The musician Sammy Hagar wanted to learn everything from
The key behind artists like Sammy Hagar is never losing that same fire they had as a fan.
No one suddenly stops listening to music the second they reach the big time, and the best artists in the world often know how to take the basis of all their influences and sprinkle in their own bit of magic when crafting their own tunes. And while ‘The Red Rocker’ went down a lot of musical avenues throughout his career, there would always be those stand-by artists that he would always return to no matter what.
Because when listening to his solo work and his time with Van Halen, Hagar always felt like the consummate rock and roll frontman. As much as David Lee Roth flaunted himself off to the audience like one of the greatest showmen to ever walk the Earth, Hagar had the voice, the guitar chops, and the down-to-Earth demeanour that made it impossible not to love when he first joined the band on 5150.
From day one of working with Eddie, the guitar maestro already knew he was working with a true professional compared to Roth. Hagar had a far better range, so instead of having to work around Roth’s voice half the time, he could easily present songs like ‘Why Can’t This Be Love’ alongside the rock and roll tunes and have Hagar bring him back a beautiful melody within the span of a few minutes.
But it’s not like Hagar was the polar opposite of Roth, either. Both of them knew how to work a crowd in their own ways, and Hagar even got the chance to perform the song ‘Jump’ with the band on numerous occasions, but if there was one thing that tied both of them together in the early days, it was a love of the blues.
Whereas Roth’s definition of the blues centred around the artists with a ton of charisma, ‘The Red Rocker’ was focused on the sonics of what he was hearing. Eddie had already started waxing poetic about Eric Clapton from the minute he was asked about his influences, but even by Eddie’s standards, Hagar wasn’t only a fan of ‘Slowhand’. The minute that he heard that tone, Hagar knew he wanted to do everything he could to play like that.
Not many people can step to what a musical god had done, but Hagar definitely put in the hours as a Clapton disciple, saying, “I tried to learn every solo Eric Clapton had ever done, going back to his work in the Yardbirds and in John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers. I learned the blues solo for Have You Heard note-for-note. And then when the Fresh Cream album came out, I learned those songs. The same was true for Disraeli Gears. I was more into Clapton, and Peter Green, than, say, someone like Hendrix.”
Picking someone like Clapton over Jimi Hendrix might be borderline heresy in most guitarist’s worlds, but it’s not like Hagar was alone. Eddie clearly had a great respect for what Hendrix was doing, but even he admitted that Clapton was one of the only guitarists that he ever studied intently, usually using his licks as a template before eventually veering off into his signature tapping licks.
But outside of the licks, it’s Clapton’s spirit that kept Hagar adventurous whenever he picked up a guitar. ‘Slowhand’ was never afraid to take a chance with whatever band he was playing with, and it takes that kind of courage for someone like Hagar to even attempt to play guitar next to Eddie during their peak.
