With Eric Clapton, he wrote “Bell Bottom Blues” and built one of the greatest — if most short-lived — supergroups of the 1970s.

Stax Records signed Whitlock as the first white artist to join singers like Otis Redding and Sam & Dave at the label.

Eric Clapton paid tribute to his former Derek and the Dominos bandmate, Bobby Whitlock, following the keyboardist and singer’s death at age 77. On August 11, Clapton, 80, posted a throwback photo of Whitlock to Instagram with the caption,