Eric Clapton – most over-rated guitarist in poll shockah!

a coworker just sent this link to me after a somewhat heated debate about Eric Clapton. I say he remains a god and my coworker says no, he is a slow guitarist at best. It appears from the above comment that most of your poll voters are younger and are looking at EC’s work now and comparing him to the faster more agressive guitarists of our time which makes them short sighted and is one of the many things I hate about my generation. Most of us look at what is in front of us and forget about the past, I won’t bore you with why that is a bad idea (i.e. Gulf wars 1 & 2) but I will say if it wasn’t for Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and all of my other favorite greats we wouldn’t have the music we have now and for that Eric will always be a god in my eyes.

Eric Clapton … I never understood what people see in him. He;s one of those famous for being famous guys that when you ask someone who claims to love him – they cant hum anything he;s done – but they think he’s god. Sort of like Tommy Lee. Everybody knows him but not for anything more than they know who he is.

But then I do not get the Blues after more than 3 songs. Its like the Ramones – after 3 songs you’ve heard all you’re ever gonna hear.

Back to Clapton …. I guess he played wiht some pretty remarkable bands in the beggininng but frankly his playin gdoesnt seem like anything great to me and his look is pretty terrible. I saw a concert on TV and he was soooooo boring. He had a bunch of guests and they did that retarded blues jam blues guys always do. Its boring – I knew what was coming next bar after bar. Perhaps thats the draw – for simple minds its simple music with no surprises. Some people like to live that way. Just like people who get up and dance to Radar Love at the local pub. Or want the band to play brown eyed girl.

Clapton was so slow that he didn’t realise Jack and Ginger’s real intentions when forming Cream, i.e. to have a free jazz trio with Clapton as Ornette except he didn’t know it (Jack Bruce’s words, not mine)!

Easy to knock him in terms of all the rubbish he’s done over the last thirty years or so but at his best (i.e. when he had other people to push him, viz. Mayall, Bruce/Baker, Winwood, Duane Allman and so forth) he was a damn fine player.

Maybe the graffiti scrawler was dyslexic: “Clapton Is Dog”…

Yeah, I remember eagerly waiting for his 1st solo lp, and then saying, “huh…??”

And can anyone clarify this for me: It’s Harrison on Badge doing just the Beatle-y opening of the bridge, right? Cuz the solo sure seems pure Clapton.

#7: I always imagined it as a misreading of “Clapton Is Good”…

#6: Thankfully FT isn’t Iraq so we don’t – or shouldn’t – do any cultural fundamentalism here but anyway…

The bit that everyone remembers “Layla” for was penned by the ill-fated Jim Gordon.

Respect to “You Are So Beautiful” please; a lovely song, written by Billy Preston, even if Cocker’s US chart topping recording of it was, to say the very least, hammy enough for it to be stocked in the chilled meat section of Marks & Spencer…

Clapton’s line on immigrants, according to him (or at least what he said in Uncut when I was there, and I think he repeats it in his biog), is not that he doesn’t like them but that they shouldn’t be encouraged to come here on false promises and then they end up scrubbing floors and wiping up shit. I’m not really convinced by this either but there you are. Bad timing, though, the original remark, whatever way you look at it and however pissed he was at the time.

I always liked the way Brian Case referred to Clapton’s singing voice as on a par with a big band horn player who’d occasionally stand up to sing something like “Your Father’s Moustache”; that sums it up for me perfectly. Works quite well on “Badge” though, even if Bruce was for me and I suspect many others the main man in Cream.

AFAIC Derek Bailey is God, RIP big “making records is fine except you end up with this fucking thing called a record” man.

I take it as a compliment myself. Whereas “Just The Way You Are” is Taliban pseudo-pop (and an “I’m Not In Love” ripoff to boot) and “Wonderful Tonight” has arguably had a worse impact on Western society than bin Laden.

YouTube is blocked at work so I’ll have to catch up with that link later.

I’m surprised it didn’t chart at all here. It certainly got enough airplay at the time.

There you are Tom – your next task! List as many guitarists as you can think of (include Semprini if you like – and you MUST include Dave Gilmour) and get your readers to vote for their favorite. Got to be a hot debate!

Comment 1, you are so right. Have you ever thought about what the hardest type of music to play? Yes, it is blues. Eric plays blues. He taught himself how to play, which is awesome. Really, I am 15, but I have been listening to him since I was 7. You’re probably a metal fan, meaning that what is “good music,” is fast paced music with probably only two cords being played throughout each song.

Eric Clapton can play decent enough, but I was able to play faster and cleaner than him after only three years, and with no music theory in my arsenal either. He is massively overrated. All of his songs sound too similar to each other. And as for Daniel Deshields comment on metal; metal is the genre fo music that requires the most amount of talent from guitarists compared to any other genre. Bass guitarists excel in funk, but the true virtuosos of guitar all play metal or neo-classical, for a reson. You have to be good to survive.

Blues is the hardest music to play? Lol lol lol check out frickin some Lenny Breau bro. Maybe some Joe pass. And for the guys who are all like, Clapton is from a different era, well pass and breau are OLD SCHOOL. Clapton was and is a relatively shitty guitar player. Look at pat frickin metheny, chris Broderick, Eric Johnson, ralf buschmeyer, or rusty cooley. Real musicians, not hacks who know like one pentatonic scale position.

The Clapton we hear from 1963 was 18 and still learning to play his instrument, which is great. Good for Eric for at 18 continuing to strive for excellence in his music, but his stuff with the yardbirds isn’t “Godly” its a guy whos playing whats supposed to be played. I really dig his solo and lead work on the 1964 song “Louise” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhfuOSHVIow). I mean Clapton really sounds awesome, but then again what guitarist do you hear on the radio or see on tv that doesn’t play whats asked of them. To say that Clapton is “God” for playing the guitar well is saying that most other guitarists don’t play their instrument well. As for the Bluesbreakers, why would anyone listen to the Bluesbreakers to admire Erics playing, wouldn’t they listen to it to enjoy the band as a whole? Thats what I do, and there are times on the Bluesbreakers album that I feel are a bit too “Look at how awesome Eric is, isn’t he awesome?! Thats Eric for ya!”. Ofcourse Eric can play the blues well, but every blues guitarist can play the blues well, thats why they’re blues guitarists, because they play blues well. Clapton has always played and sang really well, but then again a lot of musicians play and sing well, I mean go through your music library and youll find a lot of great artists, Eric being one of them, and youll say to yourself “they all play and sing so well”. Why should Eric be above all these great artists in your library, that doesn’t make sense.

John Fahey just might be the greatest guitarist in history. Look him up.

Hey kevster, most of Eric Clapton’s guitar work is actually played by session musicians! WHen he plays live he sucks – check out this video –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_M9zWORBuA

Hey logged-out Tracer Hand,

First of all, The video has been overdubbed with a different soundtrack. I own the DVD of this concert. It is “Eric Clapton & Friends In Concert” and I can assure you this soundtrack is nowhere to be found. Otherwise a good chuckle.

link: http://www.eric-clapton.co.uk/collection/dvds/ecandfriendsinconcert.shtml

Secondly, MOST of Clapton’s studio guitar work are actually session musicians?

Prove it with a definitive list of names and tracks from Clapton’s huge body of work where MOST of it, as you say, is actually a session musician and not Eric’s guitar we have been listening to all these years.