Eric Clapton Hates His Singing

Eric Clapton may be god in his fans' eyes, but the famed rocker doesn't care much for his own singing. On his 19th solo album, 'Clapton', which is due late next month, the 'Layla' legend reveals he's trying to make himself more tolerable by singing "quietly."

"I hate my singing. I don't like the way I sing," Clapton told Mojo. "It all sounds like I'm 16 years old from Surbiton. I do my best to try and feel it. You know, when I watch Ray Charles sing, I think, 'That's it, that's how it's done.' He remembers thousands of songs and he sings them all as if they're the most important song he knows. He does it from the bottom of his heart, every time, every song. And that's, that's the inspiration. That's my influence. But I'm imbued with so much self-doubt about my singing, that it's very difficult for me to get to that freedom that those kinds of singers have."

Clapton teamed with J.J. Cale, Wynton Marsalis, Allen Toussaint, Sheryl Crow and others on his first studio album in five years, which finds the performer taking classic blues and jazz approaches. Speaking of his relaxed vocal delivery on his new rendition of Irving Berlin's standard 'How Deep Is the Ocean?' Clapton spoke of the cues he's taken from his famous collaborators.

"Yeah. That's almost like I'm not having to try to sing," he said. "I can sing very quietly and it's going to be OK. I learned that from J.J. See, you can have Ray Charles at one end of the spectrum, who can do all kinds of things with the voice, and go up and down in octaves and registers. And, you've got J.J. at the other, who creates exactly the same amount of emotional capacity in a very minimal way. And he's still just as riveting to listen to. So there are different ways to do it."