{"id":403564,"date":"2025-09-06T20:59:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T20:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/403564\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T20:59:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T20:59:15","slug":"did-eric-clapton-rip-off-rita-coolidge-for-layla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/403564\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Eric Clapton rip off Rita Coolidge for ‘Layla’?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Eric<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Matt Gibbons \/ A&M Records)<\/p>\n

Sat 6 September 2025 19:30, UK <\/p>\n

As far as huge hits go, there\u2019s none more colossal than \u2018Layla\u2019 by Derek and the Dominos. Perhaps more than any other song, it\u2019s what cemented Eric Clapton<\/a> well and truly as a guitar-playing god. But this isn\u2019t entirely the full story.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The truth would have it that \u2018Layla\u2019 wasn\u2019t completely all of Clapton\u2019s own conception, and there is actually a pretty audacious theft<\/a> which marred the legacy of the song quite majorly for a select group of people. One of them was Rita Coolidge, who, despite her own blazing career as a pop music machine, knew where her credit was due in places where it wasn\u2019t being received.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It all boils down to the fact that the song is listed as having been co-written by Clapton and Jim Gordon, who was Coolidge\u2019s boyfriend at the time. But according to her version of events, she and Gordon had written a song called \u2018Time (Don\u2019t Get in Our Way)\u2019 in 1969, a year before \u2018Layla\u2019 made its way into the world and redefined the face of rock music forever. <\/p>\n

Recalling how the scenario played out, Coolidge later said in her memoir Delta Lady: \u201cWe played the song for Eric Clapton in England. I remember sitting at the piano in Olympic Studios while Eric listened to me play it. Jim and I left a cassette of the demo, hoping of course that he might cover it.\u201d Afterwards, she \u201clargely forgot about it\u201d as life got in the way \u2013 namely the fact that she and Gordon broke up. But hearing \u2018Layla\u2019 down the line, her ears were burning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was infuriated,\u201d she said, then adding: \u201cWhat they had clearly done was take the song Jim and I had written, jettisoned the lyrics and tacked it to the end of Eric\u2019s song. It was almost the same.\u201d Understandably angry, Coolidge approached Clapton\u2019s management to seek a credit, but was shockingly dismissed as she was told, \u201cYou\u2019re a girl singer.\u201d It was hardly as if this was going to calm her down, let alone justify the crime. <\/p>\n

What makes this even worse is the fact that later down the line, Derek and the Dominios\u2019 late keyboardist Bobby Whitlock<\/a> confirmed Coolidge\u2019s claims, as he said in 2011: \u201cJim took the melody from Rita\u2019s song and didn\u2019t give her credit for writing it. Her boyfriend ripped her off. I knew \u2013 but nobody would listen to or believe me.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fair to say that, regardless of being thrown under the bus in terms of credit and royalties, Coolidge dodged a bullet in terms of Gordon anyway. He has been in prison since 1983 for murdering his mother at the height of a psychotic episode, so it\u2019s the epitome of a sliding doors moment in what the fates could have been.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, this absolutely does not soften the blow of what \u2018Layla\u2019 became, and what Coolidge\u2019s legacy could have transformed into. It\u2019s also yet another case of songs that could have ended in the courtroom, with Coolidge receiving her dues. But as with many classic tiffs in the music industry, sexism and misogyny reared its ugly head again. It\u2019s really quite ironic for a song dedicated to a woman of Clapton\u2019s dreams.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Matt Gibbons \/ A&M Records) Sat 6 September 2025 19:30, UK As far as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,42028,269,139150,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-403564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-eric-clapton","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-rita-coolidge","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115159365453506301","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}