It’s getting harder every day for Eric Clapton to play his guitar.
Clapton recently stated that nerve damage is making performing “hard work” and that there is little chance that it is going to get better.
“I’ve had quite a lot of pain over the last year. It started with lower back pain, and turned into what they call peripheral neuropathy – which is where you feel like you have electric shocks going down your leg. And I’ve had to figure out how to deal with some other things from getting old.”
“I can still play. I mean, it’s hard work sometimes, the physical side of it – just getting old, man, is hard.”
Clapton has had one of the greatest careers of the last sixty years, playing with the Yardbirds, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominos along with his own illustrious solo career. Although he had numerous battles with both alcohol and drugs, he has managed to battle through and has been in recovery for a number of years. One of his greatest non-music achievements has been the founding of the Crossroads Centre in Antigua for recovering substance abusers.
“Because I’m in recovery from alcoholism and addiction to substances, I consider it a great thing to be alive at all. By rights I should have kicked the bucket a long time ago. For some reason I was plucked from the jaws of hell and given another chance.”
