Eric Clapton – One More Car, One More Rider (CD, Warner)

Eric Clapton’s first live album since 1992’s zeitgeist-capturing Unplugged, is, as one would expect, full of well-tailored highlights from his back-catalog of bristly, well-kept blues. Recorded in Los Angeles and Tokyo during his 2001 world tour (the accompanying DVD is taken exclusively from the Los Angeles show), and featuring backing from the likes of Andy Fairweather-Low and Billy Preston, it’s an album that serves to satisfy both Clapton purists (there’s a four-song sequence of tracks from Pilgrim, shorn of their original anodyne synthesizer embellishments) and adult pop fans who prefer their blues from the decanter rather than the bottle (“Tears in Heaven,” a sublime “Bell Bottom Blues,” a rather poised, applause-riddled “Layla”). One More Car is an engaging live document that finds EC far from asleep at the wheel. –Kevin Maidment