Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs Turns 50

This November sees the release of 50th Anniversary edition of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, available as a 4LP vinyl box set via UMe/Polydor. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the 1970 double album, the original has been given the ‘Half-Speed Mastered’ treatment by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios and is completed with a certificate of authentication.

The 50th anniversary 4LP box set, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, is available exclusively through uDiscover and Sound of Vinyl.

Layla is often regarded as Eric Clapton’s greatest musical achievement. The album is notably known for its title track, an evergreen rock classic, which had top ten single chart success in the U.K. and features the dual wailing guitars of Clapton and Duane Allman. Alongside this are a further 2LPs of bonus material some of which has not previously been released on vinyl. All the bonus material across all of LP3 and LP4 is mastered normally (so is not half-speed mastered). The LP set also includes a 12×12 book of sleeve notes taken from the 40th-Anniversary Edition.

In 1970, following the break-up of Blind Faith and his departure from Delaney & Bonnie, Derek & The Dominos initially formed in the spring of that year. The group comprised Eric Clapton on guitar and vocals alongside three other former members of Delaney & Bonnie & Friends: Bobby Whitlock on keyboards, Carl Radle on bass and Jim Gordon on drums. Derek & The Dominos played their first concert at London’s Lyceum Ballroom on June 14, 1970 as part of a U.K. summer tour. During late August to early October they recorded Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, with the Allman Brothers’ guitarist Duane Allman sitting in, before returning to a tour of the U.K. and the U.S. until the end of the year. Shortly thereafter the group disbanded but their short time together offered up one of the rock canon’s most enduring albums of all time.

From his early days as a guitar icon to a songwriter of great sensitivity, as well as an interpreter of everything from blues and jazz to rock and country music, Eric Clapton needs little by way of an introduction. As a renowned solo artist in his own right as well as a member of the Yardbirds, Cream and Derek and the Dominos, he is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame and is one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time. He has been the recipient of 17 Grammy® Awards, 1 Brit Award and 1 Bafta.

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