From the Cradle is a blues cover album by Eric Clapton. Released on 13 September 1994 on Reprise Records, the album was Eric Clapton’s long awaited follow-up to his massively-successful live album, Unplugged.
Per the liner notes, “This is a live recording with no overdubs or edits except for dobro overdub on ‘How Long Blues’ and drum overdub on ‘Motherless Child’.”
From the Cradle has received a wide-range of reviews by critics. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic feels that the album is almost perfect and that the only thing bad about the album is Clapton’s singing, which merely imitates the original recordings and sometimes can’t pull it off.
Tom Sinclair of Entertainment Weekly felt that the recordings were “flawless” but were rather boring, especially when compared to the exitement of Cream’s live version of “Spoonful”.
The Music Box’s John Metzger felt that Clapton’s appearance on Saturday Night Live to promote the album was more powerful than From the Cradle and that the album had nothing that hadn’t been done before on it.
Robert Christgau compared Eric Clapton’s work on the album to Son Seals and Otis Rush, saying that Clapton played better than the former, but sang worse than the later and felt that “Motherless Child” and “Blues Before Sunrise” were stand-out tracks on the album
(Source: Spotify)
