Eric Clapton

Crossroads Guitar Festival 2007 (Rhino)

Stars already aligned over 4½ highlight-studded hours on two discs, Blind Faith’s melancholic “Can’t Find My Way Home” nearly eclipses everything that’s come before it on a July Saturday in Chicago. Not only is the reunion of first supergroupers Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton chemistry incarnate – ditto on “Presence of the Lord” and chuggernaut “Had to Cry Today” – in Slowhand‘s backing guitarists Doyle Bramhall II and Derek Truck’s six-stringing along, classic meets contemporary across the generational divide. (Steve Jordan’s feral drums belong to Stax, Count Basie, and Keith Richards all in one.) Truck’s cover of Derek & the Dominos’ “Anyday” and his backing Johnny Winter on Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited” double the torch passing. Emcee Bill Murray, Sonny Landreth, Hubert Sumlin, Robert Cray’s elegant “Poor Johnny,” Jeff Beck, Jimmie Vaughan, Willie Nelson’s acoustic schooling on “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” and Robbie Robertson match DVD editor William Bullen’s visual acuity.

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This article appears in December 21 • 2007.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.