Bobby Whitlock keeps ‘Layla’ legacy alive
In the early 1990s, storied club the Bottom Line in New York City would host song swaps with a wide array of musicians of note. One night Joey Ramone might play a solo version of his own “I Wanna Be Sedated,” or Graham Parker could growl through Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry.” In 1994, a collection of songs from these events — an antique playlist — came out titled “In Their Own Words.” It was an interesting document, though hardly revelatory, until its last song, when Bobby Whitlock delivered an a capella version of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” so powerful it sounded capable of blowing the front door off the hinges and shredding the iconic blue awning outside the venue.
Whitlock’s appearance on that anthology was notable because his big voice had been gone for so long — nearly 20 years at that point. And he wasn’t some singer who spent his best years under the radar. Whitlock’s singing was one of the most prevalent and identifiable attributes on one of the best recordings in rock ’n’ roll history: Derek and the Dominos’ “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.”
It turns out Whitlock’s absence from popular music was one of the more cheerful stories that came out of that brilliant and cursed band.
When Derek and the Dominos split after less than two years, frontman Eric Clapton was strung out on heroin. Guitarist Duane Allman had died in a motorcycle accident in 1971, at age 24. Bassist Carl Radle was deep in his addiction to drugs and alcohol; he was 37 when he died in 1980. And drummer Jim Gordon was beginning to exhibit erratic behavior that hit a horrifying crescendo in 1984 when he murdered his mother with a hammer.
Whitlock, during this time, retreated to a farm in Mississippi and raised a family, which may be partly attributable for his being around today, age 69, as the most willing and able representative for that cometlike band.
“We never really had a chance to go out and perform those songs,” he says, calling from his home base in Austin. “Just a few shows. It all went so quick. Eric was strung out, Duane was dead. That band never really got to do that album the way it was supposed to be done.”
Whitlock’s wife and bandmate CoCo Carmel puts it simply: “People really don’t know much about that band. Carl can’t tell the story. Jim can’t tell the story. Eric doesn’t like to talk that much about it. He defers to Bobby. So Bobby does it.”
Clapton and Whitlock viewed the band as a blues/rock vehicle to drive their intertwined vocals, which they patterned after Sam & Dave. Clapton being British and possessing a fairly thin voice left Whitlock — raised the son of an abusive preacher in rural Arkansas — to provide the heft of the Southern music tradition.
“Eric never told me what to sing,” he says. “I just sang what I knew to sing. I sang the parts I knew I was supposed to be doing. It sounds natural because, to me, it was natural. It’s the same way with me and CoCo today. We know how to interact. I feel like I’ve always known how to do that.”
Whitlock was a teenager when he drifted from Arkansas across the river to Memphis, where he was born. He talked his way into working at the storied Stax Recording Studio and played keys in a couple of bands around Memphis before finding his way into Delaney & Bonnie, maybe the most under-appreciated American rock band of the 20th century, a soulful Southern music ensemble fronted by the husbandwife team of Delaney and Bonnie Bramblett.
Delaney & Bonnie caught Clapton’s attention, and he joined the group on a late ’60s tour. He then absconded with its core — Whitlock, Radle, Gordon — who became Dominos to his Derek.
“We knew we were
doing something special,” Whitlock says. “Eric sometimes tries to get away from the past, but I think he knows it’s the best thing he ever did. The Cream stuff didn’t last like this stuff has.”
George Harrison was swept up by the sound, too. He brought the same players on board for his “All Things Must Pass” album.
Whitlock, in the early 1970s, also made a pair of albums of his own. Neither sold well, though both “Bobby Whitlock” and “Raw Velvet” can be recommended without reservation, and after sitting out of print for years, they were reissued in 2014.
He made two more albums in the ’70s, which weren’t as good, played on some sessions, but by the time Radle died, he had largely stopped performing. Which made his appearance on that Bottom Line compilation all the more compelling. To those aware of his past, Whitlock’s absence made the song like a flare. He didn’t get around to making a new album until 1999, aptly titled “It’s About Time.” He and Clapton would get together from time to time for some live appearances.
He met Carmel in 2003, and the two have lived and played together since. Carmel was previously married to Bramblett, so she says, “I know how to sing with Bobby. It’s second nature to me at this point. I know what to sing and what not to sing.”
So they draw from each of their own bodies of work when they perform. And they’re very aware that many gathered to listen want to hear one of the 14 songs from “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs,” half of which Whitlock wrote or co-wrote. Songs about different sorts of bad love that Whitlock says are “honest and simple pieces of music that tell a story. Not nonsensical bull.”
Carmel points out the album’s 50th anniversary is just three years away. Clapton, at 72, is a reluctant touring presence.
“Nobody else is doing this,” she says. “Eric will do one of these songs every now and then. But only a few of them. Tedeschi Trucks, they’re doing this sort of thing. But Bobby is the guy keeping this music alive.”