“He had a fantastic imagination”: Eric Clapton on why loved collaborating with Jimi Hendrix
Eric Clapton has never been one to search for great musicians. Even though he may have had a rocky relationship with many of his former bandmates, it was easy to have some of the best layers come to him after he became one of the biggest names in guitar music. Then again, Clapton could still get starstruck when he wanted to, and he could stand aside when he knew someone was outplaying him.
But for all of his showmanship, a lot of people forget that Clapton’s greatest work was when he slowed things down. The solo he did for The Beatles’ ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ is far from his most technical performance, but by using the pentatonic scale, he put together the kind of solo that actually made the guitar sound like it was screaming out in pain before George Harrison comes back for the choruses of the song.
Even if the Fab Four were dominating the pop charts, there was no denying that Clapton was on another plane of existence when it came to guitar playing. Everything that he played off the top of his head was like someone channelling some celestial guitarist on the spot, and even if it wasn’t the most radio-friendly tune in the world, it still left people either marvelling at the sheer speed of it all or dumbfounded that a human being could think of anything like that on the spot.
Then again, Clapton always was going to follow in the footsteps of the blues heroes before him. He certainly put his stamp on some of his best material, but when listening to some of his key songs like ‘Sunshine of Your Love’, there are bits and pieces from everyone from Muddy Waters to Howlin’ Wolf in the way he delivers the tune, even finding time to quote ‘Blue Moon’ in the middle of everything.
If Clapton was a blues acolyte, though, Jimi Hendrix was a musical angel descended from the heavens. He had spent time listening to the same music Clapton had, but once people got a taste of what ‘Purple Haze’ and ‘The Wind Cries Mary’ sounded like, why would any of them want to go back to listening to Cream try their hand at jazz?
Even if Clapton had his own supergroup to work off of at the time, he admitted that he couldn’t have asked for anyone better to jam with than Hendrix, saying, “His tastes were exactly what I would have wanted in another musician. For the blues and where it came from. He had a fantastic imagination for what you could do with it.”
And if Clapton was being heralded as a musical god among men, Hendrix may have ascended to an even higher being by comparison, practically opening doors that no one had thought possible before. Disraeli Gears could justifiably be considered Cream’s masterpiece, but when looking at something like Electric Ladyland, there’s hardly any question of which one reigns supreme, especially when Hendrix started spreading out and toying with what someone could do in the studio.
While many of Hendrix’s best moments may have been a bit overshadowed by the fact that he was taken from us so soon, that shouldn’t diminish the mark that he left. Because even with less than five years of recorded output under his belt, there are people who have still not managed to catch up to him with a lifetime’s worth of work.
