The artist Jeff Beck called “the household name for guitar”
The kind of relationship that Jeff Beck had with his guitar can never be understated.
No one since Jimi Hendrix was ever more at one with their instrument the way that he was, and looking at how consistently he worked on expanding his craft, he was always curious to see where music could take him outside of the usual blues scales. But even if he wasn’t the most high-profile artist of all time, it’s not like Beck looked down upon those who managed to get the big hits, either.
Because when looking at the greatest artists of all time, Beck can always be found somewhere in the background. Aside from working on tunes like ‘Superstition’ with Stevie Wonder in his prime, seeing him pop up on songs by everyone from Roger Waters to Tina Turner was more than lip service on everyone’s part. They knew he was a legend even if the rest of the world didn’t know it yet.
But becoming a legend like that means putting in time on the instrument, and before he was even out on his own, The Yardbirds already saw Beck reaching by leaps and bounds compared to the other blues players. There’s no way of getting around the fact that The Yardbirds were a pure blues outfit, but when Beck and Jimmy Page left to form their respective outfits, it wasn’t like they were going to be playing that music the rest of their lives. They liked the blues, but there was a lot more to explore.
If they had a good idea of what they wanted their music to be, Eric Clapton was a lot more comfortable sticking with blues most of his life. That’s where he had found his calling before he could even play guitar properly, and even when he delved into singer-songwriter territory or traded in his Gibson SG for a Fender Stratocaster, he was always giving people the best blues licks he knew how.
In fact, Clapton might be ground zero for any passive music fan looking to get into the blues. Not everything that he made was meant to cater to the kind of crowds that listen to Muddy Waters, but beyond being a great player, tunes like ‘Wonderful Tonight’ are the pop masterpieces that help give fans a little bit of a taste of what listening to bluesy fills could sound like.
Not everything may have been as adventurous as what Beck did, but he could appreciate Clapton serving as his generation’s guitar voice, saying, “He’s the ambassador, isn’t he? He’s the guy that everyone makes reference to. He’s the household name for electric guitar. Eric’s got so much to offer. In addition to playing so well, he gives the world songs they can identify with.”
While Beck was one to let his music do the talking more often than not, it’s that lyrical element that gives Clapton his strength as a musician. A lot of people simply aren’t into music to listen to people create an instrumental tune, and even if Clapton has more than a few times when his lyrics were absolutely terrible, it’s hard not to feel some sort of emotion listening to tunes like ‘Tears in Heaven’.
On paper, Beck was the better guitar player for the kind of risks based on the amount of risks he took, but it takes more than a little bravery to be able to make the moves that Clapton did throughout his career. He had to pay for every one of his regrettable decisions, but after learning from his mistakes time and time again, ‘Slowhand’ matured into the modern version of what a bluesman should be.
