BLUES

This month Andy Saphir examines the various styles of one of the most revered and influential blues-rock guitarists of them all, the legendary ‘Slowhand’ himself.

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There have been few players as important to the shaping of the sound of blues-rock guitar as Eric Clapton. A true popular music superstar, the multi-Grammy winning Clapton has achieved iconic status, not only as a blues-rock guitar legend, but also as a mainstream artist who has enjoyed worldwide fame for decades, with songs such like the anthemic Layla, Wonderful Tonight, Rule The World, and My Father’s Eyes, as well as with his cover versions of songs including Bob Marley’s I Shot The Sheriff, or JJ Cale’s iconic, Cocaine.

Clapton’s effect on the development of blues-rock guitar is a matter of modern musical folklore. At a time when young blues disciples such as he, Jimmy Page, John Mayall and Keith Richards were discovering and devouring the music of original American blues artists, his subsequent success in bands such as Cream helped bring the sound of British blues to the USA, generating a resurgence of interest in the source music to new generations, as well as introducing his fluid, improvisation-based lead guitar style. Clapton was already a notable player in the UK, from stints in The Yardbirds and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, but as part of the so called ‘British Invasion’, he was exporting his loud, energy infused sound to eager new audiences, and by extension, to a legion of new guitar players. After the breakup of Cream, Clapton embarked on other projects, such as Blind Faith, Delaney And Bonnie, and Derek And The Dominos. His first eponymously titled solo album in 1970 established him as a solo artist, and was the first of many over the ensuing decades to produce classics like Lay Down Sally, Bad Love, and Tears In Heaven, which cemented his status as a legend.