{"id":628610,"date":"2026-09-18T14:12:36","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T14:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/628610\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T14:12:36","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T14:12:36","slug":"how-eric-claptons-80s-reinvention-peaked-with-behind-the-mask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/628610\/","title":{"rendered":"How Eric Clapton\u2019s \u201880s reinvention peaked with Behind The Mask"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 1980s was a period of radical reinvention and Eric Clapton<\/a> wanted a piece of it. This was the former Yardbird, the graduate of John Mayall\u2019s seminal Bluesbreakers, a dyed-in-the-wool blues purist and \u201870s rock survivor, and yet by 1985 he was playing a Roland<\/a> guitar synth on a song produced by Phil Collins<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Clapton had not given up on blues guitar<\/a> but he was becoming more open to new sounds and ideas. No one put a gun to his head and told him to play guitar synth on Never Make You Cry \u2013 this was Phil Collins producing, not Phil Spector. But Collins was having an influence. He was giving Clapton\u2019s sound a contemporary glow-up for 1985 studio album Behind The Sun \u2013 and at the time, nothing was more contemporary than the electronic keyboard<\/a> and synthesizer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Clapton was also open to all this. He was open to direction. Clapton understood what Warner Bros could do for him. So when they told him to drop the track Heaven Is One Step Away from Behind The Sun and record a trio of tracks written by Jerry Lynn Williams, he was always going to entertain that suggestion.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos FromMusicRadar<\/p>\n

Clapton always spoke kindly of Williams, the Texan songwriter who also supplied material for BB King, Bonnie Raitt and Robert Plant. He couldn’t fault the label’s logic. Nonetheless, looking back, the notes he got from the higher-uppers at Warner Bros stung.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn hindsight, it\u2019s worked out to everyone\u2019s satisfaction. I had a lot of resentment at the time, and I still harbour a little bit,\u201d Clapton told Guitar World<\/a> in 1988. \u201c[But] they have the best distribution and best promotion in the world, so if I want to get my music out, and it\u2019s not too much of a hardship to play ball with them, I\u2019m quite happy to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

When it was time to record a follow-up to Behind The Sun, Clapton had found a new band, with Collins on drums and Nathan East on bass guitar<\/a>, he had a formidable rhythm section. Greg Phillinganes was hired to play keys.<\/p>\n

Eric Clapton – It’s In The Way That You Use It | The Color of Money OST [1986] – 1080p – YouTube
\n\"Eric<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Clapton\u2019s next record would be titled August. Martin Scorsese can take some credit for the opening track, It\u2019s In The Way That You Use It. He got Clapton and Robbie Robertson<\/a> to co-write it for The Color Of Money soundtrack, where it made its debut.<\/p>\n

Want all the hottest music and gear news, reviews, deals, features and more, direct to your inbox? Sign up here. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s In The Way That You Use It was an outlier on August. Clapton and longstanding collaborator Tom Dowd produced it, and it was recorded with a different cast of players. The remaining tracks would fall under Collins\u2019 auspices, and it would present us with a very different side to Slowhand.<\/p>\n

Here his Fender Stratocaster<\/a> waded through the splash of gated reverbs and expensive compression, and all the various studio tricks that Collins had perfected. Clapton had new toys of his own. He was playing prototypes of his signature Strat that would debut at NAMM 1987. It had the Lace Sensor pickups and the TBX mid-boost circuit. There was one in Pewter, as seen on the cover of the single It\u2019s In The Way That You Use It, and one in Torino Red.<\/p>\n

August had its box-office collaboration. Tina Turner<\/a> guested on Tearing Us Apart, a bombastic power-soul workout that spoke to Clapton\u2019s marital problems. It also had some serious session talent on horns, with jazz session ace Michael Brecker on saxophone and Randy Brecker on trumpet.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

Collins gets the credit for all this futurism and yet August’s most out-there moment takes us back to the burgeoning electronic music scene of late \u201870s Tokyo: if the blues had Robert Johnson then synth-pop and techno had Ryuichi Sakamoto of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO).<\/p>\n

Remarkably, Clapton would bring these worlds together, via Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson.<\/p>\n

Behind The Mask (SEIKO Quartz CM Version) \/ Yellow Magic Orchestra – YouTube
\n\"Behind<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Sakamoto originally wrote Behind The Mask for a Seiko TV commercial but that synth motif was too good waste on selling watches. YMO commissioned British lyricist Chris Mosdell to write English lyrics for it and rerecorded it for their 1979 sophomore album Solid State Survivor. The sounds YMO were putting together were revolutionary, siring a whole new scene \u2013 and a new era of experimentation.<\/p>\n

I go to Michael\u2019s house and that\u2019s when we got our own private world premiere of Billie Jean, Beat It, and Startin\u2019 Somethin\u2019<\/p>\n

Greg Phillinganes<\/p>\n

Quincy Jones<\/a> was the kind of man who would be interested in such developments. On a trip to Japan, he met with Kuni Murai, the president of YMO’s label, Alfa Records, who suggested Behind The Mask might be a good fit for Michael Jackson.<\/p>\n

Jackson was interested. He was writing for Thriller, and Behind The Mask captured his imagination \u2013 only the arrangement needed punching up. Jackson rewrote the lyrics, too. Mosdell’s lyrics were inspired by WB Yeats and a traditional Japanese wooden Noh mask, and how that related to society. Jackson had something more intimate in mind and rewrote Behind The Mask as a love song.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Guy Pratt and Gary Kemp on their Rockonteurs<\/a> podcast, Phillinganes \u2013 who would play on Thriller \u2013 says he\u2019ll never forget when he first heard Behind The Mask.<\/p>\n

Greg Phillinganes joins the Rockonteurs podcast – YouTube
\n\"Greg<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cFor some strange reason \u2013 I have no idea why but I am so thankful he did \u2013 Quincy had me join him and [songwriter] Rod Temperton to go to Michael\u2019s house to listen to demos,\u201d recalls Phillinganes. \u201cI go to Michael\u2019s house and that\u2019s when we got our own private world premiere of Billie Jean, Beat It, and [Wanna Be] Startin\u2019 Somethin\u2019 \u2013 we heard those demos, and then we heard several other ones, including what he added to Ryuichi\u2019s track. He added the melody and the lyrics. The first time I heard it was at Michael\u2019s house. [sings] \u2018Who do you love?\u2019 He did all that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without hearing the music I cannot judge if 100 per cent of writer\u2019s share is fair or not, so we refused it<\/p>\n

Ryuichi Sakamoto<\/p>\n

It was to no avail. Jackson\u2019s management reached out to YMO\u2019s management and to Mosdell to thrash out a deal. The song\u2019s copyright issues were a sticking point. That Jackson had rewritten the song, embellishing not only the lyrics but the music, too, meant that both Mosdell and Sakomoto\u2019s parties would need to be satisfied.<\/p>\n

Sakamoto recalls it being a negotiation made tougher by the fact he hadn\u2019t heard the revised version.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat track was going to be on the Thriller album, so we got a letter from Michael\u2019s office and it said, \u2018We covered your song Behind The Mask and we\u2019re going to put it on the new album and we need 100 per cent of the writer\u2019s share,\u2019\u201d said Sakamoto during a Red Bull Music Academy Lecture<\/a>. \u201cWe wanted to listen to what the music was like. Without hearing the music I cannot judge if 100 per cent of writer\u2019s share is fair or not, so we refused it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Yellow\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Fin Costello\/Redferns)<\/p>\n

Sakamoto sounded a note of regret that at this. After all, Thriller did go onto enjoy some commercial success. An agreement over royalties might have been life-changing. \u201cIf we said \u2018yes,\u2019 probably I would have ten different houses all over the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

I had great, high hopes for it, because I thought, \u2018This is a slam dunk.\u2019 First of all, it\u2019s co-written by Michael Jackson. It\u2019s got funk. It\u2019s got electronica. It\u2019s got pop. It\u2019s everything!<\/p>\n

Jackson had demoed Behind The Mask but that is as far as he was going to take it. Phillinganes loved the song. He was working on his second solo album, Pulse, and knowing that there was some doubt over including Behind The Mask on Thriller, he asked Jackson if he could use it instead. \u201cHe went, \u2018Yeah, okay.\u2019 He sent it to me, and I recreated that, and put it on my record,\u201d said Phillinganes.<\/p>\n

Behind The Mask was duly released on Pulse, then as a single the following year. Phillinganes thought this was going to be the track that made him a star. It was an obvious choice for a single.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had great, high hopes for it, because I thought, \u2018This is a slam dunk.\u2019 First of all, it\u2019s co-written by Michael Jackson. It\u2019s got all the elements. It\u2019s got funk. It\u2019s got electronica. It\u2019s got pop. It\u2019s everything!\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the complete package, right? So I basically can\u2019t lose. Well, I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phillinganes\u2019 version of Behind The Mask made a dent in the dance and R&B\/hip-hop charts but little else. He wasn\u2019t all that disappointed, though. He got to make a video for it, and for a short while it was on MTV, and there was just enough juice behind it for Phillinganes to perform it on American Bandstand with Dick Clark \u2013 a bucket-list item that Phillinganes could now tick off.<\/p>\n

1984 Greg Phillinganes :: Behind the Mask @ 432 Hz – YouTube
\n\"1984<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

This is where Clapton enters the song\u2019s story. Some accounts have Phillinganes presenting Clapton with the track, but he remembers it differently. Clapton had liked what Phillinganes\u2019 did with Michael Jackson\u2019s arrangement of this seminal Japanese synth-pop classic. It was his idea. And Phillinganes was more than happy with that. \u201cI thought, \u2018Oh, this is cool.\u2019 It was kind of a double full-circle moment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The response from critics and fans was mixed. Not everyone appreciated what Clapton was going for on August. Those who looked upon Clapton as this mythical cultural sherpa guiding them through the history of blues were aghast. This was not Elmore James or Robert Johnson.<\/p>\n

But for Clapton, Behind The Mask was transformative. He had spent much of the \u201870s in retreat, his addiction to heroin and alcohol diminishing him to the point of nullification, as though he wanted to erase himself. As the \u201880s dawned, Clapton seemed defeated, until rehab and the release of 1983’s Money And Cigarettes got him back on his feet.<\/p>\n

Phil Collins \/ Eric Clapton \/ All Star Band – Behind The Mask (The Prince’s Trust Rock Gala 1987) – YouTube
\n\"Phil<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Even if he had yet to outrun his demons by the time August was released, Clapton was nonetheless confronting them. He would enter rehab for the final time in \u201987.<\/p>\n

He was looking better, too. A good tailor helped. The Clapton of the \u201880s was a man of sharp suits, and Phillinganes was more than happy to be Crockett to Clapton\u2019s Tubbs: \u201cI wore them well, baby! [Laughs] Because Eric didn\u2019t play around, man. He was Versace and Armani, and we followed suit, baby. We came out like gangsters!\u201d<\/p>\n

Behind The Mask would enjoy a second life. Ryuichi Sakamoto would rerecord it and release it in 1987, and Michael Jackson’s version would eventually see the light of day when his 1982 recording was bundled with the 2010 posthumous compilation Michael. The Human League covered it in 1993. Orbital remixed it.<\/p>\n

Michael Jackson – Behind the Mask (Official Video) – YouTube
\n\"Michael<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Clapton addressed August’s critics in an interview with Rolling Stone<\/a>. The complaints focused on Collins’ contribution, that he was the album’s real auteur. And it’s true to an extent. Collins\u2019 input is all over the record; the studio sheen is all his, and also co-wrote Hold On. But that, argued Clapton, was what collaboration is all about.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like to compete musically. If you put me onstage with another guitar player and he starts showing off, I won\u2019t compete. I\u2019ll let him go,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen it\u2019s my turn, I\u2019ll play what I\u2019m going to play anyway. That\u2019s how it is in the studio. At the end of the day, people will say that Behind The Sun and August are really Phil Collins records. Fine, if that\u2019s all they can hear, they\u2019re not listening properly.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were plenty of people who were listening properly. If Clapton had lost some of the Bluesbreakers superfans along the way, there was a new generation of players who were just discovering him through records like August \u2013 and especially its successor, Journeyman, which Phillinganes described as \u201cthe pinnacle\u201d of Clapton\u2019s renaissance era. John Mayer<\/a> would surely agree to that.<\/p>\n

But more importantly, Clapton had rediscovered himself. It took Behind The Mask to get his game face back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 1980s was a period of radical reinvention and Eric Clapton wanted a piece of it. This was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-628610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}