Eric Clapton – There’s One In Every Crowd (1975)

There's One In Every Crowd, the rather overlooked follow-up to the excellent 461 Ocean Boulevard, marks the beginning of Clapton's career when he decided that he no longer wanted to be known just as a bluesy lead guitarist. On this album there's barely a flicker of a Clapton blues solo to be heard. What you get instead is a series of songs some good, one or two mediocre, and a mixture of gospel, reggae and light pop. Most of the songs in this set are composed by Clapton, who plays in a very laid-back style. In fact this style was already beginning to emerge on his preceding solo album (461 OB). But it's taken much further here. By this stage Clapton was pleasing himself and not his fans, who were still clamoring for his fiery Cream style solos. Here he just sings, strums rhythm guitar, a few short non-bluesy solos here and there, and fair use of the Dobro, an instrument that took his fancy for a few years. The same backing musicians as used on 461 OB are present here.
It's not that this record is bad or even boring. It isn't. Bland, it maybe to those who were heavily into Cream or Derek And The Dominoes. But I really like most of the tracks especially Pretty Blue Eyes, with its lilting acoustic guitar solo, High, and the gospel-like We've Been Told. But the outstanding track is the highly soulful and moody Better Make It Through Today. This shows a side of Clapton that he failed to capitalize on later albums. TOIEC is just so different in style to what Clapton had been doing and was famous for, only a few years earlier. It's hard to believe this is the same guy. However he was to continue in this vein for years to come and on some considerably worse albums than this one.
To sum up if you like the unplugged side of Clapton without his bluesy guitar, you may well get to enjoy this album, as most of the songs are up to standard and grow on you after a few plays.

Personnel:

Eric Clapton - vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, dobro
George Terry - vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Marcy Levy, Yvonne Elliman - vocals
Carl Radle - electric guitar, electric bass
Dick Sims - piano, electric piano, organ, keyboards, drums, percussion
Albhy Galuten - piano
Jamie Oldaker - drums, percussion

Tracklists:

01. We've Been Told (Jesus Is Coming Soon)
02. Swing Low Sweet Chariot
03. Little Rachel
04. Don't Blame Me
05. The Sky Is Crying
06. Singin' The Blues
07. Better Make It Through The Day
08. Pretty Blue Eyes
09. High
10. Opposites

Recorded at Dynamic Sounds Studio, Kingston, Jamaica and at Criteria Recording Studios, Miami, Florida
Produced by Tom Dowd
Digitally Remastered from the Original Master Tapes by Joseph M. Palmaccio at Polygram Studios utilizing Apogee Electronics AD1000 Reference Standard 20 Bit A/D Converter and UV22 Super CD Encoding

Sound Quality: 8/9