A fairly good package of seventies material

This album combines the best-of compilation "Timepieces" and the live "Timepieces vol II - Live In The Seventies" (not to be confused with the lavish box set "Crossroads II", which also bears the title "Live In The Seventies").

"Timepieces" was a pretty good overview of the first few years of Eric Clapton's solo career, and although hardly definitive, it does offer some of the highlights from "Eric Clapton", "461 Ocean Boulevard", "Slowhand" and Clapton's other seventies albums, and it even brings in the Derek & The Dominoes-single "Layla" (too bad that nothing else from that fabulous album is here).

"Timepieces vol. II" is a relatively short live album (eight tracks), bringing together songs as diverse as Bob Dylan's "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" (nice rendition of that one), Charles Chaplin's "Smile" and Clapton's own "Blues Power".

The inclusion of very non-bluesy songs like "Smile" and Danny Flowers' country-rocker "Tulsa Time" probably means that not every Clapton fan will like this album, but I find it quite enjoyable, actually. The sound is very good, and the band is excellent, particularly keyboardist Chris Stainton who plays piano on the five recordings made at Tokyo's Budokan arena.

All in all, this is a nice overview of Eric Clapton in the seventies, blues, music hall and everything, but if you already have a good Clapton compilation ("The Cream Of Clapton" for example), you don't really need "Timepieces". But maybe you will want to check out "Timepieces vol II", which should still be available in its original format.