Rihanna, “Music Of The Sun”It’s not too late for a summer getaway after all. Still, the three-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has earned time to ponder where his music has taken him. Stevie Wonder’s “I’m Going Left” and George Harrison’s “Love Comes to Everyone” bookend Clapton’s first original material in five years, even if the recordings sound closer to elevator ditties than soulful biographical ballads. As much as the album is a reflection, it’s also homage to the songs that move Clapton just as those life-changing blues die. The truth is that even the wildest grow timid with years.Īnd following his reunion last summer with his bandmates from Cream, that 1960’s psychedelic British powerhouse, Clapton has reason to step back and count the blessings his guitar has brought. Babies and band practice? Has one of the most influential guitarists ever grown soft? Say it ain’t so. Instead it’s an uplifting melody to accompany a parent’s lament on the daily grind of raising children. To make that point, the album’s opening track “So Tired” doesn’t chronicle the bone-deep fatigue a seemingly endless string of show nights would bring. So it is for the 60-year-old British bluesman’s aptly titled “Back Home,” which brings into sharp focus the reflections of a music man of four decades who has grown to value home and family above all else in the twilight of his years. If you’re Eric Clapton, though, you simply return home. GriffithĮric Clapton, “Back Home”Sure legends die and stars inevitably begin to fade. Why suffer through that when there’s real honky-tonkers out there (singers Robbie Fulks and Dallas Wayne, for example) who remain true to the roadhouse tradition and perform well-crafted songs that don’t merely pander to the lowest common denominator? -Paul V. Its not that every country album should swing (Faith Hill’s latest, “Fireflies,” doesn’t, and its a fine record), but you’d better count off a shuffle every now and then if you’re going to call yourself a honky tonker or a “hillbilly.” “Hillbilly Deluxe,” on the other hand, delivers nothing but trite ballads (“I May Never Get Over You”) and wannabe Southern rock (“Whiskey Do My Talking”). Then there’s the fact that “Hillbilly Deluxe” contains not a single shuffle or waltz, two song forms that, from Bob Will’s “San Antonio Rose” to George Strait’s “You Look So Good in Love,” virtually define “honky tonk.” For starters, there’s nary a honky tonk on Brooks & Dunn’s tour schedule- denizens of arenas and amphitheaters is more like it. I think that's where we were compromising.It’s hard to argue with the first half of that statement (there’s no accounting for taste), but the second half is asking for a fight. Instead of having to meet an engineer on Tuesday the 14th of September - and you've got to be in good voice, and if you're not, sorry, because that's the day we're recording it - with Red Dirt Road, we both started going home and really scrutinizing things and working out a lot of the slick stuff.

Ronnie, probably more than me even, started working at home more, and we started working at his barn. We took a couple of years digging and trying to write.

With Steers & Stripes, we took more than a year. It's like almost every year, and it was just a matter of jumping off the bus and hitting two weeks with the best songs we'd come up with. We're nine into it, and we've been out 14 years or something. It's funny: I was looking at the list of records the other day and the dates on them. We started to break our formula of just going into the studio, blocking out two weeks and kind of taking what we got. Brooks: I think you're right from the standpoint of Steers & Stripes.

Brooks and dunn swing it