Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton still haven’t made their way home. Instead, they will be playing 12 dates this fall in Japan.

The former Blind Faith bandmates will be kicking off their Japan outing in Sapporo and will wrap the tour up in Tokyo with a multiple night stand.

The tour starts on November 17 at Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Center in Sapporo. They will also play at Yokohama Arena and Osaka for two nights- Castle Hall on November 21 and Jo hall on November 22. On November 24, the pair will visit Fukuoka, on November 26 they will be in Hiroshima, on November 28 in Kanazawa and on November 30 in Nagoya, before heading to Tokyo to perform at Budokan Hall for four nights on December 2-3 as well as December 6-7.

On June 24, general onsales start at udo.co.jp. Visit SteveWinwood.com or EricClapton.com for more information.

In March Eric Clapton will be playing traditional sets on his quick run of the West Coast.  In April he is now scheduled for another outing in North America where he will be performing with Wynton Marsalis during the Jazz at Lincoln Center series.

The shows will be called “Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton Play the Blues.”  The concerts will also be featuring a band of seven pieces, which will be comprised mostly of Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra members.

The collaboration will open at the annual fundraiser and private event for Jazz at Lincoln Center on April 7.  Public shows will occur on April 8 and 9 in Rose Hall in New York City.  Information on tickets can be found at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s website.

Wynton Marsalis is one of the guest artists featured on “Clapton,” his latest album.  Other guests appearing on the set featuring a mixture of Clapton originals, traditional brass band pieces and blues covers include Steve Winwood, JJ Cale, Allen Toussaint and Sheryl Crow.

The previously announced Clapton West Coast trek will kick off in Vancouver on February 25 and wrap up on March 8-9 in Los Angeles.  Clapton will kick his touring season off with February shows in South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore.

The touring group for Clapton on his upcoming tour will consist of drummer Steve Gadd, bassist Willie Weeks, keyboardists Chris Stainton and backing vocalists Sharon White and Michelle John.

Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island is fast becoming an international hotspot for entertainment.  Just this year, more than a hundred thousand people came to see the various events being held at the Flash Forum, the Yas Marina Circuit and the Yas Arena, all housed at the Yas Island.

For 2011, the Yas Island Show Weekends is set to give visitors a showcase of the finest live acts with a line-up of entertainment heavyweights from various music genres already firmed up for spring 2011.

First off is legendary troubadour Eric Clapton who will be performing at the Yas Arena on February 11, Friday.   For those looking for an adrenaline charged show instead, the Yas Island will also host “Slowhand”, a two-day racing event featuring V8 super cars clocking in at the Yas Marina Circuit.

The weekend following Clapton’s performance will feature techno-house music maestro DJ Teisto, this time at the Flash Forum on February 17.  The show makes up for Tiesto’s canceled show supposedly for October of this year.

March 11 will mark 30 Seconds to Mars’  first performance in the Middle East and also their last, at least for their current album tour in support of their latest release “This Is War”.  They are slated to perform also at the Flash Forum.  The band, led by actor/vocalist Jared Leto, spawned the hits “Kings and Queens” and “Closer to the Edge”.

Iconic Soul/R&B hit maker Stevie Wonder will wrap up the Yas Island’s spring line-up with a show on March 18.

Indeed the Yas Island boasts of the complete entertainment package – live performances, eye-popping and stimulating attractions, and energy pumping events.  “The purpose of the Yas Island Show Weekends was always to showcase these attractions to a wide audience of all ages and backgrounds through the highest quality live events … there’ll be more of the same in 2011. We can’t wait,” says the director of marketing and planning at the Flash Forum, Mike Fairburn.

Tickets for all upcoming spring events are available beginning today, December 27, at 9 AM via www.boxofficeme.com and www.timeouttickets.com.  Ticket prices for the concerts start from Dh150 or about USD 40, while the Yas Islands hotel packages for 3D/2N start at Dh1,300 or about USD 350.

Grammy Award winning band Los Lobos will be joining fellow troubadour and music legend Eric Clapton in his upcoming North American trek set to open in February 2011.  Los Lobos will be providing support for Clapton in the latter’s shows in the west coast and in Vancouver.

Los Lobos and Clapton have gone along way.  Apart from being musical contemporaries, Los Lobos front men David Hidalgo and Cesar Rosas both took part in the Crossroads Guitar Festival organized by Clapton.  Hidalgo and Rosas have appeared in the festival’s 2004 and 2007 shows.

Los Lobos is best known for their first studio release “How Will the Wolf Survive?”, which came out in 1984 and their cover of the Mexican song “La Bamba” which became their first number one hit. But before becoming one of the most popular Americana/Tex-Mex music acts in the ‘80s, the group has been performing for more than ten years in East Los Angeles.  To date, the group has bagged several Grammy Award citations and nominations, the latest of which is a Best Rock Instrumental nod for the track “Do the Murray” and the Best Americana Album nomination for “Tin Can Trust” in the upcoming 2011 Grammy Awards.

According to a confidential cable from WikiLeaks, North Korea had plans of bringing iconic musician Eric Clapton over back in 2007 to aid the entry of humanitarian relief for the impoverished communist country.

The 2007 cable dated May 23rd details how the idea of the British singer performing in Pyongyang came up.  It was said that Kim Jong-Il’s second son was a fan of the legendary troubadour and the plan to bring him in was being worked out by the US ambassador to North Korea and a local social worker.

Strange as it may seem, Clapton’s presence in the country “could also be useful” because of “Kim Jong-Il’s second son’s devotion to the rock legend,” as quoted from the WikiLeaks cable.  This is in contrary to the country’s law forbidding pop and rock genres of music by virtue of its western roots and influences.  On the other hand, English broadsheet The Guardian reports that Clapton allegedly agreed to the proposal “in principle” but reps for the musician denies any offer for him to perform in Pyongyang despite receiving several other invites to perform in various countries.

Back in 2008, the New York Philharmonic performed in Pyongyang and this marked the most notable American presence in the country since the war between North and South Korea during the 1950s.

Legendary troubadour Eric Clapton will be auctioning off his personal collection of guitars and other musical instruments to benefit an Antiguan rehabilitation centre he built a few years back.  The rehab centre focuses on treating patients with substance abuse.

The auction will be facilitated by the Bonhams auctioneers in New York on March 9, 2011 and is co-organized by Wallace &Hodgson who worked with the singer during his previous auctions in 1999 and 2004.  Aside from Clapton’s collection of musical instruments, collections from Joe Bonamasa, Jeff Beck and J.J. Cale will also be offered.  Branded instruments like Fender, Marshall, Music Man, Martin and Gibson are up for grabs.  These items could go from $300 to as much as $30,000, according to Bonhams.

Among Clapton’s vast guitar collection, the Fender Stratocaster which carries an “Eric Clapton Signature”  and which the singer/songwriter used during his London and New York concerts in 2005in celebration of the Cream reunion, is predicted to be one of the most sought after items in the auction and is estimated to go as high as $30,000 during the bidding.  While the Marshall basket weave speaker cabinets, which is a vintage item used by Clapton in the 1970s during a joint performance with Derek and the Dominos, is estimated to collect at least $8,000 during the bidding.

An eight city North American tour has been lined up by Eric Clapton to support “Clapton,” his newly released album.

The tour will focus on the West Coast.  It is scheduled to kick off in Vancouver on February 25 and wrap up in Los Angeles with two shows on March 8 and 9.

Clapton’s touring season will kick off with February dates that were previously announced in Hong Kong and Singapore.  Following the leg in North America the singer will tour the U.K. and Ireland.

Doyle Bramhall II, longtime collaborator of Clapton’s and guitarist, produced the new album.  The set includes collaborations with keyboardist Walt Richmond, bassist Willie Weeks, drummer Jim Keltner and JJ Cale.  Derek Trucks, Allen Toussaint, Sheryl Crow, Wynton Marsalis and Steve Winwood were involved in the recording sessions for the album as well.

The tour group for Clapton’s forthcoming tour will consist of Chris Stainton on keyboards, Willie Weeks on bass, Steve Gadd on drums and backing vocalists Sharon White and Michelle John.

Gibson Guitar in December 2010 will be releasing a reproduction of the iconic Beano 1960 Les Paul guitar of Eric Clapton’s.  The guitar, one of blues and rock music’s all time most important instruments, got its nickname after appearing on the groundbreaking album from 1966, “John Mayall And The Bluesbreakers Featuring Eric Clapton.”  The album’s cover showed Clapton reading The Beano, a British comic.

Millions regard the Beano’s sound in combination with the Marshall JTM45 amplifier (which later was called the Bluesbreaker) to be the Holy Grail for all of the Les Paul Standards of the famous 1958-60 time period.  Today it still is one of the more sought after sound among guitarists all over the world.  At the time, devoted fans scrawled on wall across London “Clapton Is God.”

In Spring 1966, while recording the Beano album, Clapton altered his Les Paul guitar, removing the PAF humbucking pickup nickel covers, which gave the guitar a distinctive look.  In July 1966 his guitar was stolen, right around the release time of the Bluesbreakers album.  There is still widespread speculation as to where the instrument ended up.

With a handful of guest artists appearing in his first album in four years, Eric Clapton’s “Clapton” peaked atop Billboard’s Rock Albums Chart, toppling over Linkin Park’s comeback record “A Thousand Suns”.

The album also made it to the top ten of Billboard’s Hot 200 Albums, coming in at number 6.  The top five albums in the list this week are “Hemingway’s Whiskey”  by Kenny Chesney, followed by “I Am not a Human Being” from Lil Wayne who is currently in the slammer yet manages to score a top 2 album, “You Get What You Give” by the Zac Brown Band, “The Appeal: Georgia’s Most Wanted” by Gucci Mane and finally wrapping up the top 5 is Eminem’s critically acclaimed and commercially successful comeback release “Recovery”.

“Clapton” marks the 65-year old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s 19th release and his follow-up to “Road to Escondido” which was released in 2006.  The eponymous album features guest appearances from Sheryl Crow, Steve Winwood, J.J. Cale, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, and Derek Trucks, to name a few.

Iconic troubadour Eric Clapton initially announced a six-date show at the Royal Albert Hall in London slated for May 17 to 24, 2011 with fellow guitarist and former Blind Faith band mate Steve Winwood.  Today, his camp announced a couple of additional dates to the gig, extending the run to May 27, 2010 and still with Winwood.

The concert will feature the two acts jamming together to the classic hits of their defunct ‘60s band Blind Faith, their own hits as solo artists and some covers as well.  The two have been teaming up in several road shows in and out of the US since 2007.  Among their most acclaimed road work as a tandem were the three shows they did in NIYC’s Madison Square Garden back in 2008, and a long list of US and European stops from 2009 through the early part of this year.

Meanwhile, Clapton is also slated to appear at the Royal Albert Hall for a different engagement and at an earlier date, this time for the Prince’s Trust Rock Gala on November 17 this year.  The next in his overseas itinerary would not be underway until May 2011 with stops in Ireland, Scotland and Cardiff, England preceding the eight-night engagement at the Royal Albert Hall.  Winwood would not be performing in all the other dates.