Clapton...

guitars4you

Gassage said:

Gass's Official List of Guitarists You Can Recognise From One Note

• DG
• Eric
• May
• SRV
• Santana
• Kossoff
• EVH
• Neil Young
• Green
• Hank
  

Daylight

The Rest.

surprised you put Dave Grissom in that list !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gassage

guitars4you said:

surprised you put Dave Grissom in that list !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pfft pfft pfft

Gassage

@poopot yeah probably.

Although I can recognise Ry Cooder without a note, providing Whispering Bob Harris is the DJ.

soma1975

Lebarque said:

Gratuitous thread hijack for the benefit of @soma1975 !

ha! 

I used to have that taped off the telly. I think Steven Tyler (and maybe Joe Perry) came on and did Mama Kin at the same gig. 

ICBM

You can recognise Knopfler, The Edge and Mike Oldfield from literally one note too. (Even without Edge's delays, before the haters get in with that - it's in the way he uses the pick.)

But I'm actually not that sure about Clapton. Several notes, yes...

soma1975

Gassage said:

Gass's Official List of Guitarists You Can Recognise From One Note

• DG
• Eric
• May
• SRV
• Santana
• Kossoff
• EVH
• Neil Young
• Green
• Hank
  

Daylight

The Rest.

BB

Octafish

ToneControl said:

poopot said:

why is he considered one of the greats?.

To my mind he is vastly overrated...

Same as all the "greats", he developed a new way of playing and was widely admired for it

Unlike most famous guitarists he has written lots of successful songs, which is an even rarer achievement

Genuine question... such as? He wrote Wonderful Tonight and co-wrote Sunshine of You Love, Layla and Tears in Heaven, but a lot of his 'hits' or successful songs were covers. Think you could argue (and I'm no fan of all of these) that Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, David Gilmour, Brian May, Neil Young, Mark Knopfler and The Edge have all been far more prolific/succesful song writers than Clapton.

octatonic

Gassage said:

Gass's Official List of Guitarists You Can Recognise From One Note

• DG
• Eric
• May
• SRV
• Santana
• Kossoff
• EVH
• Neil Young
• Green
• Hank
  

Daylight

The Rest.

Er, David Lindley?

Gassage

octatonic said:

Gassage said:

Gass's Official List of Guitarists You Can Recognise From One Note

• DG
• Eric
• May
• SRV
• Santana
• Kossoff
• EVH
• Neil Young
• Green
• Hank
  

Daylight

The Rest.

Er, David Lindley?

Who?

Gassage

This was Eric at his best- the interplay with Collins is divine

octatonic

Gassage said:

octatonic said:

Gassage said:

Gass's Official List of Guitarists You Can Recognise From One Note

• DG
• Eric
• May
• SRV
• Santana
• Kossoff
• EVH
• Neil Young
• Green
• Hank
  

Daylight

The Rest.

Er, David Lindley?

Who?

Really?



Check out that album- El-Rayo-X.
Probably my favourite album of the 80's- perfect playing, excellent productions.
He also played as a sideman with Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, Linda Ronstadt, Curtis Mayfield, James Taylor, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Terry Reid, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Toto, Rod Stewart and Joe Walsh.

mudslide73

He's important to me anyway. In my eyes he created the "guitar hero as reason for having a band" movement of the time. Chas Chandler wouldn't have bothered bringing the Jimster over to the UK if there wasn't a Cream shaped market. Jeff, Pagey, Peter etc. wouldn't have been needed to replace him. Viewing him with 21st century eyes misses the point a bit.   

richardhomer

Gassage said:

octatonic said:

Er, David Lindley?

Who?

No - that’s Pete Townsend

Lewy

I think he's considered one of the greats because he successfully bypassed most of the kinds of criteria alluded to in this thread and has consistently produced guitar music across a number of genres that have appealed to millions of people who care little for the nuts and bolts of guitar playing. There is no "overrated" in the world of entertainment.

In terms of his "home" genre of blues, I would also contend that the electric blues guitar playing found on "From The Cradle" would entitle anyone to be considered "great" by any standard,

soma1975

I frickin love Sinners Prayer on From the Cradle. 

Jalapeno

poopot said:

Bridgehouse said:

poopot said:

The Bonamassa of his day!...

Couldn’t have been - he didn’t have anywhere near enough Gibsons - and the ones he did have he lost/gave away/got nicked

I mean they are the same in the sense that it’s insipid paint by numbers corporate blews...

Was nothing of the sort in his Bluesbreakers/Cream/461 era - pretty out there and ground breaking.  Then up until Live Aid you couldn't get arrested for liking Clappers, his Armani suits seemed to trigger a resurgence in those heady materialistic times (and the Blues revival triggered by Gary Moore's Still Got The Blues etc) - nowadays, you're right sadly.

lovestrat74

Clapton? Doesn't he play on the middle pickup

JezWynd

thecolourbox said:

Iamnobody said:

thecolourbox said:

Here's two versions of the same song, one is Clapton the other is White Stripes (notwithstanding my fanboy nature for the latter). Even trying to be as objective as I can, I cannot see how the first is a better version than the second

I like both artists. Clapton was trying to stay true to the original recording - down to technique, location and equipment.

A better example would be Crossroads - what Clapton did with crossroads 40 years ago (or whenever) is undoubtably an influence on what White has produced there.

See on the other hand I think his version of both of those songs are so far away from the original in terms of approach and attack that they are uncomfortably smarmy and goofy. I'm not doubting he's a very able player I just cannot get into his approach to music as it's very different to what I like and what I try to portray. Just very polite and safe sounding to me

Neither of these covers get the curiously off-kilter feel of Johnson's work. Clapton here sounds like a bloke at a local blues jam, albeit with a great backup band. The 'best' cover is the Stones, Jagger at least gets the swagger (it's all personal taste) -



Never followed Clapton's work in any detail but 461 Ocean Boulevard was a nice album. It has the feel of a man coming back; feeling some redemption - the playing is laid back but full of emotion. Love the guitar figure on this one with the slowly ramping up organ background -

poopot

Ok... The yardbirds, they were typical of their time and popular. Were they innovative? Not so sure.

Off the back of that we get the Rick Mayall album, which to be fair is not a great blues album and certainly no more innovative or different to any of Clapton’s peers of the time... go back and listen to Albert king etc...

Cream, it could be argued that their sound and feel had more to do with Ginger Baker than Clapton or Jack Bruce... without Gingers swagger their stuff doesn’t hold up imo...

But, by this point we have the “Clapton is god” ethos... Was it just that Clapton introduced blues to a wider audience in England? 

To be fair, take big Eric out of the equation and we still would have had Zep, Queen, Jimi etc etc...

So... to ask the original question... why is he considered one of the greats?

Or to ask it slightly differently 

“why was he revered as god like by folk in the UK?”

p90fool

poopot said:

To be fair, take big Eric out of the equation and we still would have had Zep, Queen, Jimi etc etc...

Really?