[Slowhand] A Civil Debate, Part 5

[DeltaNick]

>>> Furthermore, Clapton was always noted as a very neat and tidy player: his guitar articulation was always >near perfect. I've noticed that this isn't the case any more: he's quite a bit sloppier today. <<<


 


>> Again, I find myself wondering how much of this is equipment. While I will grant that was very sloppy in the 70's, I don't think that's really the case today. To use myself as an example again, I find my playing comes out much cleaner on the Les Paul than the Strat. This is probably a combination of the difference in pickups and the slight larger distance between the strings on a Les Paul, but I don't think anyone would argue with the notion that a Strat is a very "noisy" guitar. When he has played Gibsons, I've found his playing to be just as clean as it was in days of yore. <<


 

Here we go again with the Gibson vs. Fender argument. I can't disagree with you on this one. However, a few years back, EC played a concert in Portland, Oregon, using Gibson guitars only. Although I think it sounded better, I still think he was neater much earlier in his career. So, I only agree with you halfway on this one. The Fender is an unnecessarily "noisier" guitar, but it alone doesn't make EC's guitar playing sloppy. I think it's in his fingers or the ROM chips above.

 


>> I think you are romanticizing a little bit here. I can't count the number of times I've heard EC talk about how awful Cream could be on off nights, or the times when he would completely phone in performances with John Mayall. I think the issue might be that we have many fewer high quality recordings of the earlier era and tend to assume that what we hear is how it was most, if not all the time, when, in fact, those recordings were typically released because they represented the very best. <<


 

I think you're taking a bit out of context here. EC has stated, not just once but several times, that his most gratifying period, in which his chops were best, was the Mayall era:

 

Tommy Vance: "Way back in the 60s and in the very early stages of your career -- prior to Cream, the supergroup of all time in the minds of just about all rock fans around the world -- which were your most gratifying periods then? Was it with Mayall?"

 

Eric Clapton: "Yeah, doubtless with Mayall, 'cause we worked hard. We worked about seven nights a week, sometimes two shows a night in different places and my chops were probably better than they have ever been. That was really the peak, I think. And that's why I think I felt a lot of disappointment when I was with Cream was because I was doing something that wasn't quite the same and I was unfamiliar with the territory . You know it was -- that's what we invented -- a new fusion of music. None of it was familiar. I mean, Ginger didn't know anything about rock'n'roll, for instance. Jack was into a form of very free jazz. And I was straight into the blues. The three of us had to communicate somehow and we put a melting pot together. That's how it happened, but I think pre-that, Mayall had to be the one where I really felt most at home" (Tommy Vance, "The Eric Clapton Special," Rock Hour Special, BBC Radio 1, 20 April 1980, London Wavelength Series [O01-AA], http://www.xs4all.nl/~slowhand/specials.htm#features).



Above, EC clearly refers to the long jams that Cream played, above, which was only part of what Cream did. They also made records and recorded some pretty good songs, including blues tunes. And the blues tunes stand out among the rest of Cream's live repertoire. Don't fixate on Cream's long jams, as I never did so, contrary to what some others on the Slowhand Digest believe. I think the best track on "Wheels Of Fire" is not "Spoonful" (16+ minutes) but "Crossroads" (4+ minutes). In fact, I prefer the shorter, studio version of "Spoonful" to the live version. And don't forget, not all of Cream's performances were recorded officially. In fact, very few of them were.


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