Eric Clapton

Gregg Allman raves about Derek Trucks in his book.

 

Ritchie Blackmore is always underrated.

 

I think it was in there that he told the story of pulling up to some club and seeing two kids playing catch out back. Ten minutes later one of the kids was on stage ripping through "Statesboro Blues" or something like that.

 

If you really want to hear Clapton at his best, go back and listen to the John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers album on which he played with Mayall, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, before Cream. Incandecent stuff.

Saw him in Biloxi in 1990, in what I believe was his first show after the fateful East Troy, Wis., show after which Stevie Ray Vaughan was killed. Don't know if that had any effect, but Clapton played a smoking-hot show.

Have pretty much lost interest in him. And, yes, I can't stand the acoustic Layla. Sucks on so many levels.

 

Well, except for Clapton's warp-drive solos, the original White Album version of "WMGGWs" is not exactly a potboiling rocker either. It's a lugubrious piano-acoustic guitar shuffler. In that way, Prince served exactly the same purpose as Clapton on the original.

In a way, George set the die himself back in 1968 when he first wrote the song and called Clapton in to play guitar parts he himself couldn't. That guaranteed to some extent the song would always be about "somebody else."

George never thought of himself as a good guitarist for the screaming/wailing-style solos. Remember, he handed off the solos in "Taxman" in 1966 to Paul (who also played the real screaming stuff on "Helter Skelter" and "Back In The USSR").

 

Oh, George was good, and he got better later on (some of his slide stuff especially around 1970-71 on his own "All Things Must Pass" and Lennon's "Imagine" was really good) but I don't think he ever really thought of himself as a screaming lead guitarist in the vein of Clapton, Townshend or the other guitar gods.

Certainly McCartney was better on the lightning elliptical-type solos. He played almost all the lead guitar stuff on "Band On The Run" too -- I think Paul always saw himself as the lead guitarist of the Beatles, who had stepped aside to make room for George and fill the gap when Stu (on bass) dropped out.

 

I'm as big a Beatles fan as you'll find, but I maintain that Paul was really the only musical virtuoso of the four (from an instrumental point, that is).

 

Virtuoso is a little strong.
He could play several instruments capably.

In general, the band was not made of great players.

 

Paul McCartney was a pop virtuoso. The only instrument any Beatle could outplay him on was sitar. Even that, maybe not.

 

The band was greater than the sum of its part.


McCartney is no virtuoso. He plays several instruments capably.
He was a good but not great guitar player. As was Harrison.

Harrison could play some slide, but he wasn't exactly Sonny Landreth.

 

Exactly. In Lennon and McCartney they had two of the greatest songwriters and two of the greatest singers in the history of rock and roll. Any band would be happy with one of those.

And Zak Starkey drums rings around his old man.