Eric Clapton At the Crossroads
NewsScope; March 3, 2008. Somewhere between the wistful, hopeful tune "Change the World" and the ear-splitting, dysfunctional chords from Cream, "like some storm-making, earth-moving denizen of the underworld", lies a body of musical genius that has united blues artists across the generations. Eric Clapton was already hailed in the 1970s as the greatest guitarist in rock history. Since then he's cycled through some down times, but now he's back bigger than ever.
Clapton was born an independent Aries with the partnership sign of Libra on his Ascendant (March 30, 1945; 8:45 pm; Ripley, England), a paradoxical combination that personally excels when collaborating with others. Clapton is an Outer Planet Person (OPP), which is the individual whose Sun aspects all three of the outer planets, and which bestows a certain genius for moving humanity along – if he can get his act together.
The Pluto element dominates with his Sun trine Pluto at the Midheaven, giving Clapton a shamanistic stage presence that transforms ordinary music into a ritualistic, tribal experience. His Scorpio Moon rising in the first house squares Pluto, adding the depth of feeling that emerges from his soul. His Sun opposes Neptune, giving him a soft side, one that understands and channels the blues because he's lived it.
Clapton's Sun forms an exact sextile to Uranus, which in turn, squares Mars. Here we find the rebellious, anxious, counter-cultural instincts that ignited the rock and roll world. Last week Clapton was invited to play in North Korea, leaving political observers scratching their heads. Clapton's chart relocated to Pyongyang puts radical Uranus at the foundation of his horoscope, marking North Korea as the cultural crossroads from where he could "Change the World".
"Clapton joined John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers in April 1965. His passionate playing in nightclubs — and on the immensely influential album, Blues Breakers — established Clapton's name worldwide as a blues guitarist. With his 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar and Marshall amplifier, Clapton's playing by then had inspired a well-publicised graffiti that deified him with the famous slogan "Clapton is God". The phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington Underground station in the autumn
