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Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton (born 30 March 1945) was an English rock and blues guitarist and singer-songwriter who had an immensely successful solo career during the 1970s and 1980s. Born in Ripley, Surrey, he was the son of a 25-year-old Canadian soldier and a 16-year-old English woman; he was abandoned by his parents while he was young and raised by his grandparents in Surrey. He played with The Yardbirds, Cream, Derek and the Dominos, and other bands before starting his solo career. Clapton suffered from drug abuse and alcoholism for much of his life and lost his infant son in a tragic accident in 1991, but he founded a recovery center on Antigua in 1998 and was awarded a CBE in 2004.

Clapton was a supporter of the neo-fascist British National Front during the 1970s; on 5 August 1976, he spoke out against increasing immigration at a concert in Birmingham, voicing his support for the xenophobic Conservative Party MP Enoch Powell. In his intoxicated speech, he demanded that the British people should "Stop Britain from becoming a black colony. Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. Keep Britain white." While he later disavowed his earlier views, he remained a staunch conservative who was active in the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance and defended Powell's views in 2004 and 2007 interviews.

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