In 1985 Bobby came to L.A. and told his manager he wanted to co write songs with someone and could he please have the billboard chart for that week.  I think Stevie Wonder had the number one song so he called him but did not get through.  I had the number two song, You Belong To The City, that I had co-written with Glenn Frey.  Bobby called me.  I had no idea who he was, but he was only a few blocks away so I said come on over. 
I can't think of anyone else in the world that would have found a co-writer in that bold way.
When he got to my house we smoked a joint and sat around the kitchen table.  We wrote a song called Someone That You Use To Know.  We thought it was great and Bobby said "George Jones should do this."  Of course every songwriter thinks the greatest country singer of all should do the song they just wrote.
Years later George Jones recorded the song.

In the years we worked together Bobby told me the most amazing stories.  He told me things he was going to do.  He said he would put on a benefit concert for Ricky Nelson who was having financial problems and I would play.  He said Carl Wilson, Graham Nash, John Sebastion, Rick Danko and Chris Hillman would play.
About two months later the concert happened at the Spreckles theatre just as he said it would.

After a while I realized that every story he told me was true and everything he said he would make happen happened.
We worked together in Hollywood and I went to his wedding in Mississippi.  He took me way back in the woods to a small deserted church where he first started playing hammond B3.
We wrote a lot of songs together.

His autobiography is the best music biography I have read.
His playing and singing were like no one else, just amazing.
I was so lucky to know him.

Jack Tempchin
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Just a word on Clapton.  He is one of the most guileless people I have ever met. He was never about money or credit. Derek and the Dominoes was named that because he wanted to be out of the spotlight.

As you know, current producer agreements provide for producers to get their share of Sound Exchange royalties. Of course, back in the day, this was not anticipated and the way the laws read, you need a letter of direction from the artist in order to get Sound Exchange royalties.

I have, of course, requested these letters from all the artists I worked with as a producer. Most of them just referred to their lawyers (of course). None of them, not Dionne Warwick, Kenny Rogers, Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, the Bee Gees, etc. agreed to give me any Sound Exchange royalties. The one exception was Eric. He was, “Sure, you deserve them.”

—albhy galuten
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Bobby Whitlock 

First met him on the Layla Sessions with Duane. Tom Dowd had brought Eric and band members to an ABB concert in Miami and next thing we knew everyone was playing together back at Criteria Studios.  Duane actually came very close to ditching the ABB and accepting an offer from Eric to join him. If he had there would not have been the ABB  Live at Fillmore East album. Yikes!  Bobby later did two albums for Capricorn. He was a kind, gentle and very talented man. RIP. 

Willie Perkins
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Hi Bob,

Lovely thoughts on the great Bobby Whitlock. In my opinion, the performance that really illustrates Bobby's talent is his performance of Bell Bottom Blues with Eric Clapton on Jools Holland. Whitlock has said that it was the experience of seeing Clapton exhibit such serenity and comfort in his own skin at those sessions that motivated him to get clean. In the performance, Whitlock handles the lead vocals and inhabits the song in a profound way with his soulfully overwrought vocals making an ideal match for the lovelorn despondency described by the lyrics. This performance illustrates Whitlock's unique gifts as a performer and his ability to make songs his own - even love laments written by former collaborators about other musicians' wives :). 

https://youtu.be/q_FTFqDZZEk?si=Faj9_x-iyKwzbIJl

Thanks for all of the insightful and thought-provoking messages, Bob.

Best,
Christopher Cwynar 

P. S. Your point about Clapton doing better with strong collaborators is spot-on. Very incisive observation. 
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Hi there Bob,

I'm a "civilian" non industry insider-"just" a music fan who had met Bobby several times. Like many, the Layla LP was the first time I encountered Bobby's name and likeness.  Layla would be the only constant in my evolving Desert Island collection. Including discs bought as gifts for others or Special Editions (Box Sets) I've bought Layla at least 8 times. Bobby and Coco made Austin their home around 2006 and later in the 2010s they had a semi regular gig on Saturday afternoons at a smallish club with a great sounding room in Austin where I'm from.  I wish I'd seen Bobby and Coco more but I saw them about a dozen times over a couple of years. Always wonderful performances and somewhere around my third visit, I started arriving early and when the need arose I'd approach Bobby and offer to assist loading in amps, cases etc. So that was my introduction to Bobby and afterwards when there was time and the club was still empty we'd sometimes sit at a table and drink carbonated water with lemon or lime and chat. Bobby was a storyteller extraordinaire. It's hard not to be slack jawed when after several sessions and you know each other a bit and he's opening up and telling you about the state of the fireplace in the kitchen (the only source of heat for a while) at George Harrison's Friar Park estate when the place was still under restoration. Bobby was dating Patti Boyd's sister Jenny at the time. As a total Beatles and Clapton fan, it was fascinating to share a table with a man who could count Eric Clapton and George Harrison as roommates. We shared a love for Italian cars and tales of humorous hijinks and Stax Records. I last sat with him in either 2022 or 2023 at an Art Gallery exhibit of his paintings and later at his home in Ozona Texas (pop 2500) where he'd bought a 6000 sq foot 1920s mansion originally built by a "King of the Mohair Ranchers." I promised to gift him a "spare Hammond organ amp" that I was using as a shelf decoration but I never made it out that way again.  He was a wonderful human; funny, gregarious, kind and deeply in love with his wife. They were a refreshingly happy couple. I feel for Coco-she is quite the home decorator and loved making a house a home for the two of them.   Bobby gifted me a 3/4 sleeve Dominos Tee shirt I happened to wear a couple of weeks ago. We still have the tunes.  We still have the tunes

Steve Wuertz Austin. Texas
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Really nice remembrance of the great Robert S. Whitlock, consummate singer /musician and absolutely one of the most underrated supporting players of the entire classic rock period.  

I had the amazing good fortune as 19 year old undergraduate at Syracuse University to sit front row for the infamous Derek and the Dominos show at the Onondaga County War Memorial show on 12/2/1970. Infamous because it was one of only two Dominos concerts (the other being a show in Florida two days previous) at which Duane Allman appeared with the band…& the opening act was a last minute booking: the unannounced and virtually unknown Elton John. 

The War Memorial was a classic post WW 2 sports arena which held almost 10,000 people and which practically all major rock tours of the era played. But incredibly for this show there were only about 800 people in attendance & I know that for a fact because I sold tix on campus to most War Memorial shows and I had very few takers for this one because of several key factors.
 
First, this Dominos tour was hastily and haphazardly booked and this show was still several weeks or more BEFORE the Layla collection was even released so not many people even knew who Derek and the Dominos were. Second, Elton John had only played a few mostly West Coast US shows previous to this and I believe that the only music he had released here at that time was the Empty Sky UK import album. Third, very typically for Syracuse in December there were ominous reports of a big snowstorm on the way so there were very light “walk up”ticket sales. And fourth, absolutely nobody had any idea that Duane would be joining the band that night.

Not surprisingly show was no less than spectacular. 

Elton was pure artistry and energy and Eric and the Dominos were otherworldly. 

To see the two legendary guitarists playing both twin leads and counterpoints all night was great enough; but Whitlock and the legendary Carl Radle/Jim Gordon rhythm section were equally amazing. The band was just a machine. 

The show was and is one of the very, very best of hundreds I’ve seen over the course of many decades in the industry. 

And I’ll never forget the revelation that Bobby Whitlock was as a co-lead singer and B3 player.

He was icing on the proverbial cake. 

A truly unforgettable live music experience. 

For any other Whitlock fans out there, I urge them to go to YouTube and check out the “at home” interview series Bobby recorded over the past few years with his wife Coco. 

The stories he tells- from Clapton and the Dominos to George Harrison to Delaney and Bonnie to Ahmet Ertegun and Tom Dowd-are remarkable vignettes of rock history, and Whitlock is a natural raconteur. 

RIP Bobby Whitlock - you were an all time great artist and made huge and essential contributions to some of the very best music of the entire classic rock era. 

Stephen Dessau
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Wonderful piece on Whitlock. 
Writing to add Tommy Sims as a co-writer on “Change The World”. 
Tommy took a rough song idea I had in ‘97 and finished it, gloriously. 

Clapton has wisely surrounded himself with outer worldly talent from the start. Rest in power, Bobby Whitlock. 

DAMON JOHNSON
guitarist in Lynyrd Skynyrd 
founder of Brother Cane 


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