A lot has been written about the genius of D’Angelo’s Voodoo album since the star’s death earlier this week, but just in case you were starting to think that it’s only being considered a classic with the benefit of hindsight, resurfaced footage of Eric Clapton and Rick Rubin being treated to a preview of the record prior to its release in 2000 should set you straight.
One clip that’s been widely shared shows Clapton’s reaction at the end of Spanish Joint, Track 9 on Voodoo. With his jaw literally dropping, he turns to D’Angelo, shakes his hand and says: “I can’t take much more. Is it all like this?”, before laughing at the almost ridiculously high quality level of the music he’s listening to.
We also see a similarly awestruck Rick Rubin (sitting alongside Chris Rock) listening to One Mo’Gin. “That’s the shit!” he says, after bobbing his head in appreciation and looking like he’s feeling the song through his entire body.
Clapton had previously performed with D’Angelo in 1998, when they formed part of an all-star band that jammed through Sunshine Of Your Love at an Eric Clapton & Friends gig in New York, and also in 1999, when the pair duetted on The Impressions’ I’ve Been Trying as part of soul legend Curtis Mayfield’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Speaking in 2019 on his Broken Records podcast, meanwhile, Rubin would tell Questlove - who drummed on Voodoo - that “the D'Angelo Voodoo album to me is absolutely perfect. It's the first time I can remember listening through to an album wishing I had something to do with it, because it was so good. It was just like ‘Oh my God, this is everything I want an album to be,’ and it was unlike anything I’d ever heard before.”
