Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis.

The stories about Eric Clapton's Derek and the Dominoes are insane.

They involve murder, a deadly motorcycle accident, and devastating heartbreak and scandal.

Eric Clapton was a one-of-a-kind guitarist seemingly hell-bent on self-destruction.

He was heavily addicted to heroin, cocaine, and throughout his stint in Derek and the

Domino's, attempted to snort his way through unrequited love. And in doing so, came out on the

other end with one of Rock's most recognizable guitar riffs. And only one year after Clapton's Derek and

the Domino's got together, the group disbanded. But a year was all they needed

to introduce the world to their white-hot strain of blues, which they nailed on their one-and-only

studio album. Because when Eric Clapton, Jim Gordon, Dwayne Allman, Bobby Whitlock, and Carl Rattle were in the

same room. They made great music. That music you heard at the top of the show, that wasn't

great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Palisade Sashay, MK1. I played you that loop,

because I can't afford the rights to the long and winding road by the Beatles. And why would I play you that slice of last gasp of collective creativity cheese, could I afford it?

Because that was the number one song in America on June 14th, 1970.

And that was the day that Derek and the Dominoes made their live debut and began to make their indelible contribution to rock and roll.

On this episode, murder, motorcycles, unrequited love

and Eric Clapton's Derek and the Domino's.

I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland.

Thank you. and this is Disgraceland. Christmas, 1929, Germantown, North Carolina.

Charlie Lawson had a lot to be grateful for that holiday season.

Aside from the death of his third son, William, back in 1920,

the Lawson's lived a good life, all things considered. Their sharecropper neighbors considered them well-to-do. Two years prior, Charlie Lawson bought the family a tobacco farm out on Brook Cove Road,

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