Complete List Of Derek And The Dominos Band Members

Derek and the Dominos emerged from the vibrant musical crossroads of 1970 as a supergroup forged by necessity rather than design. The band was formed in the spring of 1970 by singer-guitarist Eric Clapton, keyboardist-singer Bobby Whitlock, bassist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon, with all four members having previously played together in Delaney & Bonnie and Friends. The band’s only full-length release, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, was produced by Tom Dowd, and also featured extensive contributions on lead and slide guitar from Duane Allman. Although released in 1970 it was not until March 1972 that the album’s single “Layla” made the top ten in both the United States and the United Kingdom, with the album going on to earn critical acclaim.

The band was active for approximately one year from 1970-71, recording one studio album and performing numerous concerts before dissolving without completing their second album. Despite their brief existence, Derek and the Dominos gained in stature following Allman’s death in 1971, with their live album Derek and the Dominos in Concert becoming a strong seller when released in January 1973. The group achieved lasting recognition through their sole studio release, which became a defining achievement in rock history and showcased some of the most powerful guitar interplay ever recorded between Clapton and guest musician Duane Allman.

Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton formed Derek and the Dominos after his brief tenure with Blind Faith and his involvement with Delaney & Bonnie and Friends. As the band’s leader, guitarist, vocalist, and primary songwriter, Clapton brought his established reputation from The Yardbirds, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, and Cream to this new venture. He was looking for a musical context into which he could fit, and his fellow Dominos seemed to provide it, allowing him to step away from the “Clapton is God” persona that had become burdensome.

Most of the material on Layla, including the title track, was inspired by Clapton’s unrequited love for Pattie Boyd, who was married to his friend George Harrison. Following the band’s dissolution in 1971, Clapton retreated from music for three years, battling heroin addiction. His subsequent solo career included massive hits like “I Shot the Sheriff,” albums like “Slowhand,” and later achievements including his MTV Unplugged performance and “Tears in Heaven.” Carl Radle was instrumental in facilitating Clapton’s return to recording and touring in 1974, when Radle furnished him with tapes of musicians he had been working with, leading to the 461 Ocean Boulevard album.

Bobby Whitlock

Robert Stanley Whitlock was born March 18, 1948, and began his musical career with Memphis soul acts such as Sam & Dave and Booker T. & the M.G.’s before joining Delaney & Bonnie and Friends in 1968. He became the first white artist ever to sign a contract with Stax Records when he was just 16. As co-founder of Derek & the Dominos with Eric Clapton, Whitlock had a hand in writing seven of the nine original songs on Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, including favorites like “Bell Bottom Blues” and “Keep On Growing.”

Clapton found in Whitlock “an accomplished and sympathetic songwriting partner and back-up vocalist,” with their vocal concept approaching singing like Sam and Dave did, trading lines and singing together. Beyond his Dominos work, Whitlock contributed keyboards and vocals to George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass and worked on Clapton’s debut solo album. He also made an uncredited contribution to the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St. album in 1972.

After the band’s dissolution, Whitlock recorded solo albums in the 1970s including Bobby Whitlock and Raw Velvet. Whitlock and Clapton did not work together again until 2000, when they performed on Jools Holland’s BBC show Later. In 2024, Whitlock was inducted into the Beale Street Walk of Fame in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.

Carl Radle

Carl Dean Radle was born June 18, 1942, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and picked up many instruments as a teen including the clarinet, piano and guitar before sticking with the bass guitar at age fifteen. In the early 1960s, Radle had become friends with other Tulsa musicians including David Gates (later of Bread), Leon Russell and JJ Cale. His big break came in the mid-1960s as the bass player in Gary Lewis & the Playboys, and after Gary Lewis was drafted in 1967, Radle started working as a session musician.

Radle’s association with Clapton brought him his greatest renown, first through Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, then Derek and the Dominos. Radle was best known for his long association with Eric Clapton, starting in 1969 and continuing through Derek and the Dominos and then Clapton’s solo career until 1979. His bass lines were often simple and repetitive, but always with the purpose of supporting the song, balancing big-time rock credits among stints with Gary Lewis & the Playboys, J.J. Cale, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, Sergio Mendes, Dr. John, and King Curtis. He worked on all of Clapton’s solo projects from 1970 until 1979 and was a member of Clapton’s touring band from 1974 to 1979, when Clapton fired all of his backing musicians. Sadly, Radle passed away on May 30, 1980, succumbing to the effects of alcohol and narcotics at the age of 37, from organ failure caused by kidney disease. He was posthumously inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2006.

Jim Gordon

James Beck Gordon was born July 14, 1945, and began his professional career at age 17, backing the Everly Brothers after passing up a music scholarship to UCLA. Gordon became one of the most sought-after recording session drummers in Los Angeles as a member of The Wrecking Crew, playing on hundreds of hits in the 1960s and ’70s including Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys. In 1969 and 1970 Gordon toured as part of the backing band for Delaney & Bonnie, which included Eric Clapton, and subsequently joined Derek and the Dominos. Gordon played drums on Derek and the Dominos’ 1970 double album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs and is credited with contributing the elegiac piano coda for the title track “Layla,” which he co-wrote with Clapton. However, in later years, Bobby Whitlock claimed that the coda was not written by Gordon, alleging that Gordon took the piano melody from his ex-girlfriend Rita Coolidge.

After Derek and the Dominos dissolved, Gordon continued as a sought-after session musician, working with Steely Dan, Alice Cooper, Frank Zappa, and many others. Gordon developed schizophrenia and began to hear voices which compelled him to starve himself and prevented him from sleeping, relaxing or playing drums, though his physicians misdiagnosed the problems and treated him for alcohol abuse instead. In June 1983, in a psychotic episode associated with undiagnosed schizophrenia, Gordon murdered his mother and was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison. Gordon died in prison on March 13, 2023, at the age of 77 at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, California.

Duane Allman

Howard Duane Allman was born November 20, 1946, and was the founder and original leader of the Allman Brothers Band, for which he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. A sought-after session musician both before and during his tenure with the Allman Brothers Band, Duane Allman performed with King Curtis, Aretha Franklin, Herbie Mann, Wilson Pickett, and Boz Scaggs. While recording at Criteria Studios in Miami, producer Tom Dowd took the Dominos to an Allman Brothers concert, where Clapton first heard Duane Allman play in person, and after Clapton invited the whole band back to Criteria that night, he and Allman formed an instant bond that provided the catalyst for the Layla album.

Over ten recording dates, Allman contributed to most of the tracks on the album, in between his commitments to the Allman Brothers Band, with only three songs recorded without his participation. Clapton described Allman as “the musical brother that I never had, but wished I did,” and invited him to become a member of Derek and the Dominos, but Allman demurred, choosing to remain loyal to his own band. Allman never toured with Derek and the Dominos, but he did make at least two appearances with them, on December 1, 1970, at the Curtis Hixon Hall in Tampa, and on the following day at Onondaga County War Memorial in Syracuse, New York. On October 29, 1971, Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident in Macon, Georgia, at the age of 24. In 2003, he was ranked number 2 in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, second only to Jimi Hendrix.

Dave Mason

David Thomas Mason was born May 10, 1946, and came to prominence in 1967 as a founding member of the rock band Traffic, where he wrote and sang lead vocals on two of the band’s most famous songs, “Hole in My Shoe” and “Feelin’ Alright?” Dave Mason supplied additional lead guitar on early studio sessions for Derek and the Dominos and played at their first live gig at the London Lyceum. When Clapton stole Delaney & Bonnie’s rhythm section for Derek and the Dominos during sessions for George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, he initially pulled Mason in too, making him the first second guitarist of the Dominos before Duane Allman filled that role.

After Traffic, Mason left the group soon after their first gig, as he was impatient to see the band start working full-time whereas Clapton was committed to helping Harrison complete All Things Must Pass. Mason went on to have a successful solo career, with his 1977 hit “We Just Disagree” becoming a staple of classic rock radio. After leaving Traffic he became a session musician, recording for George Harrison, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Steve Winwood, Fleetwood Mac, Delaney & Bonnie, Leon Russell, and Cass Elliot. In 2004, Mason was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a founding member of Traffic.