The guitarist Eddie Van Halen said was out of everybody’s league: “At the top of my list”
The pantheon of rock’s finest guitarists is a heavily contested arena.
While there may be some undisputed attendees to the hallowed six-string conference, with the likes of Les Paul, Jimmy Page, and Jimi Hendrix likely all guaranteed their respective spots on the council, the rest of the chairs’ occupants remain constantly changing. It’s a puzzle that always perplexed another member of society with an access all areas pass: Eddie Van Halen.
Having changed the way we think about rock guitar from the late 1970s and ’80s until his passing, Van Halen remains one of those pioneers of the instrument who are untouchable in what they contributed to the evolution of its sound. His finger-tapping technique not only ripped up the rule book that the aforementioned triumvirate had laid out, but he did so with a unique sense of humility.
Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello said of Van Halen after his passing, “Eddie Van Halen was one of the greatest, most inventive, truly visionary musicians of all time. He was an unparalleled titan in the annals of rock & roll. And on the Mount Rushmore of guitarists, he is neck-and-neck for the pole position.” Van Halen is an unstoppable six-string icon.
Though it is certainly one of the highest art forms, to think of music, especially rock music of the 20th century, as anything but competitive is to be lost in a fictional ideal. One need only look at the rivalry between Pete Townshend and Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, Nirvana and Guns N’ Roses, Blur and Oasis, plus countless others for confirmation of the somewhat unwelcome notion. Van Halen, however, rarely subscribed to such a thought.
When asked by Rolling Stone to submit his ballot for greatest guitarists of all time, he was stumped. “I never quite understood… what is this based on?” he asked. “Because I personally have never rated myself as a guitarist, or anyone else. To me it’s not the Olympics or a competition, you know what I mean? Let me put it this way. Back in the days of Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and Chopin, how could you rate them? They were all good at what they did, and you couldn’t put them in any order.”
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and music is similarly enjoyed by one individual in one way and by another audience member in a completely different way. However, when that beholder happens to be one of the most beautiful players of all time, the clamour for a confirmed list of favourites becomes a little more understandable. Van Halen both decried the idea of competition but also picked his number one.
“I would have to start with the people who gave us the electric guitar, which is Les Paul and Leo Fender,” mused Van Halen. “Because without them, we wouldn’t have a guitar to play. Les Paul, being a player and an innovator, I would say would be at number one. Leo Fender wasn’t necessarily a player, he surrounded himself with players, and created an electric guitar.”
However, the truth is actually a little deeper than this, and while Van Halen paid homage to the founders of his instrument, his real favourite was actually someone a little more obvious. “Then came Eric Clapton, who is at the top of my list,” confirmed Van Halen. The connection between the players may not be easy to ascertain at first glance, but the ‘Jump’ legend confirmed his devotion to ‘Slowhand’.
“What attracted me to his playing, and style and vibe was the basic simplicity in his approach, and his tone, his sound,” he said. It was Clapton’s daring to change the rules that inspired Van Halen. “He just basically took a Gibson guitar and plugged it straight into a Marshall, and that was it,” he shared. “The basics. The blues. So, you know, then what I ended up personally doing… I didn’t like a Les Paul or a Fender. So I cross-pollinated the two — I took the best parts of each one and made my own guitar. And basically Clapton is the only one that’s influenced me.”
Few guitarists are able to trump the work of Eddie Van Halen on the guitar, but if you grab that handful of players, Eric Clapton would certainly be one of them, and whether Eddie likes it or not, he’d always put Clapton on top of the pile.
