(Credits: Far Out / Matt Gibbons / A&M Records)
Sat 6 September 2025 19:30, UK
As far as huge hits go, there’s none more colossal than ‘Layla’ by Derek and the Dominos. Perhaps more than any other song, it’s what cemented Eric Clapton well and truly as a guitar-playing god. But this isn’t entirely the full story.
The truth would have it that ‘Layla’ wasn’t completely all of Clapton’s own conception, and there is actually a pretty audacious theft which marred the legacy of the song quite majorly for a select group of people. One of them was Rita Coolidge, who, despite her own blazing career as a pop music machine, knew where her credit was due in places where it wasn’t being received.
It all boils down to the fact that the song is listed as having been co-written by Clapton and Jim Gordon, who was Coolidge’s boyfriend at the time. But according to her version of events, she and Gordon had written a song called ‘Time (Don’t Get in Our Way)’ in 1969, a year before ‘Layla’ made its way into the world and redefined the face of rock music forever.
Recalling how the scenario played out, Coolidge later said in her memoir Delta Lady: “We played the song for Eric Clapton in England. I remember sitting at the piano in Olympic Studios while Eric listened to me play it. Jim and I left a cassette of the demo, hoping of course that he might cover it.” Afterwards, she “largely forgot about it” as life got in the way – namely the fact that she and Gordon broke up. But hearing ‘Layla’ down the line, her ears were burning.
“I was infuriated,” she said, then adding: “What they had clearly done was take the song Jim and I had written, jettisoned the lyrics and tacked it to the end of Eric’s song. It was almost the same.” Understandably angry, Coolidge approached Clapton’s management to seek a credit, but was shockingly dismissed as she was told, “You’re a girl singer.” It was hardly as if this was going to calm her down, let alone justify the crime.
What makes this even worse is the fact that later down the line, Derek and the Dominios’ late keyboardist Bobby Whitlock confirmed Coolidge’s claims, as he said in 2011: “Jim took the melody from Rita’s song and didn’t give her credit for writing it. Her boyfriend ripped her off. I knew – but nobody would listen to or believe me.”
It’s fair to say that, regardless of being thrown under the bus in terms of credit and royalties, Coolidge dodged a bullet in terms of Gordon anyway. He has been in prison since 1983 for murdering his mother at the height of a psychotic episode, so it’s the epitome of a sliding doors moment in what the fates could have been.
However, this absolutely does not soften the blow of what ‘Layla’ became, and what Coolidge’s legacy could have transformed into. It’s also yet another case of songs that could have ended in the courtroom, with Coolidge receiving her dues. But as with many classic tiffs in the music industry, sexism and misogyny reared its ugly head again. It’s really quite ironic for a song dedicated to a woman of Clapton’s dreams.
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