The guitarist Eddie Van Halen thought was leagues ahead of Jimi Hendrix
Throughout the course of musical history, there have always been rivalries, some manufactured, some bitter, but all seemingly spurring on stars like Eddie Van Halen.
Specifically, the world of guitar music seems to be particularly competitive. As a result, the age-old question ‘Who is the greatest guitarist of all time?’ elicits a plethora of different answers, but two names always seem to stand out as the typical inseparable titans: Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.
Although the two figures were complementary of each other, it hasn’t stopped many guitar obsessives like Eddie Van Halen from pitching them against one another. And the ‘Jump’ shredder has a definitive favourite between the pair.
Van Halen has his own claims to guitar greatness, of course, too. The American musician and songwriter helped to revolutionise the ways in which many people play the guitar. For instance, Van Halen was among the first frenetic figures in rock music to employ the ‘tapping’ method of guitar playing, in which he used both hands on the fretboard in order to play riffs faster than anybody else.
But he was precise with his pace, too. He didn’t just fumble around as fast as he could without due care, often criticising Jimmy Page as a sloppy player. Eddie Van Halen owes much of his own precision to Eric Clapton, having practised his licks when he was just getting into rock ‘n’ roll. From his earliest years, Van Halen has always cited the Cream guitarist as a major influence on his own playing style.
Clapton’s playing has developed a lot over the years, going from the psychedelic defiance of Cream to the complexities of his illustrious solo career. Throughout it all, though, his guitar playing has been rooted in the blues, as is evident to anybody who has ever listened to Clapton. Reportedly, it was this dedication to the blues which inspired Van Halen.
The songwriter once told Rolling Stone, “What attracted me to [Clapton’s] playing and style and vibe was the basic simplicity in his approach and his tone, his sound,” explaining, “He just basically took a Gibson guitar and plugged it straight into a Marshall and that was it. The basics. The blues. […] Basically Clapton is the only one that’s influenced me.”
Conversely, Van Halen apparently did not rate Jimi Hendrix very highly at all. A fellow disciple of blues and psychedelia, Hendrix is inarguably the most iconic and beloved guitarist of all time, whose unique compositions and improvisational techniques made him a force of nature within the counterculture rock scene of the 1960s.
Only a fool or a deliberate contrarian could denounce the brilliance of Hendrix – we’ll let you make up your mind as to which one Van Halen is. But he certainly wasn’t shy of sharing a bold opinion, bashing the likes of Journey and even driving a tank to confront Limp Bizkit – both far more understandable than his issue with Hendrix.
Back in 2020, Kylie Olsson – who spent a lot of time with Van Halen – reflected on their time together to Ultimate Guitar, “We didn’t really play-play, we just were there with guitars on the left,” she said before dropping the bombshell, “And he asked me who my favourite guitar player was. I said, ‘Well, it’s Jimi Hendrix.’ And he thought Jimi Hendrix was too sloppy; his favourite was Eric Clapton.”
Calling the awe-inspiring tones of Hendrix ‘sloppy’ is like calling the Sistine Chapel a ‘rushed job’. It seems particularly ridiculous coming from Van Halen; as an incredibly proficient guitarist himself, you would assume that he could understand the profound intricacies and deeply emotional quality of Hendrix’s playing style.
Nevertheless, Van Halen always maintained that Clapton was well ahead of his peers. And while he would find bitter counter-arguments from the likes of Angus Young, he’s not alone in citing the ‘Layla’ guitarist as the superior strummer. Obviously, as his former bandmate, Jack Bruce has a vested interest in the matter, but the Cream man did say, “In an instrumental sense, I would argue that Eric was at least as good as Jimi, probably better.”
