London - According to rock lore, it was written as a declaration of undying love from a singer to the woman of his dreams.
But it seems that the origins of Eric Clapton’s hit song Layla may be rather less romantic than believed.
A female singer has claimed she wrote part of the hit - and did not get the credit.
Rita Coolidge says Clapton used the chords and melody from a song she played him at London’s Olympic Studios in 1970.
The Grammy award-winning singer only realised he had appropriated her music when she heard Layla on the radio, she says in her autobiography, Delta Lady.
In it she wrote: “I think it’s time everyone knew that it [Layla] also has a mother.” Miss Coolidge claims that when she asked Clapton’s manager, the late Robert Stigwood, for a credit he told her to get lost, adding: “You’re a girl singer - what are you going to do?”
Released in 1971, Layla was officially written by Clapton when he was lead singer of Derek and the Dominos with the help of Jim Gordon, the drummer for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
It was supposedly inspired by Pattie Boyd, who was married to Beatle George Harrison at the time. It became one of his greatest anthems and is 27th on Rolling Stone’s list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Miss Coolidge, 70, says that in 1970 she was a backing singer for Gordon’s band. One day she and Gordon co-wrote a song called Time (Don’t Let The World Get In Our Way). They met Clapton in London soon after.
“Eric listened to me play it all the way through,” says Miss Coolidge. “I left a taped cassette of the demo with Eric, hoping... he might cover it. Nothing came of it.”
But a year later, Miss Coolidge was doing a photoshoot for her first album when she heard Layla on the radio.
“I was infuriated,” she said. “What they had clearly done was take the song Jim and I had written, jettisoned the lyrics, and tacked it to the end of Eric’s song”. Nobody for Clapton was available for comment.
Daily Mail