CLAPTON’S BROTHER IS DOWN AND OUT
Rock icon’s sibling battles health issues in rooming house in Canada’s poorest neighbourhood
On a sun-baked afternoon in the heart of Canada’s poorest neighbourhood, one-time Vancouver musician Fast Eddie Fryer slowly crosses Hastings Street to discuss his deteriorating health, his passion for guitars and his famous half-brother, rock legend Eric Clapton.
It is a death march of sorts as the severely hunched Fryer, 55, feebly crosses the busy street to help set the record straight on having bloodlines with a rock icon and his own “endstage” cirrhosis of the liver.
He awkwardly climbs the stone steps at the Carnegie Centre in the epicentre of Vancouver’s infamous Downtown Eastside and sits down at a table that looks out at the homeless and hurting who shuffle like zombies around Main and Hastings.
In telling his story, Fryer asks for respect towards his multimillionaire Grammy-winning half-brother — and a good, hot meal.
Despite reports of his demise and substandard living conditions, Fryer feels his health problems are being properly addressed and he is well cared for at his rooming house.
“They have been very much responsible for getting my medical condition under control,” Fryer said of his subsidized “medical” housing.
Recently, a story in the British media claimed Fryer was living in squalid conditions, something he denies.
“This writer came in and did a character assassination on the place where I live,” he said of his rooming house. “Granted, it is not the Hilton …
“It is a shelter that has a medical team and they do a good job of looking after me.”
It was the spring of 1998 when Fryer first found out his biological father was also father to Eric Clapton.
As a Canadian soldier stationed in England during the Second World War, Edward Fryer Sr. had a wartime romance with Patricia Clapton.
She was eventually left to raise the future guitar whiz on her own, when Fryer moved into a new phase of his life after the war and began touring North America as a dinner club piano player.
Soon after discovering his lineage 17 years ago, Fast Eddie remembers how he was hounded by the press and just wanted to be left alone to deal with his own musical career — and his own demons.
Fryer at the time admitted he had an addiction to heroin and his longterm goal was to get clean and sober and resurrect his music career.
For both Fast Eddie and Eric, drug addiction early in their careers was a common thread. Clapton made a much-publicized full recovery from heroin addiction and continued on with his brilliant career. Fast Eddie hasn’t been so fortunate.
Hoping to meet and ultimately live his dream and jam with his famous brother, Fryer left the squalid conditions of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in 1999 and moved to North Carolina, where his sister resided. He started a band and, as he gained control of his life, began keeping in touch with Clapton through letters.
“We became popular with the college crowd,” he recalled of his fleeting musical career.
Eventually, Vancouver again beckoned and Fryer moved back. To help make some money between musical gigs, he worked construction, much of it heavy concrete work.
Today, Fryer believes breathing the toxins from his construction days has left him with chronic respiratory health issues.
The last time Fast Eddie played a major gig was in July 2009, when his band Eddie Fryer and the Lost Tribe played at a concert in Nakusp. He ironically recalls how two members of the original Yardbirds played the Nakusp concert along with Steppenwolf and Colin James.
While there, he didn’t want to make it known his half-brother was one of the original Yardbirds. “I kept it very hush-hush,” he said. “I did not want to be known as Eddie Fryer, the halfbrother of Eric Clapton.”
As he worked hard to rebuild his musical career, Fryer began corresponding by letter with Clapton.
One of his proudest moments, he recalls, was when he sent Clapton a demo tape of his work, and shortly after he received a surprising hand-written letter from the famous musician.
“He played it, and right away he wrote me a personal letter where he said he played the CD and it blew him away. Yes, he liked it and I sent him a letter back just to say I was glad you were able to get an opportunity to see what your brother’s music was like,” he said.
Eventually, Fryer was convinced he would in time meet Clapton, and even play together, but then the wheels fell off his bumpy ride to sobriety.
“I relapsed on heroin,” he said, sadly.
Fryer said while he may be living on borrowed time, he will not play the health issue as a plea for money.
“I have never asked him for money,” he said of his half-brother. “A person is not entitled to another person’s achievements.”
If he can get the tendons in his hand fixed so he can again hold a guitar, Fryer would be thrilled to live out his dream and one day play with superstar Clapton.
“I gain nothing by being defeated. I am a fighter and want to play again, maybe even with Eric.”