Much of Eric Clapton's haunting new album is informed by the smooth R&B textures of his 1996 collaboration with Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, "Change the World." Yet Pilgrim is the work of someone who has learned in the hardest way imaginable that although he cannot change the world, he might be able to change himself. On Pilgrim
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we encounter a Clapton who is heartbroken but artistically reinvigorated, a guitar hero who knows too well that despite that flattering "Clapton Is God" graffiti of yore, he is entirely human.
Pilgrim is easily Clapton's most ambitious, introspective piece of work since his days with the legendary, lacerating Derek and the Dominos. Paradoxically both slickly polished and surprisingly intimate, the album is a loosely themed soul-song cycle in the tradition of Marvin Gaye. Pilgrim is full of big queries – "How did I get here?/What have I done?" Clapton sings in the opening "My Father's Eyes," a powerful meditation that alludes to both the father Clapton never knew and the son who so tragically died in 1991. From the song titles ("River of Tears," "Broken Hearted," "Going Down Slow," "Sick and Tired") on down, Pilgrim is the musical journal of an artist who has wandered into some dark places and come back the wiser for his troubles.
Most important, Pilgrim offers the bracing sound of Clapton fully engaged by the songwriting process in a way he's rarely been. Too often he's been happy to fill up his albums with suitable material from assorted blues greats such as J.J. Cale and Jerry Lynn Williams – at certain times in his long career, Clapton has seemed so retiring as to be a sort of lead special guest on some of his own star-studded records. Pilgrim finds Clapton writing or co-writing every song except "Born in Time," an overlooked Bob Dylan tune, and "Going Down Slow," a classic blues written by St. Louis Jimmy. The album is panoramic enough to include a little high-class mood music, such as the liltingly sexy "Needs His Woman" (featuring Tony Rich on backing vocals) and "You Were There," a vaguely "Wonderful Tonight"-like mash note that sounds like a love song but is said to be a tip of the hat to Clapton's longtime manager, Roger Forrester.
Clapton's songwriting collaborator and co-producer here is Simon Climie; the pair also worked together on 1997's Retail Therapy, an uneven side project (recorded under the moniker T.D.F.) that featured heavy sampling and other modern techniques. But Retail Therapy and Clapton's recent filmscoring work have apparently paid dividends on Pilgrim. The album is an intriguing musical tableau that incorporates old-school R&B, orchestral maneuvers and dashes of (gulp!) electronica. There's acoustic and electric guitar, drums both real (by Steve Gadd) and programmed (by Paul Waller and Climie), and a plentiful and often inventive use of strings by the London Session Orchestra. Not everything
