There was never a moment in history where Eric Clapton didn’t live up to that ‘God’ title.
As much as guitar has progressed throughout the years, ‘Slowhand’ had that immaculate touch on the guitar that made him one of the most in-demand players of his generation, and even when the new school came around, he was always a connoisseur of what pure guitar taste looked like. Despite him embracing his deified persona, he knew that there were many people who could level him on any stage he set foot on.
First of all, there was no way that Clapton was ever going to bother to compete with the likes of Muddy Waters or Robert Johnson. They were in a completely different league from him half the time, and even when he jumped onstage with some of them, a lot of that ime was spent studying their fingers and learning how they got all their tricks. He wanted to be a diligent student, but the biggest lesson any bluesman has to learn is how to sound authentic between everything.
While the odd traditional blues lick was bound to fall out of him at times, it’s a shame to hear his guitar get put on the backburner when he reached the 1970s. He was definitely following the lead of The Band by working in a singer-songwriter vein, but it didn’t help that the music suddenly took a severe nosedive into boring territory. So when he reached the 1980s and started working with world-class musicians again, it was like he dusted off his ‘God’ persona and put it right back on during records like Behind The Sun.
Somewhere in between working on Behind the Sun and what would eventually become Journeyman, though, Clapton’s band was nothing short of miraculous. Any group with the members of Toto in their ranks was bound to be a smash, but with bassists like Nathan East working to fill out the groove, it was enough for Clapton to be a little bit sheepish when he started playing again.
A lot of that may have had to do with him getting sober for decades, but even when working with the group, he remembered the sessions were so good he practically kicked himself out, saying, “I was scared shitless. They were playing the tracks and I got out there to sing. We had a fantastic time. We had dinner one night and I said, ‘I’m out. I’m firing myself.’ We were on the road for five years, that band.”
Although Clapton fits right in when working on tunes like ‘Forever Man’ from the 1980s, it makes sense why he ended up going in a different direction. With a band of that size and with those amazing players, the only way that he could have changed it up was by going back to basics and breaking out the acoustics for the Unplugged record.
The album did still have amazing players like Chuck Leavell on piano, but the real ex-factor came from Clapton reinventing a lot of his old tunes. Although ‘Tears in Heaven’ is a beautiful song that’s enough to make anyone cry, the main factor behind a lot of the best moments on the record came from when he was working on the reimagining of tunes like ‘Layla’, which may not have happened were it not for working with a band like that.
Because when you’re playing with those kinds of people, it’s about more than playing every song precisely. Everyone was at the top of their game and could play around with the tunes however they wanted, so if they could turn some of those tunes inside out, why couldn’t ‘Slowhand’ sprinkle some of his god-like powers on some of his classics as well?
