FILE: Guitarist and singer-songwriter Eric Clapton turns 80 on March 30

Record ID: 1985765

  • Title: FILE: Guitarist and singer-songwriter Eric Clapton turns 80 on March 30
  • Date: 28th March 2025
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (FILE - AUGUST 23, 1989) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) ***WARNING: CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** CLAPTON'S SIGNATURE AND GUITAR CANNES, FRANCE (FILE - MAY 13, 1996) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF CLAPTON WITH CAST AND CREW OF "THE VAN" AT CANNES FILM FESTIVAL CANNES, FRANCE (FILE - MAY 12, 1996) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) CLAPTON SPEAKIN
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  • Keywords: Eric Clapton Grammy winner guitarist singer-songwriter
  • Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
  • City: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
  • Country: UK
  • Topics: Celebrities,Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Europe
  • Reuters ID: LVA001156025032025RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: British guitar legend Eric Clapton turns 80 on Sunday (March 30).
    The rock and blues musician and singer-songwriter was born in 1945 in Ripley, Surrey, a small village over 20 miles southwest of London.
    He performed with the English R&B group The Yardbirds in the early 1960s, then with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, supergroups Cream and Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominos and as a solo artist.
    2017 documentary film "Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars" follows Clapton's life from childhood to international stardom, through his struggle with drugs and alcohol and the 1991 death of his four-year-old son Conor.
    The film does not attempt to whitewash over the darker side of the hard-drinking musician's life, even though it is directed by longtime friend and filmmaker Lili Fini Zanuck.
    "To watch myself going through that was not easy," Clapton told reporters in Sept. 2017 at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), where the film made its debut.
    "Right up until the time I stopped drinking, everything I said was complete blather," he added.
    In his 2007 autobiography, Clapton described a 20-year drug and alcohol addiction that he said saw him spending about $16,000 a week on heroin in the 1970s. The death of his son in a fall from a New York high-rise, was the trigger to sobriety.
    The singer-songwriter later expressed his grief in 1993 Grammy-winning song "Tears in Heaven", which he performed live on stage at the music awards.
    Clapton, who is a producer on "Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars", also spoke at TIFF 2017 about his struggles with having his life documented on screen: "I do not like having my picture taken, I do not like talking to journalists. I love to play music."
    With hits such as "Bell Bottom Blues," "Cocaine" and "Layla," Clapton has won 18 Grammy Awards over his career so far, as well as the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 1987, and he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.
    He was ranked No. 2 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2015 list of 100 greatest guitarists of all time, behind Jimi Hendrix.
    (Production: Lisa Giles-Keddie)
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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