[Slowhand] RE: A Civil Debate 3-5

[Jason Lynch]

>He also impressed John Mayall: "I read about his leaving in 'Melody Maker.' 

>I'd seen him with the Yardbirds. I hated the band -- they obviously knew 

>nothing about the blues -- but Eric was the one who stood out. And I didn't 

>think any more of it until I heard the B-side of 'For Your Love,' which was 

>an instrumental, 'Got To Hurry.' That's when I thought, 'Jesus, I gotta 

>have this guy'" (John Mayall as quoted in Michael Leonard, "Bluesbreakers," 

>"Guitarist Icons: Eric Clapton Special Issue" [UK], 2001 [Issue 1], p.14).

>


I completely agree with John Mayall.



>

>Hmmm, the Gibson vs. Fender argument again. Sounds like you agree with me 

>on this one. I think it's part of the answer, but a small part. If you 

>can't play guitar, then no Gibson and no Fender will help. Today, Clapton 

>simply doesn't play his "stretch vibrato" any more, which I'll define as 

>bending a string, and applying vibrato WHILE BENT. He bends strings all the 

>time today. He plays vibrato, but only on unbent strings. There may be 

>exceptions, but they're SO few and far between. This was, however, a 

>regular occurrence during the 1960s.

>


Correct, we pretty much agree here.


>

>Ahem, remember Cream, and their LONG instrumental passages? I think this 

>disproves your point #1. As far as #2 goes, yes, perhaps he plays more 

>notes with the Strat. But it's funny to hear this from the Master of the 

>Electric Guitar: he could come up with a better one than this. You'll have 

>to let me know where some of those "chord patterns" are. I'm not 

>challenging you here, I'm just not sure I understand what you mean: which 

>tracks. It doesn't really seem to be a big deal, though. And yes, he does 

>play slide guitar in public today. However, per his own admission, he 

>always played slide guitar, only very few slide parts were ever included on 

>any of his recordings. I think that his very first recorded slide part was 

>probably "Anyone For Tennis," which he played with Cream. He later played 

>slide guitar with Derek And The Dominoes, and it appeared on some bootleg 

>recordings from 1970, so it really isn't new at all. And he finger picked, 

>maybe less often, back then too. What about "I'm So Glad," which has a 

>finger-picked introduction?

>


During the long instrumental passages in Cream, Clapton sometimes relies 
quiet heavily on repeated licks (Spoonful from Wheels of Fire). For chord 
uses in solos, tkae a look at live versions of a lot of the Pilgrim tracks, 
especially My Father's Eyes and Goin' Down Slow. More recent versions of 
Sheriff also sometimes feature this. He'll usually only do it for a few 
seconds, but I find it to be a nice complement to his solos and also a 
relatively new development as I don't recall hearing it in anything before 
1998 or so. Regarding slide and fingerpicking. While both were present early 
on, his laying with each is much stronger now. He is really a pretty 
excellent slide player now (though certainly no Derek Trucks). Also, there 
is a huge difference between a finger-picked intro, which is a set piece and 
solos like he plays on the studio cut of Pilgrim (one of my favorite EC 
solos) or Reconsider Baby.


>

> >>> 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.

>

>


We'll probably have to agree to disagree here. I went back and listened, and 
in terms of "neatness" I can't hear any difference between Clapton in the 
60's and Clapton now, especially when he's using the same gear. The amount 
of excess noise seems almost exactly the same to me.


>

>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:

>

>

*snip*

>

>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.

>

>


I'll give you that his chops were probably best with Mayall. Constant work 
will do that. I'm still not sold on his consistency with Cream though. Of 
the live stuff I've heard, some of it is great, and some of it is terrible. 
That to me, is not consistency.