As rock's premier white blues guitarist - despite his own efforts to soften his talent to a mid eighties AOR mush - for 30 years, Eric Clapton has finally come full circle. Robert Johnson marked the starting point for the splurge of '60s R'n'B axemen who, like Clapton, basked under the paternal wing of Macclesfield's John Mayall.

Blues historians may debate the point, and even trace a line back to early 20th century Africa, but it cannot be denied that Robert Johnson, whether he sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads or not, provided the foundation of modern blues. Clapton's musicology, as he fully acknowledges on this album, is solidly rooted to Johnson and he has allowed his brilliant career to flash by without feeling able to fully repay this debt. As such, Me and Mr Johnson has a neat finality about it.

Here we find Eric the C relaxing fully into Johnson's music and bringing it, it is hoped, to a whole new and eager audience.

Fans of Led Zeppelin, who have failed to research beyond the blues of that great band's earlier albums, may be surprised to hear achingly familiar - and wicked - lyrics hurtling from this pack. "Will you squeeze my lemon baby, "til the juice runs down my leg," is a typical example, as it more famously screamed from Zep's The Lemon Song.

But on this album, Clapton helps put such overt sexual imagery firmly in context. Blues is the musical area where sexuality and spirituality meet.

It takes extraordinary technique to achieve this, of course, and how humbling it is to see our finest guitarist tentatively lowering himself into Johnson's shoes...after three decades!

As such Me and Mr Johnson is perhaps slightly over-reverential. Nevertheless, it is a hugely inspiring and uplifting collection of songs that have attained an immortality so powerful that, perhaps, all other genres are rendered trite by comparison. This is almost the real thing.