Reviews
 Keep It Simple
Van Morrison
Roger McGuinn @ the Huntington IMAC, Long Island, NY - April 4, 2008
Emily Saxe @ the Allen Room/Jazz at Lincoln Center - April 5, 2008
Another Country
Tift Merritt
Be Your Own Pet
Get Awkward
Paul McCartney – The McCartney Years (DVD)
Juno – Music from the Motion Picture
Various Artists
Yes - Their Definitive Story
Day and Night Driving
Seven Mary Three
InterMedia Arts Center 2/2/08
Huntington, NY
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Well, if nothing else, it sure is nice to hear that Eric Clapton is happy. Back Home comes on the heels of a few blues-based album releases – Clapton’s real bread and butter – but this somehow sounds more like a traditionally ‘classic’ Clapton album than anything else he’s released in years. Indeed, this album sounds very much like any one of his typical ‘classic-rock’ albums from the ‘70s, which is both good and bad. It’s good if you are a bonafide Clapton fan, since it replicates the laid-back style of his mid-70s hits like “Lay Down Sally” and “Wonderful Tonight.” It’s bad because…well, because it suggests the laid-back era of songs like “Lay Down Sally” and “Wonderful Tonight”. It even has a requisite mellow reggae track that sounds so unmistakably like mid-‘70s Clapton that he ought to patent it. If you were lost in the mountains for the past thirty years, and heard this album upon your return, you would think that nothing musically significant had happened since 1975. If you like that idea (and I can understand why more than a few baby boomers might feel that way), then you will love this disk.
Back Home finds Clapton adjusting to his life as a dedicated Dad and husband. He may finally have peace of mind and happiness, but he apparently is not particularly well rested. The ever-so-catchy lead-off track “So Tired” makes this quite plain, as Clapton bemoans the day to day routine and constant demands that are placed on him, while making it equally obvious that his exhaustion is a small price to pay for the joy of being part of a family. A few tunes here hearken back to the blues (“Lost and Found”, “One Day”) but the main topic here is domesticity and familial love. Most of the disk is quite pleasant, particularly the aforementioned leadoff track, with “Say What You Will” “Run Home to Me” and the closer, “Back Home” all establishing the mood of a happy family life (and also all written by Clapton, usually with his co-producer, Simon Climie). The best track here, though, is an old Syreeta (Stevie Wonder’s ex-wife, now sadly deceased) song called “I’m Going Left”. Clapton performs the song in a style that is very true to the original, and it had me scrambling to find my old “Stevie Wonder Presents Syreeta” album, now a rarity and an absolute ‘must own” for anyone who appreciates Stevie Wonder. His version of George Harrison’s “Love Comes to Everyone” is equally faithful to the original, but with less transcendent results. Taken as a wholeBack Home isn’t a work of genius, but it will satisfy longtime Clapton fans, in more ways than one.
Grade: 
 
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