Clapton_ The Autobiography - Eric Clapton [145]
With Derek and Doyle and Billy Preston, I knew we were in good shape for the tour. Derek Trucks’s playing was stunning, like nothing I had ever heard before. He has clearly grown up listening to many different forms of music, and all of them come through in his expression. He seems to have no limit. The other guys on the sessions were for the most part old friends of J. J.’s, great players all of them, even though many of them were now in retirement, enjoying a laid-back life. My guys were Doyle and Billy. Both these men had become indispensable to me now, and I totally trusted their musical intuition in any situation.
The album The Road to Escondido was “done and dusted” within the month, but it had changed shape. Rather than just another E.C. record with J. J. producing, it was now a duet album owing to the fact that I wanted J. J.’s contribution to be larger. Overall, I thought it improved the album and, if nothing else, made it more memorable for me. My friend Simon Climie was on board as an associate producer, and it was really good to see him behind the glass along with our other team member, Alan Douglas, who was in charge of the engineering. Mixing it all would spin out over the next six months, but as long as J. J. had the last say, I felt confident that it would remain pure.
We clambered back onto the boat in September for a last-minute cruise, this time around the Greek islands and Turkey. Hiroshi and his girlfriend Ayumi, plus his business associate Nobu Yoshida, joined us for the first week, and Michael Eaton and his wife, Ally, came for the second. I thought it was important for Michael to see where all the money was going, and I couldn’t wait to show off my new toy to Hiroshi. Now that the boat was actually mine, it really did feel different. It was strange. I couldn’t quite believe it and kept mentally pinching myself, as if I were dreaming.
Did I really have the right to own something like this? A toe-rag from Ripley, with no idea how to make money, and no real respect for it, either, cruising around in a 150-foot floating palace? It seemed unbelievable. I was on cloud nine and had to keep telling myself, “Yes, you do deserve this.” Our brief to the skipper had now become quite fixed: soft, sandy beaches, no sight-seeing. My excuse was the little ones, who love to play in the sand and were also just getting used to being near the water, but in fact this was what I wanted, too. I liked nothing more than sitting in a beach chair, watching the children play in the shallows, and occasionally glancing out across the water to where our beautiful boat was anchored. It really was like a dream.
While we were on the beach one day, I got a call from Cathy Roylance, telling me that Brian, her father, had died from a heart attack. It felt like someone punched me in the stomach. I had no idea it was coming. When he had been on the boat only a month earlier, he had looked better than I had seen him in a long time. Now he was gone, at least from this world. He was my closest friend and had done more to help me get sober, and stay sober, than anybody