Which Eric Clapton supergroup had his best guitar playing?
Let’s get the obvious note out of the way first: picking the group where Eric Clapton laid down his best guitar work is like choosing the court where Serena Williams played her best tennis.
If you squint, there’s some difference between them, but by and large, it’s still the best you could possibly find in its field. Despite being a consummate sideman (there’s a reason we’re not looking at his solo work), Clapton was a musician whose playing demanded to be heard. While rarely the creative hub of these groups, his playing was pretty much always the draw.
Even when it wasn’t the draw, it soon became it. After all, the name on the marquee of Clapton’s first band wasn’t Eric Clapton at all, but John Mayall. To a particular breed of blues purist, his work in the Bluesbreakers may be where the discussion begins and ends, and there’s an argument to be made that’s entirely justified, as it’s certainly the most exciting period of Clapton’s work. The only time that he plays with any raw, youthful energy, where the idea is simply to create great music rather than live up to a literally divine reputation as a “great musician”.
However, the lad was still all of 20 years old when he joined the group. While it’s still mind-blowing that a lad who was (at the time) too young to vote could still play like that, he’s still very raw. The music itself isn’t all that deep once you get past the visceral thrill of it all, either, so while the Bluesbreakers are a brilliant starting point, both for the man and anyone looking to hear his playing, they’re not where he peaked. Which is just well, because if I peaked at 20, I’d be worried too.
Then you get to the obvious answer. After all, Clapton’s next project was a band whose very identity came from his reputation as the single greatest blues guitar player in the world. He wanted to form a band with a bassist on his level and a drummer to match. To form a band that was, in essence, the Cream of blues musicians. If you listen to Eric Clapton, he still swears blind that he saw the band as three equals and not a backing group for his guitar playing, but to most, that’s exactly what Cream was.
Was Cream where Eric Clapton played his best guitar?
Even figures as cantankerous as Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker would have to say fair enough to the belief. Cream was the way Clapton broke into the mainstream. Hits like ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ show that the supergroup was far more than a bunch of blues journeyman jamming on a 12-bar. The band was the sound of a talented blues guitarist maturing into a great rock musician. By the end of their short life, Cream were as much a psychedelic rock band as a blues combo.
However, even the most die-hard Claptologist would have to say that the sheer amount of noodling present in Cream got a bit much. On the one hand, this should be par for the course. When you’ve got three of the best blues musicians on the planet playing, why wouldn’t they play? But it’s true: not only is Cream where Eric Clapton displayed some of his best guitar playing, it’s also quite definitively the group Clapton played the most guitar.
A five-minute song on record like ‘Toad’ regularly stretched to three times that length on stage, and five was already pushing it. The point of the band may have been to see three musicians of equal reputation playing together, so you can’t say it was complete self-indulgence, but it was a damn good impression of it, though. One that Clapton actually tried to rally against in his follow-up group Blind Faith, where extended jam sessions were nixed in favour of, y’know, actual songwriting.
In fact, had Blind Faith been together longer for anything other than a cup of coffee, then we might easily be talking about it as the pinnacle of Clapton’s guitar playing for that very reason. As it is, we have to settle for proof that Clapton is not at his best when he has a rhythm section his equal supporting him. Instead, it is when he has a fellow guitar player actively challenging him to use every moment of fret time he gets to its absolute peak.
The irony of all this is that Derek & The Dominoes are arguably the Eric Clapton project most driven by his sole creative vision. Yet it is also pretty unarguably the best guitar work of his entire career. Much of that is down to the fact that Duane Allman’s absolutely remarkable slide and lead playing across the album forced Clapton to double down and make every note count. A reminder, if one’s needed, that steel sharpens steel, and if you want to be a creative, sometimes having a rival in your midst can be the best thing for your work.
