Eric Clapton Re-Recorded This Classic Song For A 1987 Michelob Beer Commercial

When Michelob enlisted classic rock icon and guitarist Eric Clapton to make a beer commercial in 1987, he had just the song in mind: "After Midnight," a song that he'd made famous many years earlier. Clapton lay down a new, updated version of the tune he took to the Top 20 back in 1970. He also appeared in the TV-based campaign, depicted performing the song in a bar. He lost the gig when Michelob's brewer Anheuser-Busch learned that Clapton had enrolled in a rehab center to treat alcoholism, but the commercial has lived on despite the controversy. 

A banger rock song that got a second life in a TV commercial, "After Midnight" weathered the scandal and thrived. Clapton's 1987 remake was included on the musician's box set "Crossroads" and issued as a single in 1988, whereupon it hit No. 4 on Billboard's mainstream rock chart. That's just one part of the saga of "After Midnight," a song with a long history of covers and re-recordings that dates back decades prior to Clapton's Michelob commercial.

Already a famed guitarist through his work with the Yardbirds, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, Cream, and Blind Faith, Eric Clapton released his first true solo album in 1970. A highlight of the self-titled LP is "After Midnight," a joyful party rocker on which Clapton and his guitar both sing. It was a cover of an obscure standalone single from 1966 written and originally performed by J.J. Cale. Clapton's recording of "After Midnight" wound up being a hit, and reached No. 18 of the Billboard Top 100 in December 1970.

So well-received it was that the not-famous Cale was afforded the chance to record a new album, and "Naturally" hit stores in 1971. Cale included a remade "After Midnight," rendered much slower than Clapton's version as well as his own initial take. Cale's reworking of his own song peaked just outside of the Top 40 in 1972, a disappointing follow-up to his more successful "Crazy Mama," making the influential Cale technically a '70s one hit wonder.

Then in 1987, Clapton, often loathed by other musicians, covered his own cover of "After Midnight" for the commercial. This time, he saturated the song with heavy blues riffs and heavily processed drums, which fit the assignment: The Michelob commercial showed Clapton playing the song in a dark bar. 

And "After Midnight" isn't the only Clapton-Cale connection. Clapton's 1977 LP "Slowhand" kicks off with "Cocaine," a cover of a song Cale wrote and recorded for his 1976 album "Troubadour."