RockOut: Eric Clapton

Born Eric Patrick Clapton, but Known famously as Eric Clapton or by the moniker, Slow Hand. Clapton is a legendary blues guitarist whose skills allowed him to play with some of the finest rock bands of all time. Bands such as The Yard Birds, Cream, Derek and the Dominos, and Blind faith. So yes, Clapton’s contribution to rock music and it’s evolution is not something menial and Its goes without saying that Eric Clapton has the highest number of inductions into the Rock N Roll hall of fame. He been inducted thrice, these coming from being part of the Yardbirds, Cream, and as a solo artist. Added to that, he has also won 18 Grammys over the course of his musical career.

Clapton is God

Eric Clapton is ranked second by Rolling stone magazine on their list of greatest guitarists, which speaks volumes about his guitar ability. He was voted by fellow great guitarists and journalists who aren’t all his peer but rather younger guitarists and fans who grew up listening to his songs and idolizing his guitar skills. Ideally their numerous opinions clearly out weigh mine. Though In my opinion, i would say he would sit pretty in third on the list behind Led zeppelin’s Jimmy page and just above the rolling stones riff machine, Keith Richards. Eric Clapton is with out a doubt a great guitarist who deserves to be one of the top 5 greatest guitar players of all time, otherwise an avid fan wouldn’t have spray painted the words, “Clapton is God,” in an underground station, to immortalize Slow hand as the greatest guitarist in the world. But this was in 1967, and lets face it, that fan might not have listened to Jimi Hendrix yet. If he had, then he'd have written a different name on that wall.

Most of the time when people talk about Eric Clapton, they focus on his guitar skills, which are indeed sublime, but they leave out the part about him being quite the vocalist. His vocal work with bands like Derek and Dominos, Blind faith and as a solo artist is quite the spectacle. He may have had reservations about his voice in earlier years, but slow hand’s voice has given us countless classics like Layla, Cocaine, tears in heaven and Wonderful tonight. But of course his vocals are shadowed by his insane guitar ability, his guitar playing is so good that he is not just among the greatests to ever play guitar but he is spoken of in the same breaths as Jimi Hendrix, BB king and Duane Allman, Stevie Ray Vaughan all of whom are in the elite class of blues guitarists.

Eric Clapton has a lot of incredible guitar moments to his name, take for example the riff on his guitar duet with Duane Allman, Layla. The riff is something else but added to that, the song has an incredible guitar solo’s. He has a number of incredible solos, take for example; The cover of legendary Mississippi Blues man, Robert Johnson’s, Crossroads, Cocaine and the Beatles' while my guitar gently weeps. Yes, you heard right, George Harrison invited him to play with the Beatles, but he did more than just play, he whipped out another incredible guitar solo and as such contributed to the great and illustrious history of the Beatles with that great solo. It isn’t his finest guitar solo, because for his finest guitar solo you’d have to listen to Crossroads-cream.

Eric Clapton, like most great musicians, doesn’t have a spotless past, he was heard spewing racist remarks at concerts while drunk about how England should fight to keep herself from becoming a black colony, which is pretty ironic because he’d then go ahead to make covers of songs originally sung and written by black blues artists as well performing them live, so we’ll just blame the alcohol and drugs for his double standards.

Slow hand also had a run in with alcohol and of course Brown Sugar. His heroin addiction supersedes normal reasoning. Clapton also stated in interview that he would spend about $16000 a week on heroin, which by any measure is quite an the sum irrespective of how rich he is. His addiction of course is said to have been one of the causes for his band, Derek and The Dominos,’ split. And though he eventually beat the addiction, Slow hand still looks back at those years and reminisces about being lucky enough to have survived dying from the addiction. It is well known that Eric Clapton released a song called Cocaine, which many may think was about his love for drugs, but in reality its just a cover version of an earlier song released by J.J. Cale, and is actually an anti drug song which is normally taken out of context.

Pattie Boyd with first husband George Harrison

It is common knowledge that the great Eric Clapton stole of the wife of another great guitarist, George Harrison, of the Beatles and many claim that the song, Layla, was Eric Clapton’s way of confessing his undying love for Pattie Boyd, after she had turned down his advances. Pattie Boyd did eventually call it quits on her marriage to Harrison and married Eric Clapton, but the real reason Pattie Boyd gave for leaving George Harrison was infidelity. She sited numerous occasions where he cheated on her, but song, Layla, did add an extra twist to the tale of how she became Eric Clapton’s wife. The song is without a doubt one of rock music’s finest songs, but the story attached to it is far more intriguing.

Layla is a fine classic rock song the showcase the skills of two of the greatest guitarists ever, Eric Clapton and slide guitar phenomenon, Duane Allman. It has one of the finest guitar riffs ever played on the guitar, a great Clapton solo, as well as Duane Allman’s slide guitar solo at the end, which gave the ending an incredible vibe. Even after over 20 years from its original release, Layla’s acoustic version earned Clapton a Grammy for best rock song, though on the night he took home a total of 6 Grammys. Most of these were for of his sorrow filled song, “Tears in heaven,” which was written about the death of his 4 year old son, Connor, who had fallen from the window of an apartment on the 53-rd floor of a building owned by a friend of Clapton’s wife. The song won three Grammys on the night and is still one of his most successful songs ever.

For your listening pleasure, check out his incredible guitar skills on these great classics

Layla-Derek and The Dominoes