(Credits: Far Out / Showtime Documentary Films)
Sun 16 November 2025 12:00, UK
Bob Marley wrote the song ‘I Shot The Sheriff’ in 1973, and while the narrative surrounding the song was pretty clear, people were still left confused about what the track was actually about.
There was a clear story there, where the singer had shot the Sheriff, but had been accused of shooting the Deputy. People were well on board with this idea, but there was a question about whether or not there was a hidden message beyond the track. If you were to claw at one, you could say that the miscarriage of justice was a representation of how Bob Marley always felt. He grew up in Trenchtown and has said previously that he always felt as though the police were out to get him.
“Regardless where we is, is still Trenchtown,” said Marley when talking about his upbringing, “So what we really want is a change, make everybody live nice, not make everybody live ghetto kind of life.”
Regardless of the song’s meaning, one thing is for sure: people loved it. Listeners managed to establish a real connection with Bob Marley’s voice, and the song did incredibly well as a result. There were also a lot of people who decided to cover the song given its positive reception. One of these artists who covered the track was Eric Clapton, as his band convinced him that they should all perform it.
Clapton carved out his legacy as an inventive guitarist, known for fusing blues, rock, and a splash of jazz into something entirely fresh. When Ian Anderson was asked which band really got the ball rolling for prog rock, he pointed to Cream – and rightly so. Their knack for weaving different genres into their sound pushed rock into new territory, and much of that came down to Clapton’s unmistakable guitar work.
As such, thanks to Clapton’s versatility, you would think he could put his own spin on the Marley classic relatively easily; however, that wasn’t the case. He wasn’t happy with the way his cover came out, as he knew how it should have sounded, and didn’t believe he was getting it right.
“Ska, bluebeat, and reggae were familiar mediums to me,” wrote Clapton in his autobiography. “I had grown up hearing them in the clubs and on the radio because of England’s growing communities of West Indians, but it was quite new to the Americans, and they weren’t as finicky as I was about the way it should be played. Not that I knew myself how to play it, I just knew we weren’t doing it right.”
However, despite Eric Clapton’s reservations, the song went to number one in the charts, giving the guitar player his only chart topping hit. While Clapton might not have been sure he was nailing the style, the elements that made up the song were incredibly impressive. One of these elements was the female backing vocal singer, who managed to add a sweet-sounding layer to the track. Her voice caused a lot of people to wonder who was singing. So, who was it?
So, who sings female backing vocals on ‘I Shot The Sheriff’
The female backing singer on the track was Yvonne Elliman, who worked a great deal with Clapton providing vocals. She eventually parted ways with him as her solo career took off with the track ‘If I Can’t Have You’. She really helped make this song what it is, and it was well received by the public, but more importantly, Bob Marley loved it.
When Eric Clapton bumped into Marley later down the line, he asked if there was a hidden meaning behind the song, but he was still none the wiser. “I tried to ask him what the song was all about, but couldn’t understand much of his reply,” he said, “I was just relieved that he liked what we had done.”
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