yeah blind faith is also decent, but not on the level of the cream and derek stuff, imo (i was referencing the layla sessions when i cited his work with duane allman).
getting into jj cale actually made me hate clapton more. it's almost like hearing the eagles do ol' 55 and thinking, "man, i hate the fucking eagles, but this song is pretty strong." then, you hear toms waits' first album and realize it's his song and your hatred for the eagles only grows. clapton's versions of jj's stuff strips basically all that is subtle and cool from the recordings and the songs.
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this is a good topic for discussion. my all time best live albums (excluding jazz, which otherwise would take up 90% of the list) would be:
the who: live at leeds
the allman brothers band: at fillmore east
jimi: band of gypsys
dylan: live 1975 - rolling thunder revue
dylan: live 1966 - "royal albert hall"
zappa: roxy and elsewhere
zappa: fillmore east, june 1971
the band: the last waltz
james brown: love power peace
johnny cash: live at folsom prison
little feat: waiting for columbus
talking heads: stop making sense
that's in a loose order. number one almost never changes, but the middle shifts around quite a bit. if we were talking concert films, stop making sense would demolish everything else and while it still comes through fantastic on the album, for some reason it never shot up to the top for me despite how much i love the heads. weird, really.