His playing was so lyrical, and it had a darkness to it. And then as a player, he’s so fluid, so different to what was happening at the time. There was a really interesting level of composition in their material. It was blues-based, of course, but there was other stuff going on. When he played in Cream, stylistically it was so different and fresh, and the music that Cream wrote was very unique, very hard to pinpoint. It’s just a joy to listen to.” Cream - Sunshine Of Your Love (Disraeli Gears, 1967)Īlex Lifeson: “I was certainly a fan of Clapton’s when growing up. That to me says Eric was totally caught up in the moment, in the emotion of that brilliant arpeggiated chord sequence. But check out the repeated string bend halfway through. The construction of the solo is flawless, which suggests it was composed then performed in the studio. Hyperbole? Nope, this for me is Clapton at his best. Eric’s solo is the climactic moment, and it’s written, like poetry, in the language of the soul. Stephen Lawson, former editor, Total Guitar: “ Badge is a song of two halves, a textbook example of tension and relief in music. Fuck everybody else.” Cream - Badge (Goodbye, 1969) Like, they’ve already changed fucking history, what more do you want from the fucking guy? He just wants to play the blues. There was so much pressure on him to be ‘Eric Clapton’. “Some people are rude about Clapton’s later solo work? Really? Who’s saying that? Journalists? He doesn’t have to prove anything to any of you weenie journalists. What guitarist of my generation didn’t learn that solo note-for-note? I even played the exact solo off the record, and Jack looked over at me, like, ‘You actually learnt that?’ Well, yeah. I actually once got to play Sunshine Of Your Love with Jack and play the part of Eric Clapton – and I do stress ‘play the part of’. “Back in the day, it was harder to learn music we had to lift the needle up and painstakingly learn this stuff, and I started developing a little vibrato of my own, based on trying to sound like Eric.

Eric clapton