I am a guitar player, a Fender fan. Everything I read or see about Fenders or guitar playing in general always has the same “Clapton is God” party line.
What is the deal with Eric Clapton? Unless I am missing something really major, he’s just a moderately (stress the moderately) talented guitar player, who happened to play on a major early album. Listening to The Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton, I can appreciate his style, but it’s nothing brilliant. Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix were doing the same thing at the time, it just wasn’t on tape yet. All three of the string-playing Beatles were doing brilliant guitar work on Revolver (And Your Bird Can Sing, Taxman, Love You To). The next year would see Are You Experienced, The Velvet Underground & Nico, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. The next several years would see the explosion of Led Zeppelin, the apotheosis of Jimi Hendrix, The Allman Brothers Band and John McLaughlin and Keith Richards, all of whom simply blow Clapton away in terms of technical ability and creativity. Clapton’s only highlights (AFAICT) after the Bluesbreakers were Layla, but Duane Allman is the standout on that track, and White Room. I can’t see that he’s done anything more innovative than Wonderful Tonight since then.
So what’s up? I can easily name twenty or thirty guitar players who exceed him in almost any respect. Why the adulation? Is it just because he was the first player to put the white-blues-rock style on tape?
My point, put simply, is that he pales in comparison to Duane Allman, Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan, yet people still go on about what a guitar god he is. Is it just because he’s the only one still alive?
I saw a documentary on MTV about him which included a clip of him looking at a photo of a wall with ‘Clapton is God’ graffiti on it and a dog lifting its leg and pissing on it.
Well, I saw him live this August, and my whole life pretty much paled in comparison. I always enjoyed his work, but I had never been moved on a fundamental level like I was when I saw him live.
That could be what you’re missing. When he’s playing, really playing, I don’t think that there is anything that can touch him. Granted, I’m not a guitar player, and I don’t have the best ear for music, but I was absolutely blown away by that performance. Maybe the people who jump aboard the “Clapton is God” train (like George Harrison and Paul McCartney, for example) are the people who heard him live and know what he’s capable of outside of a recording studio.
But truly great players can capture that in a studio, or at least have enough sense to make some live albums! F’rinstance, little is as awe-inspiring as The Allman Brothers Band Live At Fillmore East. Some of Jimi Hendrix’ best stuff is Live At Woodstock and Jimi Plays Monterey!. If he gets really turned on live, I’d like to hear it, rather than trite adult contemporary fluff like Wonderful Tonight and My Father’s Eyes.
He’s also been part of some very good music-I’m thinking about the Yardbirds, John Mayall, Cream, and his work with BB King, just to hit high points. It’s also worthy of note that he has survived a great measure of personal tragedy, and didn’t end up dead as did so many bandmates, as you’ve noted.
Andre Segovia, Leo Kottke, Jesse Cook-those guys are serious artists of the guitar, but in all fairness, Clapton isn’t shopped liver, either.
Well, I think the difference between studio and live performances is that he can play an additional 10 minutes of Layla, or an entire 45 minute set of Robert Johnson’s catalogue, or just seem to be jamming for 20 minutes, or really (and I can’t believe I’m going to use this phrase) turn it up a notch for his huge hits like Cocaine and White Room.
I actually think studio recordings can do some artists a grave disservice. Music is a living, moving, evolving thing. When they record it, it’s confined and well, killed. I think the energy and passion that some musicians can bring to a live performance is hard to translate into an album.
I do agree that really great musicians should be able to do both, and I already admitted that I don’t have a great ear for music and I’m not a musician, so to me, his studio albums sound every bit as good as the other guitarists you listed. I can’t really debate that point, because I don’t hear a substantial difference. What I am trying to say is that I do hear a substantial difference between studio and live songs, and that passion and electrying performance may be what attracted all of his really die-hard fans.
Good, but not great, like many of his contemporaries. Most of his blues work is recycled Freddie, Albert and BB King licks (or pointless remakes of Robert Johnson songs). His rock work is outdone by any number of people; Hendrix, Page, Beck, SRV.
Definitely one of the only “guitar gods” that records stuff like that. Get me a copy of SRV’s “Tears In Heaven,” and maybe I’ll change my tune. I don’t fault him for recording that kind of thing; however he wants to express himself or whatever he wants to do to make some money is fine; but it isn’t killer guitar playing, which is what this thread is concerned with.
I misread you: no, I know he’s done better songs than Wonderful Tonight (Layla, White Room, Hideaway). My point was that his adult contemporary recordings do not really reinforce his status as “God.”
Heh, probably because most of the other “guitar gods” died before they could get to the point in their lives and careers where they would record something like that. Most of the people you list as “Rock Gods” didn’t live long enough to record “bad” tracks. Compare 40 years of music to Hendrix’s 5 or 6. Clapton has a much larger catalogue to get nit-picky and critical about. I’m sure if Hendrix had lived and recorded for the next 30 years, you’d find something to dislike. Same goes for SRV etc.
Besides, Wonderful Tonight is a fine little song when you realize he’s being ironic and it’s not a love song at all.
Don’t misunderstand me, Eric Clapton is a fine musician. Wonderful Tonight is a fine song. I just find the claim that Clapton is God (ahead of about twenty other people I can think of) highly exceptionable.
I would like to chime in and agree wtih the OP. I like Eric Clapton, but I haven’t heard anything godlike in his music. I can see why he was influential in the mid-60s, but his contemporaries surpassed him fairly easily.
One thing to note, though, is his nickname, Slowhand. If I’m not mistaken, he got that moniker because he didn’t play lightning-fast leads so much as he played more soulful, lyrical licks, ala B.B. King.
Slowhand came from Clapton’s propesity for breaking strings, not the speed of his playing.
As to the OP: Clapton never set out to be a flash guitar player like Beck, Page, Hendrix and that crowd. He studied the Blues. The first time I really got what this meant was watching the Chuck Berry film Hail Hail Rock and Roll (a gig organised by Keith Richards) where our Eric takes a solo and the whole thing shifts a gear, I’m not a big Clapton fan but there was definitely a bit of something special there. Chuck Berry salutes Clapton at the end of the song with “Eric Clapton, man of the blues”.
Some very good guitar players (stand up Mr Vai) admit they can’t really play authentic Blues.
Clapton is A guitar god, not THE guitar god. There is no way to deny his chops. To bring us nearer the present may I suggest Tears in heaven and my favorite, My Father’s Eyes.
Hendrix helped pave the way to muted strumming in the solo of his cover of All Along the Watchtower. Probably my favorite solo ever.
The live version of Peter Frampton’s solo on Do You Feel Like We Do? opened a whole new world of respect for him.
Jimmie Page. 'Nuff said.
To shorten the list, I’ll say this. Once a pioneer of a new sound or technique gets noticed, hundreds of others try to copy the sound and build on it. Most fail, some succeed and become the next great thing.
Though I have yet to find anyone that make a guitar sing like Joe Satriani.
I also never understood the “Clapton is God” bit. I am a guitarist and I can play most of his stuff without much thought. I think he is a good player and writer but there are so many other guitarists out there who are way better technically and creatively.
I saw him live a long time ago and wasn’t all that impressed. Compared to some others I have seen live (Steve Morse, Al DiMeola, John Pettruci, Michael Hedges) he is not even close technically.
Not to dis the guy or anything. He is a good player/writer. But there are many who are better.
