Having stayed out of the recording studio for four years prior to making his comeback album,
461 Ocean Boulevard,
Eric Clapton returned to recording only a few months later to make its follow-up,
There's One in Every Crowd. Perhaps he hadn't had time to write or gather sufficient material to make a similarly effective album, since the result is a scattershot mixture of styles, leading off with two gospel tunes, one a reggae version of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."
Clapton and his second guitarist,
George Terry, had written a sequel to "I Shot the Sheriff," "Don't Blame Me," which
Clapton sang in his best impersonation of
Bob Marley's voice. The album's best track, naturally, was the blues cover,
Clapton's take on
Elmore James' "The Sky Is Crying." But
There's One in Every Crowd was a disappointing follow-up to
461 Ocean Boulevard, and fans let
Clapton know it: while the former album had topped the charts and gone gold, the latter didn't even make the Top Ten. ~ William Ruhlmann