The band Eric Clapton said he wished he had been part of

Besides being a highly successful and critically acclaimed solo artist, Eric Clapton was also a member of bands such as The Yardbirds, John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith and collaborated with some of the most important musicians of all time.

To many people, he probably did more in his career than he ever intended, but there was one band he later said he wished he had been part of and almost had the courage to ask to join them.

The band Eric Clapton said he wished he had been part of

The group that Eric Clapton said that he wished he had been part of was The Band, which had in its classic line-up Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Levon Helm and Richard Manuel. “I want to talk about what it was like to be a musician, a serious musician who couldn’t be in The Band, that was tough, it was hard. I remember being on tour in about ’66 or ’67 with a band called the Cream. We thought we were the Bee’s knees, you know. I knew this guy in L.A. which was  an entrepreneur of different sorts of things. He had a tape by a band called The Crackers (The Band’s early name) and he lent it to me.”

“I took it on the road with me and became my drug. When we would get to the end of a gig, Jack and Ginger would go off an do their stuff. I would put this tape on and I would go into another world. It was my kind of release and for someone like me, who was born in England and worshiped the music from America. It was very tough to find a place to belong in all this. This band that I was listening to on this tape had it all. They were white but they seemed to derived all they could from black music and they combined to make a beautiful hybrid. For me it was serious and it was growing. It was mature, it told stories, had beautiful harmonies, fantastic singing, beautiful musicianship without any virtuosity, just economy and beauty.”

Eric Clapton continued:

“I wanted to be in The Band! So, I went and told Jack and Ginger that I couldn’t go on anymore. There was something else happening that I had to (do). Robbie and the boys never knew this but I went to visit The Band in Woodstock and I really sort of went there to ask if I could join The Band (laughs). I didn’t have the guts to say, I didn’t have the nerve (laughs), I just sort of sat there and watched these guys work. I remember Robbie (Robertson) saying: ‘We don’t jam. So there’s not point on sitting here and (play). We just write and work’. I was very impressed, you know. From that day I spent the rest of my career until the ‘Last Waltz’ (The Band’s first farewell show), trying to find ways to imitate what they had.”

“It was an impossible dream, really, because from where I came and from where they came from, completely different worlds. But there was something to do with a principle that I got from what they did which was integrity and a standard of a craft that really didn’t bow down to any kind of commerciality. I really identified with that and I adored it. At the same time it was very hard to kind of make my way with this going on and not be part of it until ‘The Last Waltz’. In some respects I was very relieved with (that), because it meant that there wasn’t a band that I wasn’t a part of it anymore, you know.”

He continued:

“I could just go on and be me and it was all right. But at the same time, when ‘The Last Waltz’ happened it was a tragic thing. Because as much as they may have reached the end of their journey, there were no more records. I couldn’t go to the store and buy a Band album and have my life transformed by listening to it.”

“It’s been a long journey since then without their sort of guidance. Because I always look up to them as older brothers in the music world. But at the same time they have always been there in spirit and I go back. I listen to all (their) records all the time. In fact, most of the time I listen to old Blues and records by people like The Band,” Eric Clapton said when he inducted The Band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).

Eric Clapton had the opportunity to perform with the classic lineup of The Band during their farewell show. It was filmed by Martin Scorsese and later released as “The Last Waltz” concert movie. Besides jamming with them onstage, he played on the songs “All Our Past Times” and “Further On Up the Road.”

Eric Clapton said more recently that him joining The Band wouldn’t have worked and called Robertson underestimated

A few decades later, in an interview with The Real Music Observer in 2023, Eric Clapton talked about wanting to join The Band back then. He said that it wouldn’t have worked although he wanted to. “If Robbie had said: ‘Do you wanna join?’ When I was up there, I may have said yes. But then I wouldn’t have done that because I was already this kind of celebrity and none of them personally, individually were celebrities.”

“That was their thing, even the name was anonymity that was also what was magnetic for me. Because I always wanted anonymity, I wanted to be in the rhythm section, you know. If that have been possible, to sneak in, even wearing a disguise and play rhythm guitar (laughs), then we could have done it. But it was never gonna happen and it seems so long ago now. But it’s incredible to me that in some ways people talk about ‘The Day the Music Died’, you know, there’s been nothing since. It’s all been individual, because they took it seriously, it wasn’t about market.”

“(…) People underestimate (Robbie Robertson). The intros to songs, the little things that sound like they’re kind of scraffy, off the cup, which is part of his unique attractiveness to me. It sounds like he’s only just now working out, ‘this will work’. I’m sure it’s much more crafted than that. I know him well enough to know that he was really precise about what he did. It’s so difficult to recreate that kind of on the edge of expression and not blowing in it. It’s really, really difficult.” Eric Clapton said (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).

Clapton recorded with members of The Band

However, members of the band did join Clapton’s group for one album, which was “No Reason To Cry” (1976). They were among the big number of guests who played on that record which was partially recorded on the Shangri-La studio, which was previously owned by actress Margo and leased by The Band in the 1970s, being converted to a recording studio by Rob Fraboni. Other special guests on that album were Bob Dylan, Ron Wood, Billy Preston and Chris Jagger (Mick’s brother).

Robbie Robertson and Clapton remained close friends until the American musician passed in 2023 at the age of 80. The British guitarist was part of Robbie’s 2011 album “How To Become a Clairvoyant. He was the one who wrote the track “Madame X” and he co-wrote “Fear of Falling” and “Won’t be Back” with Robertson.

During the same conversation with The Real Music Observer, Clapton said that he would always go to see the Martin Scorsese movies in the cinema and would “relish” the scores composed by Robertson. He said that sometimes they were much better than the movies, actually.

Eric Clapton said The Band played better during their reunions

Most bands that break up at their peak with a classic lineup find that, when they reunite a few years later, the same magical sound is no longer there and they are never really able to top their past performances. However, in Clapton’s opinion, The Band played much better during their reunions than they did earlier in their career. After disbanding in 1977, they reunited from 1983 until 1999. During that period released three studio albums: “Jericho” (1993), “High on the Hog” (1996), and “Jubilation” (1998). By that point, however, they no longer had Richard Manuel, who passed away in 1986.

“When Robbie (Robertson) passed, I went back and revisited, listened to everything. I started to think about what really happened there because I looked at some of the performances that The Band did after (they) broke up. (They) seemed to be far superior to what they were doing before he called it a day. I was speculating on what had happened and looking at some other gigs when he was still there, before it broke up. You could see how they were out of order. They were doing all kinds of things and you could see how he would make that decision. But it looked to me like after it happened, after ‘The Last Waltz’, they got their act together. I mean, some of the shows they did for the next five years until they started relapsing again as it were, were phenomenal.”

Eric Clapton continued:

“They got tight, straight and I imagined that at that point Robbie could have regretted it, you know. I’ve always wondered whether or not, because whenever we talked about it. He went on defensive really quick, automatically to say it was crazy, too difficult. (Also that) maybe it wouldn’t have been possible for him to stay there and have it healed. (…) The Band to me was amazing, because they were all giants. Every one of them was a giant on his own but they needed one another. He (Robbie) was the visionary, you know. I have no doubt that he wrote all those songs,” he told Music Observer (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).

Besides their 10 studio albums, The Band was also part of three Bob Dylan records. They were “Before the Flood” (1974), “Planet Waves” (1974) and “The Basement Tapes” (1975). The last living member of their classic line-up was the multi-instrumentalist Garth Hudson. He sadly passed away in 2025 at the age of 87.