. Eventually, his mother met someone and married. After marriage, Pat moved to Canada and Germany as her husband continued his military career. They would have a boy and two girls. Clapton's grandparents never legally adopted him, but remained his guardians until 1963.

Quiet and polite, Clapton was characterized as an above-average student with an aptitude for art. From his earliest years in school, he realized something was not quite right when he wrote his name as "Eric Clapton" and his parents' names as "Mr. and Mrs. Clapp". At the age of nine, Clapton learned the truth about his parentage when Pat returned to England with his six-year-old half brother for a visit. This singular event affected Clapton deeply. He became moody and distant and stopped applying himself at school. Emotionally scarred by this event, Clapton failed the all-important 11 Plus Exams. He was sent to St. Bede's Secondary Modern School and two years later, entered the art branch of Holyfield Road School. In 1961, Clapton began studying at the Kingston College of Art on a one-year probation. He was expelled at the end of that time for not submitting enough work. The reason was that guitar playing and listening to the Blues dominated his waking hours. Before turning to music as a career, he supported himself as a laborer at building sites, working alongside his grandfather.

Clapton was raised in a musical household. His grandmother played piano and his mother and uncle both enjoyed listening to the sounds of the big bands. By 1958, Rock and Roll had exploded onto the world. Typical of his introspective nature, Clapton looked behind the surface and began exploring its roots in American Blues. The blues meshed perfectly with his self-perception as an outsider and being "different" from other people. For his 13th birthday, he asked for a guitar. Finding it difficult to play, Clapton put the Spanish Hoya aside for a time. He began playing again around the time he started college. Sometime in 1962, he asked for his grandparents' help in purchasing a œ100 electric double cutaway Kay (a Gibson ES335 clone) after hearing the electric blues of Freddie King, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, and others.

In early 1963, Clapton joined his first band, The Roosters. Following the band's demise, he spent one month in the pop-oriented Casey Jones and The Engineers. In October 1963, Keith Relf and Paul Samwell-Smith recruited him to become a member of The Yardbirds because Clapton was the most talked about player on the R&B pub circuit. During his 18-month tenure with The Yardbirds Clapton made his first albums: Five Live Yardbirds and Sonny Boy Williamson and The Yardbirds. The band also recorded the single, "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl". During this time, he earned the nickname, "Slowhand." Whenever he would break a string on stage, he would change it to the accompaniment of a "slow hand clap" from the audience. Throughout this period, Clapton's serious research into the American Blues continued. When The Yardbirds began moving towards a more commercial sound with the single "For Your Love", he quit. His path in music was the blues.