Carl Radle

Carl Dean Radle was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 18, 1942. He shares his birth date and birth year with Beatles member Paul McCartney.

Radle’s professional career started out when Leon Russell offered him his entree into the music industry, inviting him out to California.[3]

His big break came along in the mid-1960s, as the bass player in Gary Lewis & the Playboys. During his time in the Playboys, he appeared with them on Hullabaloo, The Mike Douglas Show and The Ed Sullivan Show, and would play bass on the Playboy hits Everybody Loves a Clown and She's Just My Style and contribute to the albums A Session with Gary Lewis and the Playboys and Everybody Loves a Clown.

Derek and the Dominos in 1970 (from left to right): Jim Gordon, Radle, Bobby Whitlock and Eric Clapton

Radle was best known for his long association with Eric Clapton, starting in 1969 with Delaney and Bonnie and Friends and continuing in 1970 with Derek and the Dominos, recording with drummer Jim Gordon, guitarist Duane Allman, and keyboardist Bobby Whitlock.[2]

He worked on all of Clapton's solo projects from 1970 until 1979 and was a member of Clapton's touring band, Eric Clapton & His Band, from 1974 to 1979.[2] Radle was instrumental in facilitating Clapton's return to recording and touring in 1974. During Clapton's three-year hiatus, Radle furnished him with a supply of tapes of musicians with whom he had been working. Dick Sims and Jamie Oldaker were the core of Clapton's band during the 1970s. Radle served as more than a sideman, acting also as arranger on several songs, notably "Motherless Children". Radle earned credit as an associate producer of Clapton's album No Reason to Cry.

Carl also was a member of ‘Colours’, the psychedelic cult band from Dot Records for whom he played on the first album and guest appeared on the second. In 1970, Radle joined Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour.[2]

Radle was a session musician for many of the most famous blues rock and rock and roll artists in the 1970s, including Rita Coolidge and Kris Kristofferson. He appeared in the film The Concert for Bangladesh; recordings from that concert were released as an album in 1972. Over the two-year period before the release of the album The Concert for Bangladesh, Radle recorded albums with Dave Mason, J.J. Cale, George Harrison, Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, and Buddy Guy, among others.[2] He can be seen in Martin Scorsese's 1978 film The Last Waltz, which documented the final concert of The Band, held in 1976.

Over the course of his career, Radle played on a number of gold and platinum singles and albums and garnered the respect of many musicians. His bass lines were often simple and repetitive, but always with the purpose of supporting the song.[4]

Radle died at his home in Claremore, Oklahoma in May 1980,[2] from the effects of alcohol and narcotics; he was 37.[5]

Two albums by Derek and the Dominos, The Layla Sessions: 20th Anniversary Edition and Live at the Fillmore, were released in 1990 and 1994 respectively that posthumously credited Radle. The Layla Sessions featured studio jamming with Radle, and Live at the Fillmore was a live performance, that originally took place in October 1970.

He was posthumously inducted to the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2006.[1]

• 1970 Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs
• 1973 In Concert
• 1990 The Layla Sessions: 20th Anniversary Edition (posthumous)
• 1994 Live at the Fillmore (posthumous)

• 1970 Eric Clapton
• 1974 461 Ocean Boulevard
• 1975 E. C. Was Here
• 1975 There's One in Every Crowd
• 1976 No Reason to Cry
• 1977 Slowhand
• 1978 Backless