Eric Clapton to Premiere a New Song, “Heart of a Child,” on Christmas Eve

Eric Clapton has been in the news frequently lately, for better or worse (see: “Eric Clapton wins legal case against woman selling bootleg live CD for £8.45” and “Stream Eric Clapton’s New Anti-Vaccine Protest Anthem, ‘This Has Gotta Stop’” for some recent examples), in addition to releasing The Lady in the Balcony: Lockdown Sessions a month ago.

His latest bit of news has to do with a new song the guitarist/songwriter will premiere next Friday, Dec. 24 — a Christmas Eve gift, of sorts, for those who are still interested.

Titled “Heart of a Child,” the song (per a news release) was written by Clapton and co-written by Robin Monotti, produced by Clapton and his longtime producing partner Simon Climie, and is performed by Clapton, Sonny Emory on drums, Nathan East on bass, Dirk Powell on mandolin, Daniel Santiago and Pedro Martins on guitar, Simon Climie on keyboards and percussion, Sharon White and Katie Kissoon on background vocals, along with Nick Ingman as the string arranger & conductor and Everton Nelson as the string leader.

As for that headline about Clapton winning a lawsuit against a woman who tried selling a bootleg CD on eBay, this is from the Guardian story:

An injunction was filed and the court found in Clapton’s favour. The woman appealed, stating that her late husband bought the disc in 1987 at a popular German department store, but lost. The judge said it was irrelevant that she did not buy the CD herself.

The court stipulated that she must pay the legal fees of both parties, which total £2,889. In the highly unlikely event that she continued to list the CD for sale, she could under German copyright law face a fine of up to £212,353 or six months in prison.

Clapton’s manager, Michael Eaton, told the Guardian: “Germany is a country where sales of bootleg and counterfeit CDs are rife, which damages the industry and customers with poor quality and misleading recordings. Along with a number of other major artists and record companies, over a number of years Eric Clapton has, through German lawyers, successfully pursued hundreds of bootleg cases in the German courts under routine German copyright procedures.

“Costs are usually minimal unless the case is argued in court, which is what happened here as the lady instructed her own lawyers. Now that the full facts of this particular case have come to light, the intention is that the formal German proceedings will not be pursued any further.”