On this day (September 14) in 1974, Eric Clapton topped the Billboard Hot 100 with “I Shot the Sheriff.” His cover of the Bob Marley classic was his only single–either solo or with a band–to reach No. 1 on the all-genre chart. He was familiar with reggae, but wasn’t versed in performing the style. As a result, he didn’t believe they did the original recording justice. He was shocked when it became a major hit.
American listeners weren’t strangers to reggae at the time. Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” became the first song of the genre to reach the top of the Hot 100 in 1972. So, many were at least passingly familiar with the sound. However, Clapton was more familiar with island music and knew his rendition didn’t live up to Marley’s original.
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Eric Clapton Didn’t Want to Release “I Shot the Sheriff”
According to Songfacts, Eric Clapton’s guitarist George Terry introduced him to the song. He also convinced Clapton to cover it.
“Ska, bluebeat, and reggae were familiar media to me,” he wrote in his autobiography. “I had grown up hearing them in the clubs and on the radio because of England’s growing communities of West Indians, but it was quite new to the Americans, and they weren’t as finicky as I was about the way it should be played. Not that I knew, myself, how to play it. I just knew we weren’t doing it right.”
Clapton initially didn’t want to release the song. However, he was outvoted. Everyone in the studio thought it sounded like a hit. So, he included it on 461 Ocean Boulevard. Executives at RSO Records agreed and released it as the album’s lead single.
“I Shot the Sheriff” was the first of six top 10 singles on the Hot 100 for Clapton. His 1992 hit “Tears in Heaven” took him closest to a second chart-topper when it stalled at No. 2.
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