Eric Clapton Now a Raving Anti-Vaxxer

Robert Cray was stunned when he first heard "Stand and Deliver."  Eric Clapton, his onetime musical hero, who became a mentor and friend, had released his first protest song in 56 years of recording. Only it wasn’t about George Floyd or global warming. Clapton’s mid-tempo shuffle, a collaboration with Van Morrison, went full anti-lockdown, taking aim at the government for trying to control a global pandemic by temporarily shuttering restaurants, gyms and concert halls. 

What grabbed Cray’s attention were the lyrics: "Do you wanna be a free man / Or do you wanna be a slave? / Do you wanna wear these chains / Until you’re lying in the grave?"

Cray — one of the great blues guitarists of his generation, a five-time Grammy winner and Black man born in segregated Georgia — emailed Clapton immediately. Was the 76-year-old guitar great comfortable singing those words, which compared the lockdown to slavery?   Clapton's response didn't satisfy Cray, nor did their next email exchange. Then Cray stopped replying altogether. The next time he wrote was weeks later to politely inform Clapton that he couldn’t, in good conscience, open for him as planned on an upcoming tour. 

Cray watched as Clapton released two more lockdown songs, conducted a lengthy interview with vaccine skeptics, and pledged to perform only where fans would not be required to be vaccinated, or, as Clapton said in a statement, not “where there is a discriminated audience present.”

After a September show in Austin, Clapton posed backstage with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Abbott had recently signed the country’s most restrictive abortion law and a Republican-backed measure to limit who can vote in the state. Like that, a 35-year friendship between Cray and Clapton was over.

Many of Clapton’s friends and fans seem to be having a similar falling out over Clapton's behavior.  It’s unclear how much Clapton cares about the criticism, as he has been turning down interview requests from Rolling Stone, Wapo, and others.  

There are reports that Clapton was vaccinated earlier this year, but yet he has been critical of government directives.  Friends tried to attribute his anti-vax views to a lifelong fear of needles. As a heroin addict in the early 1970s, he was known to only snort the drug.  What a bullshit excuse.

Critics say that Clapton is more than one man sharing his opinion. He’s a massive public figure with considerable influence.  “He could be helping us in finishing off this pandemic, especially with a vulnerable population,” says Joshua Barocas, an associate professor of medicine with an expertise in infectious diseases at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “We’re looking at millions and millions of people worldwide. He could be a global ambassador, and instead he’s chosen the pro-covid, anti-public-health route.” 

Clapton's anti-lockdown campaign has unquestionably damaged his reputation. 24 Stone magazine, which had featured him eight times on its cover in largely glowing terms in the past, produced a searing attack that not only called him out for his pandemic behavior, but spotlighted a 45-year-old incident that remains an inescapable bruise on his career.  

In a racist rant during a 1976 concert in Birmingham, England, Clapton told his audience that it was important to “keep England White” and that “the Black wogs and coons and Arabs and fucking Jamaicans don’t belong here.”   It took over 30 years for Clapton to apologize-- when he said in a 2017 documentary that he was ashamed about what he said. He blamed it on a drinking problem so severe he often contemplated suicide. 

Though Clapton has been known to have studied the music of the blues, he seems to have not read up on what drove the work of many of his heroes. In a 1999 interview on “60 Minutes” with Ed Bradley, Clapton talks of what it was like to hear the blues on the radio as a teenager in Ripley, a White, working-class town north of London.

“To me, it sounded like they were in a fantasy land,” Clapton said. “For you, perhaps, Ed, the plantation and the cotton fields would have been places of abject misery and hardship. For me, it was paradise. I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather be doing than picking cotton and hearing that music all around me.” 

As the controversy lingers, Clapton's past collaborators say they don’t really know his politics. Others find his behavior baffling. Jim McCarty, the Yardbirds drummer, said that even in the early days, Clapton remained a mystery.  “You ever met people like that? That really never really fit anywhere and you can’t quite understand what they’re thinking or what they do?” he says.  Singer Rita Coolidge also wonders about his motivation. In 1970, she helped write the piano melody that became the coda of “Layla.”  “I’ve never had a conversation with Eric about probably anything,” Coolidge says. “He always made me feel … like I was beneath him.” 

One of Clapton’s relationships does appears unfixable-- that’s the one with Cray.  Cray says that Clapton has changed over the years. He rarely mingles anymore. Once known for his pranks, he has lost his sense of humor. A few years ago, Cray couldn’t believe when he heard Clapton talking about his support for fox hunting. 

Cray has said,  “I’d just rather not associate with somebody who’s on the extreme and being so selfish. We started playing a music that wasn’t particularly popular to start off with at the time we started playing. We’ve gained some notoriety, and I’m fine with that, but I surely don’t need to hang out with Eric Clapton for that to continue.”