Quote:
Originally Posted by mattymel
at the top of the all time most overrated list HAS to be clapton. the whole "clapton is god" era has always been an enigma to me. true that he once had a decent sound. but who wouldnt with unlimited funds back in the day when all there was was gibson guitars and marshall amps. whoopdeedoo. "womantone"? clapton plays licks he lifted off of other people's records proficiently, and with little mojo. kind of an important thing when you are supposed to be playing the blues.
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You must not have grown up in the '60s. It is easy, sitting here today, to compare Clapton to so many other guitarists and question his relevance. Just imagine, though, that the only guitarists you've heard, other than the Beatles, are the Ventures and maybe Eddie Cochran. Blues artists weren't played on the radio in most Metropolitan areas, not until after the white players became popular. Clapton, Page, and Beck were incredible pioneers for rock guitar, due in no small part to their blues roots and their adaptation of the blues to rock. Hendrix was other-worldly, and took guitar to another dimension (kind of a Les Paul of the '60s), but Clapton was the bridge to much of what is played today. Most of us had never heard a guitar sound that way before. I don't think it merited the "god" title, but most people I knew thought of it as tongue-in-cheek anyway.
By the way, Les Pauls and Marshalls were not that expensive back then, and Clapton was not rich. As for the "womantone" and other creativity, check out
this great post by Splattle101.