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CLAPTON’S ME AND MR. JOHNSON is a dignified, beautiful yang to Aerosmith’s demented schoolboy yin. Which is cool, because there isn’t enough beauty in the world. Yet Clapton, who has probably spent more time than Peter Guralnick contemplating Robert Johnson, seems to have missed something in his full-band interpretations. It’s the wild heart that drove Johnson’s performances. This was a man who wailed in falsetto like a gut-shot banshee, whose slide guitar possessed the threat of a flashing blade, whose desires were full of conflicting impulses that bled all through his songs. There’s not one moment on Me and Mr. Johnson when Clapton doesn’t sound entirely in control. Given his hallmark blues recordings with Mayall, Derek and the Dominos, and Cream, it’s obvious that Clapton has more in common with Johnson than a proclivity for learning licks from records. Both men share the curse of a restless, troubled spirit. Or rather, shared, for Johnson is more than six decades dead and Clapton seems to have wrestled his demons to a standstill. That’s probably best for Clapton, even if it does make his music a bit pallid. His band are, of course, a hand of aces: his long-time second-guitarist, Andy Fairweather Low; Doyle Bramhall II tackling slide guitar; keyboardist Billy Preston, Waltham-based harmonica guru Jerry Portnoy; veteran Clapton touring and studio bassist Nathan East; and drum legend Steve Gadd. He employed the crew to work on two albums at once, in adjacent studios. One was set up for the semi-acoustic Johnson sessions, the other for new pop tunes. They play flawlessly. Portnoy is a joy on these tunes, blowing unamplified accompaniment to Clapton’s ringing acoustic guitar and vocals on "Me and the Devil Blues" and supporting his electric statements on "Kind Hearted Woman Blues," one of the numbers where the leader lets his fingers fly, albeit in short-leashed doses. Bramhall’s bursts of slide are among the disc’s guitar highlights. His dirty Texas tone commands immediate attention opening "Traveling Riverside Blues," and his six-string harmonizing with the boss on "Come On in My Kitchen" is a masterful example of what two killer players can do when taste and tone rule a performance. But it’s hard to believe Clapton when he sings, in "Me and the Devil Blues," in a tempered manner about his evil spirit taking a Greyhound bus. Maybe my ears are just spoiled by the vitality and passion of Johnson’s chilling original recording of those lines. If that’s the case, so be it. Certainly the 14 tunes on Me and Mr. Johnson are no replacement for the original versions. Clapton never entertained that notion. They’re an act of love on his part, and there’s not enough beauty or love in this world, or enough people who’ve heard Johnson’s music. So if this album helps to spread the great Delta assimilator’s sound farther or makes somebody think twice about beating his woman until he’s satisfied, that’s terrific. For hardcore blues fans, it also reopens the unanswerable question of what the electric band Johnson was playing with shortly before his death sounded like. The album also begs a revisit to Clapton’s own back pages. He’s paid homage to Johnson twice before, with a faithful but electric "Ramblin’ on My Mind" on Mayall’s Blues Breakers (London) and with Cream’s epic rendition of "Crossroads," which set the mark for blues-rock improvisation and may be Clapton’s greatest feat of imagination. For now, let’s consider both Honkin’ on Bobo and Me and Mr. Johnson a service to humanity. They’re reminders of how deep and ass-shaking great American music can be, and of how the past — no matter how much our culture tilts toward the future — always has a place in the present.
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