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player ready...Eric Clapton
“One More Car, One More Rider” (Reprise)
With this double live album, Eric Clapton completes his 35-year transition from fiery blues-guitar god to adult-contemporary mush-mouth. “One More Car” opens promisingly, with a gentle version of Big Bill Broonzy’s standard “Key to the Highway,” but it immediately downshifts to “Reptile,” a six-minute smooth-jazz instrumental that has no resemblance whatsoever to its slithering title. Unfortunately, “Reptile” sets the tone for Disc One, on which Clapton turns “Bell Bottom Blues,” a stomping, pleading Derek and the Dominos heartbreaker, into a rote blues-rock-nostalgia exercise. Classic rock-hits Disc Two is somewhat livelier, as Clapton connects with the guitar solo in Muddy Waters’ “Hoochie Coochie Man.” But overall the CD is a portrait of an artist in his blandest phase.