Call the devil by his name
Of course cocaine is not addictive, darling. I should know, I’ve been doing it for years. - Tallulah Bankhead
Cocaine’s big moment came in the 1970s. A drug that had been beloved of Sigmund Freud and Sherlock Holmes found a new audience: the affluent and hedonistic American public.
July 1981
My own experience with the drug was brief and terrifying, akin to nearly walking off a cliff. I did not feel intoxicated, I spoke with some pretty girls who seemed taken by my bold wit and the intensity of my attention. We had some drinks and had a great time. I felt energetic, self-assured. I fell asleep around 4 am. And I realized that if I ever took it again it would be the end of me.
Overture
“If I have a near-beer, I’m near beer. And if I’m near beer, I’m close to tequila. And if I’m close to tequila, I’m adjacent to cocaine.” - Craig Ferguson
The oldest cocaine song is probably “Cocaine Blues”, no one knows who wrote it. The Rev. Gary Davis said he first heard it in 1905. [Update: The Laird notes that “Little Sadie” is not unrelated to this tune.] The Wikipedia entry on the song incorrectly attributes it to Red Arnall, who recorded it in 1947, but Woody Guthrie was singing it long before then:
Johnny Cash made sure to include it when he played Folsom Prison, and the audience surely appreciated it:
The Song
I remember thinking cocaine was subtle until I noticed I’d been awake for three weeks and didn’t know any of the naked people passed out around me. - PJ O’Rourke
In the beginning there was the groove, a riff JJ Cale worked out and elaborated in 1975. It’s clear and powerful, yet detailed and beautiful. Hearing it gives you a lift right away and pulls you into its world, a bit like its namesake. Let’s hear just that:
It’s a fantastic structure. A busker can play it on a subway platform, or you can jam on it up to “Whipping Post” levels of complexity and intensity. The rhythm is so simple even I can understand it - but, as with a great jazz standard, the structure is light enough that the improvisational possibilities seem unlimited. Here Albert Lee (we’ll hear from him again) demonstrates how something simple can, in the right hands, become so much more:
But there is also hazard in the song - that opening refrain is so strong that - again, like the drug - it can narrow the perspective of the player.
One of the effects [cocaine] had on my personality - my moods, my behaviors - was that it inhibited me a lot. It kind of took possibilities out of my world, and made the focus of things very narrow. - George Carlin
That structure may be thin, but it is unbreakable. Paul Gonsalves could not play 27 choruses on this song, as he did on “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue” at Newport. That riff - at first enlivening, then compelling, then maddening - never lets go. You will never get to escape velocity, the gravity is too strong. The riff will always reel you back in.
Cale experimented with it as a full-tilt rocker in a live performance at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa in 1975 (here, at 1:07), with his guitar fuzzed up to ZZ Top levels. But he ultimately decided to record a more austere version with a clearer and more articulate guitar part:
The recording is so detailed, with little guitar counterpoints throughout that alternately compete with the big riff and follow its lead. Cale’s solo is brief and mournful. There is no joy, no ecstatic mania in this version. Overall, the performance is emotionally neutral, if not numb. Clapton would later try to say “Cocaine” was a clever anti-drug song, but Cale has gone well beyond that. He is looking at it, he is contemplating it, he is witnessing it. He is pointing his finger at it, he is calling the devil by his name. He’s not saying the monster shouldn’t be there. He’s saying the monster IS there.
Listening again to this track I imagine that Cale relalized that he had stumbled across something akin to a powerful magic spell, one so dangerous that if one fully committed to it, the result could be self-immolation. Cale wisely refrained.
Eric Clapton said: hold my beer:
The Avatar
Cocaine made my nose bleed right away. I thought why do I need a nose bleed? It would make me real nervous and talk really fast. I’m already pretty good at talking too fast. I thought, “Why do I need that?” - Linda Ronstadt
Most people have only heard one version of “Cocaine”, the 1977 version from Slowhand. We go, in a flash, from the Summer of Love to Miami Vice:
Woe to you, my Princess, when I come. I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are froward, you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn’t eat enough, or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body. - Sigmund Freud, to his fiancée
The opening riff is clearer and stronger, and it has Clapton Tone™. It takes no prisoners from the first note. It showcases all of Clapton’s strengths - his feel for blues structures, his improvisational insights, his power, his precision, his versatility. In live performances it also showcased his ability to play well with others. .
The Japanese say that with the first drink the man drinks the drink, but on the second the drink drinks the drink. In Clapton’s second recording, from a 1980 concert in Japan, the drink is drinking the drink, the party is well and truly underway. Unfettered by the studio, Clapton plays a Samisen-inspired solo that flies from pizzicato into screams Yoko Ono could only dream of. And then Albert Lee plays a solo that many think is even better:
The crowd cheers from the opening note and claps along. The band is dialed in with weapons-grade intensity. There was a CD shop in Zürich that let you listen to CDs instead of buying them - or at least that’s how it worked for me. I’d drop by on my lunch hour and play this, grab a camembert sandwich from the man outside, and go back to the bank, ready to meet every dragon from a position of absolute psychic supremacy.
The best pitch I ever heard about cocaine was back in the early eighties when a street dealer followed me down the sidewalk going: I got some great blow man. I got the stuff that killed Belushi. - Denis Leary
On the third drink, the drink drinks the man. At every concert crowds would call for the song. Clapton had everyone’s attention, his guitar in his hand, the perfect platform to demonstrate his skills, and in his mind, that one riff, that one word, crowding everything else. He was at the apex of his talent and popularity and he was in flames.
In 1982 he went into the Betty Ford Clinic.
When he got out, “Cocaine” was still picking up the check. It had nearly got him, but not quite. He was still finding possibilities in the song. Here he is at Hartford Civic Center in 1985 with Duck Dunn. When he hits that opening riff the crowd lights up, just like every crowd had for years. The performance is less precise than Japan, and Clapton’s vocal performance less energetic, but the instrumental experience is intense, even tormented, with Tim Renwick making a phenomenal contribution.
I always said, cocaine was the drug that made me open up. I could talk to people. But then it became the drug that closed me down. So it started out by making me talk to everyone, and then ended up by me isolating myself alone with it; which is the end of the world, really. - Elton John
Clapton was back in rehab before year-end. This time, the treatment stuck.
In 1986 he played a different “Cocaine” with Phil Collins at Montreux:
The monster has had a couple of cracks at him, and he’s damaged but still standing. He’s got the verse performance just the way he wants it. The riff now sounds more like Cale’s, fuzzier and more restrained. Clapton’s solo, like Cale’s, is more mournful and meditative. Greg Phillinganes (Michael Jackson’s musical director) follows with a melodic keyboard solo that opens up new possibilities. Note also the presence of bassist Nathan East, a mainstay in Clapton’s band for decades to come.
In the late 80’s Clapton started singing “that dirty cocaine” in his performance, as here with Knopfler:
Knopfler carries the intro, and Clapton introduces the band. Then, after two minutes, Clapton announces that he will juggle blowtorches, hand grenades and kittens. The riff comes in like a safe from the ceiling, and Montreux is far behind us. But it turns out pretty ok. It’s heavy, but the guitar is not in hysterics. After the break the groove smooths out - we could be on the Pacific Coast highway in Malibu - and Alan Clark (formerly of Dire Straits) takes over with a great performance on keyboards. At 7:02 you can catch Knopfler and East swinging in sync together:
Great party Eric!
I saw Clapton in Zürich in 1989 and he was a little looser with the lyrics (“it’ll kill you!”) but I remember it as smooth and professional, but - perhaps wisely for Clapton’s sake - not transcendental.
After the Fire
It took me years after stopping the cocaine before I was able to enjoy a sunrise and enjoy the sound of birds.
- Valerie Bertinelli
Despite his precautions, the wise man Cale also had not escaped the song. In “Santa Cruz” - a song written by his wife, the estimable Christine Lakeland - the lyrics go:
Well I came to coast from L.A.
Just to give a little music to boo me away
Hey J.J. can you play Cocaine
Do After Midnight it's all the same
But there was upside, too. As the songwriter, Cale had shared heartily in the prosperity of Clapton’s “Cocaine”. And when he played in Europe, he had an instantly recognizable calling card. He made good use of it in the early 90’s with performances like this:
One thing I appreciate about both this and in Cale’s original studio track is the great drumming. Cale often worked alone in his Airstream trailer with a drum box , but this simple riff needs complexity, and this arrangement brings it out beautifully.
Here he is in 1994 on Jools Holland’s show, with Lakeland and a different vocal interpretation - the abbreviated guitar solo, fuzzbox set to OFF, is sublime.
Here, from the 00’s is the definitive Late Cale version, a bluesy rendition in a Georgia theater with a guitar performance that sounds for all the world to me like a tribute to Duane Allman:
The Summit
Clapton reached out to Cale in 00’s. They made an album (The Road to Escondido) and performed together. Clapton became more frank about his respect for Cale, not only as a songwriter but as a guitarist. Here they are together in San Diego in 2007 They are studious as monks at first, then some smiles. They give Doyle Bramhall II the first solo, Derek Trucks the second. After a slight muff, Cale looks at Clapton and we get a beautiful duet, all too brief, but demon-free.:
Down the Road
Cale passed in 2013. For Clapton it’s now an opportunity to get others involved as in this great 2011 performance (rock star version) with the late Pino Daniele:
The triumphal finish always has to be at the Albert Hall, so here’s that:
Covers
You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?”
“For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “there still remains the cocaine bottle.”
- Conan Doyle
The Folks get it. I don’t know what’s up with the people around them. I’d be holding up a lighter and throwing money:
Yes, there is an enjoyable bluegrass version, from Pickin’ on Clapton:
Miguel Montalban shows off some Power Busking:
Let’s see, who should have the last word? Plamen, you have something to say? Are you sure, that guitar’s acoustic…? Very well: