The guitarist Eric Clapton called a “scholar”
To many people, the “hand of God” belonged to Diego Maradona. The footballer had divine talent on the field and scored a crucial World Cup quarterfinal goal using his hand, much to the upset of England supporters. However, in the musical world, the hand of God belongs to Eric Clapton. Many guitarists would place Jimi Hendrix above the British guitar virtuoso, but the reference pertains to graffiti that appeared on a London wall in the 1960s stating, “Clapton is God”.
While his historical record of derogatory conduct, for which he has apologised over the years, is markedly un-Godlike, it is hard to deny Clapton’s skills on the six-string. As far as most rock historians are concerned, the Yardbird trio of Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page ruled the London scene. That is until Jimi Hendrix arrived from America to add a new dimension to the fruitfully competitive atmosphere.
While the rivalry was palpable and inevitable, Clapton and Hendrix became well acquainted prior to the latter’s death in 1970. The first night the pair met, Clapton invited Hendrix to join Cream onstage to jam at the London Polytechnic at Regent Street. “He got up and blew everyone’s mind,” Clapton remembered in 1989. “I just thought, ‘Ahh, someone that plays the stuff I love in the flesh, on stage with me. ’I was actually privileged to be (on stage with him)… it’s something that no one is ever going to beat.”
If Clapton revered Hendrix for his mind-bending technical ability and messianic showmanship, he understood the importance of personality in the guitar world. Beyond the bounds of virtuosity are the unique nuances each talented guitarist brings to the fore. For example, the Cream guitarist was particularly fascinated by the versatile command of JJ Cale, whom he deemed to be cruelly underrated in his time.
Following Clapton’s departure from the Yardbirds in 1965, he joined John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. While JJ Cale’s approach encompassed folk, blues, jazz and rock, John Mayall is a blues savant and one of the earliest British proponents of the American genre.
In a 2016 conversation with Classic Rock, Clapton discussed his reasons for joining Mayall’s band. Above all else, Clapton admired Mayall’s unrivalled passion for his craft. “John was a blues archivist,” Clapton beamed. “He had the best collection of blues forty-fives – Chicago blues, everything – I’d ever seen in my life. He was a scholar.”
Clapton only played with Mayall and the Bluesbreakers for about a year, but during that time, he accumulated plenty of knowledge. “When he offered me the job, he offered me a place to live too in Lee Green,” Clapton revealed. “So I stayed with him almost the entire time that I was working with him. During the day, I would just have all these records out on the floor, putting them on the turntable, learning, learning, learning. And that was all I did. I just studied. Because I realised right away that I was in the perfect environment.”
As Clapton revealed, Mayall was strictly a blues man. “He wasn’t impressed by rock ’n’ roll, he didn’t want to be famous, he just wanted to play clubs and have it be ‘real’,” the studious Bluesbreaker concluded. “I thought, ‘This is heaven. I can use all this time now just to study my craft.’”
Clapton’s time spent living and playing with John Mayall benefitted him no end. When he formed Cream i 1966, he was on top of gis game with a wealth of blues history and influence driving him forward into the psychedelic era.
Hear Eric Clapton show off his skills in Cream’s cover of Robert Johnson’s ‘Crossroads’ below.
