Every lick that Eric Clapton ever played had the roots of the blues inside of it somewhere.
‘Slowhand’ could definitely take the guitar in a bunch of new directions that no one had ever heard, but his greatest strength was acting as a walking encyclopedia for the blues half the time, whether that’s playing that one John Lee Hooker song or showing his appreciation for artists like JJ Cale. It’s all a part of the tradition of the blues, but Clapton knew a handful of artists really defied explanation.
Because when you look at the history of the guitar, it’s hard to put into words what some of the greatest artists did on the instrument. If we look at Clapton’s generation alone, hearing what everyone from Jeff Beck to Jimi Hendrix did on the instrument sounded absolutely beautiful, but if you asked a kid to figure out what they were playing half the time, they would have been completely lost in the woods.
But what Clapton lacked in singing ability in the beginning, he made up for in being one of the highest connoisseurs of the blues. He could tell you where every one of his guitar breaks came from, but outside of the occasional stolen lick, nothing he did would have mattered if he didn’t put his stamp on it. All good blues comes from the soul, and Clapton made sure to keep everything authentic to him when he was playing.
After all, the greatest artists in the genre have always taken that same route as well. Even before the days of rock and roll, Robert Johnson was performing some of the greatest blues music on an acoustic guitar, and even if he only had a handful of recordings, his repertoire became the blueprint for what every guitarist that had been around the block a couple of times had to take on eventually.
While many of the Delta blues players were playing the same kind of blues that Johnson was, ‘Slowhand’ knew that what he heard couldn’t be properly taught, saying, “I found out all I could about the different Delta styles – people like Robert Johnson and Charlie Patton. The musical thought which was going through the whole thing interested me, and it still does. I find it incredibly fascinating because there were a lot of things which just can’t be explained.”
Despite Patton being a much less recognisable face than Johnson, that shouldn’t negate his effect on the genre, either. If you look at where Patton first grew up alone, the seeds that he planted for the blues could be found all over the rest of his neighbourhood, with artists like Howlin’ Wolf eventually showing everyone what could be done with the blues if they put a little bit more energy into it.
Clapton may have never reached that level, but it was easy to see the descendants of those artists and dream of doing something similar. Johnson clearly had a natural gift for the blues, but when listening to what was coming out of Chicago, like Buddy Guy, Clapton had found the perfect medium between the two central styles of the blues, whether that meant playing really fast or hanging out on a single note for ages at a time.
But in the same way that Clapton was dumbstruck listening to his heroes, there’s a good chance that everyone was having a similar takeaway listening to a song like ‘Layla’ for the first time. There’s no explanation for where all that comes from, but that’s the beauty of the blues. Because, as much as people try to explain, it’s something that comes from the heart rather than something you can read about.
