Clapton_ The Autobiography - Eric Clapton [114]
From time to time over the next few years the phone lady would reappear, sometimes on the street, in broad daylight, screaming things like, “You’ll never get away from me,” and for a man who is naturally inclined to fear the opposite sex, this was sometimes more than I could bear. Gradually, though, she faded into the background, until one day I met up with her again in New York. She was with a musician friend of mine, whom she had obviously set up home with. I was gobsmacked. I felt that I ought to straighten him out about who she was and what she was capable of. In the end, I left it alone. They seemed very happy, and it looked pretty normal. I just didn’t have the heart to rock their boat, and maybe he knew about it all anyway.
After coming out of Hazelden, there was work to throw myself back into, beginning with a continuation of a project that had started in January 1986, when I had agreed to play six shows on successive nights at the Royal Albert Hall in London. It was to become a tradition, with the number of gigs increasing each year, until they would peak in 1991 with twenty-four. With a band that included Nathan East and Greg Phillinganes from the August sessions, Steve Ferrone and Phil Collins on drums, and the addition of Mark Knopfler on guitar, the performances had gone so well that we decided to try and make it a regular booking.
I had always liked this venue and enjoyed going to see people play there. It’s comfortable, has a great atmosphere, and the management has always made sure that it sounds good. It’s also one of the few places where you can see all of the audience when you’re on stage. You’ve got fans behind you and all around you in boxes, standing up in the Gods and sometimes even in the Stalls. The people at the front are right at your feet, so you really feel like you’re in among the crowd. I remember when the Royal Albert was off-limits to rock music, and somehow the Mothers of Invention managed to get booked there. It was a fantastic show, and for an encore Frank Zappa’s keyboard player, Don Preston, known as “Mother Don,” broke into the hall’s organ keyboard, which was locked behind two glass doors, and played a raucous version of “Louie Louie” that brought the house down.
The best times I had in those early years of sobriety were in the company of my son and his mother. It was the closest that life ever got to being normal for me. Conor was a good-looking boy with blond hair, much the same as mine at the same age, and brown eyes. I’d seen pictures of my Uncle Adrian as a little boy, playing in the Ripley woods with my mother, and he bore a strong resemblance to him. He was a beautiful child with a wonderful, gentle nature who was walking by the time he was a year old.
As soon as he could talk, he used to call me Papa.
But however deeply I loved this little boy, I had no idea where to begin with him, because I was a baby trying to look after a baby. So I just let Lori raise him, which she did brilliantly. She would come and stay with her sister Paula, who also worked for her as her assistant, and occasionally their mother accompanied them, and for a few weeks we would live a very peaceful, family kind of life. I used to watch Conor’s every move, and because I didn’t really know much about how to be a father, I played with him in the way a sibling plays, kicking balls around on the terrace for hours and going for walks in the garden. He also got to know my mother and grandmother, and Roger, too. Anyone who came into contact with him adored him. He was a little angel really, a very divine being.
In 1989, I began working on one of my own favorite albums, Journeyman. Produced by Russ Titleman, the album contained an interesting mixture of covers and originals, but mainly