[Slowhand] The peak periods

[ollio]

Hi all,

Just my humble take on Clapton's peak periods as a guitarist:
I think they somewhat are related to his intake of alcohol and drugs.

I agree with everybody, that Clapton revolutionalized electric guitar as a solo instrument in rock groups. Of course his heroes were American blues guitarists, but Clapton made their influence into a voice of his own. I just think, that the first peak period was a quite short one (but historical) from 1965 (Mayall) to the May of 1968. I believe, that Jeff Beck with Yardbirds made a bigger mark than Clapton with the Yardbirds.

Clapton seems to be quite inconsistent even at this stage: The BBC tapes by Mayall show a Clapton, that is nowhere near the genius heard on the Beano album. By the farewell tour of Cream Clapton had lost his interest in Cream and some of the bootlegs are really shambles. Clapton has stated himself, that in every 4 shows they played one great show and 3 mediocre ones. Also the famous Rolling Stone review spoke about Clapton as as "master of blues cliche". I don't agree!
The start of Blind Faith was very timid as you can see on the Blind Faith DVD. Also by this time Clapton was starting use heavier drugs and the short flash of genius with Derek and Dominos went down with smack and coke.

EC returned as singer/songwriter/guitarist in 1974 and shaped his career again. He had lost his interest in the guitarsolo as a goal. The drinking decade that followed was quite silent in the guitar department, although on Crossroads 2 there some nice examples of the great music he played on good nights and that included some beautiful guitar work.

The second peak period started as early as 1984, when he had gotten sober after 10 years of crazy drinking. Shows with Roger Waters and the Behind The Sun-tour saw a fresh Clapton, that had found his interest in guitar back. 
Unfortunately he started drinking again and we had to wait to somewhere like 1989 to hear this edgy and assertive guitar again.


>From then on Clapton has gone from strength to strength. 

I think the NBTB period wasaas great as everybody has said, but there's really interesting guitar work on Pilgrim tour bootlegs as well. The Reptile tour 2001 started wonderfully in Europe with some unbelievable shows, but then lost the fire and Clapton lost his interest and was going to retire.

There's the inconsistency apparent still: On this current tour he played an amazing show in Frankfurt full of fluent and imaginative guitar work, but then on the Lucca show he stumbled pretty heavily and sadly with the Gibson ES 335 he used on After Midnight and Little Queen Of Spades.
But there's always those unbelievable nights, when Clapton is really on and then you're taken for musical ride you will remember forever.

Thank God he is still performing and giving us his amazing talent, both on guitar and as a singer!

Cheers
Olli
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