Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs | |||||
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Studio album by Derek and the Dominos | |||||
Released | 9 November 1970 | ||||
Recorded | 28 August–2 October 1970 | ||||
Studio | Criteria Studios, Miami, Florida | ||||
Genre | Blues rock | ||||
Length | 77:16 | ||||
Label | Polydor, Atco | ||||
Producer | Tom Dowd, Derek and the Dominos | ||||
Derek and the Dominos chronology | |||||
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Eric Clapton chronology | |||||
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Professional ratings | |
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Retrospective reviews | |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | |
Chicago Tribune | |
Christgau's Record Guide | A+ |
Down Beat | |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | |
MusicHound Rock | 5/5 |
Q | |
Rolling Stone | |
Sputnikmusic | 5/5 |
Uncut |
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs is the only studio album by the Anglo-American blues rock band Derek and the Dominos. Released in November 1970, the double album is best known for its title track, "Layla", and is often regarded as Eric Clapton's greatest musical achievement. The other band members were Bobby Whitlock on keyboards and vocals, Jim Gordon on drums, Carl Radle on bass, and special guest performer Duane Allman on lead and slide guitar on 11 of the 14 songs.
In the United States, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs peaked at number 16 on the Billboard Top LPs chart. It returned to the US albums chart again in 1972, 1974 and 1977, and has since been certified Platinum by the RIAA. Having failed to chart in Britain originally, it finally debuted on the UK Albums Chart in 2011, peaking at number 68.
In 2000, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2003, television network VH1 named Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs the 89th-greatest album of all time, and Rolling Stone ranked it number 117 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Critic Robert Christgau ranked Layla the third greatest album of the 1970s. In 2012, the Super Deluxe Edition of the record won a Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album.
Derek and the Dominos, the collaborative band that created Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, grew out of Eric Clapton's frustration with the hype associated with his previous bands, the supergroups Cream and Blind Faith. Following the latter's dissolution, he joined Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, whom he had come to know while they were the opening act on Blind Faith's US tour in the summer of 1969. After that band also split up, a Friends alumnus, Bobby Whitlock, joined up with Clapton in Surrey, England. From April 1970, the two spent weeks writing a number of songs "just to have something to play", as Whitlock put it. These songs would later make up the bulk of the material on Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.