The “most soulful” guitar playing Eric Clapton ever heard
Eric Clapton always understood the importance of emotion in every note he played.
No one goes to a concert looking to hear a singer perform their songs completely stoic, and the best guitarists in the world often know how to put that same amount of passion into every single bend that they play. Clapton could certainly hang with the best in his field, but not all of the fastest players had the most soul behind their music, either.
Because if you think about the meaning of the blues, it’s all about someone trying to create raw emotion out of nothing. None of the early blues players from the pre-rock and roll days were trying to fly off the handle and impress anyone. They were simply playing along to the tune they heard inside their heart, and it took Clapton a little while to actually pick up on what they were doing.
He could play Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy licks for the rest of his days, but the real teachers for him were always people like Robert Johnson and BB King. Everyone will praise songs like ‘Crossroads’ for being one of the greatest solos that Clapton ever did, but even if it was technically gorgeous from a certain perspective, there are certain feelings that BB King could do with a single bend that Clapton couldn’t manage to match.
But to play the most soulful music of them all, that meant going beyond rock and roll altogether. The generation of English players that Clapton was born out of called their version of music rhythm and blues, but R&B in the US was a completely different animal. That was about making the smoothest sounds to ever land on a vinyl record, and the best players are the ones that had that music baked into their foundations.
Most of the greatest players may have originated from everywhere from Mississippi to Chicago, but Johnny Guitar Watson was a revelation for Clapton back in the day. His way with guitar playing was already beyond compare before Clapton began, but outside of his flamboyant stage persona, his instrumental work struck a nerve with Clapton in a new style that no other singer could have.
Even when Clapton transitioned towards playing standards on guitar, he always went back to Watson as the foundation for that style of playing, saying, “I believe just about anything that’s ever been written can be put into a blues or an old R&B framework. I mean, Johnny Guitar Watson did a version of ‘Embraceable You’ that’s one of the most soulful things you’ll ever hear, so I knew it can be done.”
And while Clapton’s version of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ was never going to reach the same classic status as something like ‘Wonderful Tonight’ or ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, his way of interpreting the melody is a lot closer to how a soul singer would approach it. All the inflexions in the melody are perfect, and while Clapton does take some liberties, his version of playing standards hearkens back to the old days of Cream when he quoted ‘Blue Moon’ in the middle of ‘Sunshine of Your Love’.
Since Clapton was never in love with his voice, having Watson as his guide is also one of the reasons why he had the confidence to let his guitar do the talking. He had grown into a singer that could carry a tune pretty well, but he has never spoken more eloquently than when he had a guitar in his hands.
