The Return of Slowhand

"Give God a solo!" the audiences shouted. In reply, a thin young man with an electric guitar would shuffle to the microphone, close his eyes and raise up a musical inferno. One of the first of the '60s superstars, Eric Clapton was a charter member of rock's inner circle--along with Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. As a member of the British trio Cream, he transformed simple blues lines into brilliant horizontal diffusions of sound. By 1970 Clapton was considered to be the world's top rock guitarist, had sold some $12 million worth of records. Then he stopped performing.

Physically and spiritually depleted, he retired at 26--a heroin addict.

This spring there was a quiet announcement that he planned to cut a record in Miami, then make a five-week U.S. tour. He is clear-eyed and healthy, but retains some blunt and black views about drugs and musicians. "The same thing that makes a man pick up his guitar and play is the same thing that makes him take any drug he can find," he says.

"Music is really escapism. It's shutting yourself off from everything else, going into a cupboard and staying there.

That's what drugs do and that's what music does. They go hand in hand."

Identity Shield. Last winter, aware that dope was canceling out his life, Clapton submitted to an experimental form of acupuncture. A month later he was free of his addiction. Recalling the treatment he says, "The doctor, a middle-aged Scotswoman, and her husband, a preacher--they really cared. They, as much as anything, brought me through."

Without dope, Clapton drinks more. He feels, perhaps optimistically, that he sweats out the poison in performance.

He has also adopted a series of "disguises" as a kind of identity shield. One night he may appear onstage in a three-piece suit, the next in jeans.

He opened his comeback tour in a steady drizzle at Yale Bowl in New Haven, Conn. The first number, appropriately Let It Rain, revealed a richer, stronger voice. From watching Stevie Wonder sing, Clapton says, he learned to breathe in great drafts from his diaphragm. "It sends the blood rushing to my head and gives me an incredible high," he laughs. "I sometimes get dizzy onstage."

Clapton's mature style--in songs like Give Me Strength and Let It Grow from his new album, 461 Ocean Boulevard--is free of the ostentatious virtuosity that sometimes disfigured his playing in the past. But the quicksilver runs and keyboard rampages that earned him the ironic nickname "Slow-hand" are still there. Sometimes Clapton turned his back to the audience to listen in turn to each musician in his excellent group--Carl Radle on bass, Dick Sims at the keyboards, Drummer Jamie Oldaker, Guitarist George Terry and Singer Yvonne Elliman.

When he launched into his old hit Layla, among the rock-'n'-roll songs that have logged the most radio air time, the animal in the audience awakened. With the first chords, a wave overflowed from the bleachers. A fight broke out. Slipping off his guitar, Clapton said paternally, "Be cool. I'll play you something to calm you down. God bless you, let's everybody stand back." Amazingly, they did, and he played Presence of the Lord. It was a rare reversal of the atmosphere rock stars labor to generate. The usual formula is to arouse the crowd early in a concert and then feed on the flow of energy. But Clapton vowed not to do the number again. Said he: "That's part of my responsibility to the audience."

At 29 he is sensible about his limits as a man. He no longer performs Nobody Knows You When You 're Down and Out. "I've really been down and out, and there has always been someone who helped. It is hard to sing that and be absolutely genuine about it." About the future he is modest too. Asked what he would like to be doing ten years from now, he replies mildly, "I would like to be alive."

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