Setting the Layla Record Straight
I’m still enjoying Sound & Vision as much as ever. However, as an old Claptonite, I must offer a correction to Mike Mettler’s otherwise spot-on appreciation of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs in the February/march issue. The piano coda on the song “Layla” was not played by Bobby Whitlock, who performed all the other piano parts on the album. It was drummer Jim Gordon. Clapton heard him playing the lovely melody in the studio and had him record it, adding it as a coda to the title song. Ironically, it later turned out that Gordon “borrowed” the melody from none other than Rita Coolidge, whom he had dated. Gordon never mentioned where he got it, so this fact didn’t come out until much later. Jim Gordon eventually became mentally unbalanced and murdered his mother. He remains incarcerated in the California Medical Facility to this day. Sorry to nitpick my favorite music writer, but nobody’s perfect!
Tom Lippard / via email
I remember listening to Derek and the Dominoes: Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs many years ago, and it sounded good even on my crappy little vinyl setup back then. Now that I have a nice big stereo (Ayre electronics, Maggie 3.7i speakers, JL Audio sub), I’ve been searching for a version of that seminal album that would sound as full and musical as the original vinyl. So, when I saw Mike Mettler’s Remaster Class column in the February/march issue, I had to read it immediately. I have an undated CD version (“newly remastered from the original master tapes...”) that sounds awful: compressed and noisy. I also have the 2004 multichannel SACD referred to in Mike’s column, which doesn’t sound much better, and the 2017 Mofi SACD that Mike did not mention. Mike states that the 2013 Blu-ray is the pinnacle of Layla audio. Before I continue with my quixotic search for the ultimate version, I wonder if he had considered the 2017 Mofi SACD before making that determination.
Bob Hakim / via email
Mike Mettler replies: Good catch, Tom! Total mea culpa re: my subconscious but still inexcusable Whitlock/gordon snafu on the ID for the “Layla” coda. Actually, in her excellent 2016 autobiography Delta Lady,
Rita Coolidge is on record saying Gordon came over to her house in Hollywood in 1970, played a chord progression on her piano to which she added her own countermelody for what ultimately resulted in a demo they eventually played for, and left with, Clapton while they were all on tour together in England with Delany and Bonnie— and that’s the one that morphed into the infamous coda we all now know by heart. Unfortunately, Coolidge never received any songwriting credit for her part in it, and I’m inclined to believe her story. In fact, Coolidge confirmed this story with me during an in-person interview we conducted in New York in May 2018. I’m truly sorry it slipped my mind until now, but those are my own c’est la vie blues. As for the 2017 Mofi
Layla disc Bob mentions— it’s impossible to reference every official release in Remaster Class, of course, as much as I like to pontificate about their worthiness (or lack thereof). That Mofi release indeed has its own merits, but the fact is, if you’re on a quest to find the “ultimate version” for YOUR ears, YOUR system, and YOUR listening preferences, you owe it to yourself to listen to as many of them as you can get your hands on to decide which one makes that grade. For my own personal listening preferences, and as I outlined in the examples I cited in that column, I prefer the 2013 Layla Blu- ray.