Eric Clapton struggling to play guitar after nerve damage

Eric Clapton says nerve damage has left him struggling to play the guitar.

In an interview in Classic Rock, the 71-year-old musician said he has been diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy, a condition that can cause muscle weakness, numbness and tingling in the feet or hands and loss of balance and co-ordination.

It has made playing "hard work", said Clapton, who released his 23rd solo album, I Still Do, last month.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"I've had quite a lot of pain over the last year. It started with lower back pain and turned into what they call peripheral neuropathy, which is where you feel like you have electric shocks going down your leg," he told the magazine.

"And I've had to figure out how to deal with some other things from getting old."

Clapton became an international rock superstar in the 1970s with a string of hit songs such as Layla and Lay Down Sally, but his career has been marked by lapses into addiction to heroin, cocaine, alcohol and prescription drugs.

Considering his past, said the musician, he feels lucky to be alive.

"By rights I should have kicked the bucket a long time ago. For some reason I was plucked from the jaws of hell and given another chance," he said.

In an interview in Uncut magazine in 2014, however, Clapton said the prospect of diminishing powers, together with the fact touring had become "unbearable", meant he was looking towards retirement.

"I don't want to have someone come up to me and say, 'You know what? You shouldn't be doing this anymore,'" he said. "I'd rather come to that conclusion myself."

He had planned to stop touring at 70 because travelling was no longer "fun", but he was still interested in recording music. "I think what I'll allow myself to do, within reason, is carry on recording in the studio, but the road has become unbearable."

Earlier this month, NME reported that Clapton had been in the studio with the Rolling Stones and producer Don Was to record a couple of tracks.

"Eric was in the next studio along so he came in to say hello. They ended up jamming and recorded two songs," said a source, adding: "Don reckons it's the best thing he has ever done with the Stones."

I Still Do, which features covers by blues legends Bob Dylan, Robert Johnson and JJ Cale, has received positive reviews. Rolling Stone described it as "snarling, stabbing, and strutting" with a sound that is "less laid back than just got laid", while the London Evening Standard says it is a reminder that Clapton "can sing as well as he can play".