Have you seen Eric Clapton at his best?

Right on Blblues!

Blblues68 and/or Pops:

Please share the Buddy Guy equivalent to Eric's rendition of "Spoonful".
What is considered Mr. Guy's masterpeice?

Thanks

The beauty of this thread is that all of our opinions just underscore how influential Clapton, and so many others, have been - not just on us but on other guitarists/musicians. I would certainly have to add that, IMO, Bireli Lagrene has been much less of an influence on the world music scene than EC (though Lagrene is the most brilliant proponent of Django's legacy and deserves as much attention as EC, et al). I don't think that Clapton is the least bit concerned about his place in the pantheon.

For every 'best' musician one names, there are dozens of other candidates that could be counterposited. Is Buddy Guy the 'best' blues guitarist? There are many blues afficionados who might agree, but there are even more who would suggest that Freddie King, or Albert King, Albert Collins, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Hubert Sumlin, Jimi, or insert your favorite, is the 'best.' And let's not forget the white guys like SRV (or brother Jimmie), Benoit, Earl, Gatton, Gaar, Trout, Trucks, Duane (or Dickie or Toy...) or the great Roy Buchanan. How do you split the hairs? Is it on the basis of live performance, recordings, or a combination of the two? Very few of us here witnessed the wonder of Freddie King's playing, and his recordings really don't serve his memory all that well. But I can assure you that he was as moving a blues guitarist as I have ever had the privilege to see/hear in person. But the finest guitarist I have ever seen/heard (and in HIS living room to boot) is Jose Feliciano. He can literally play anything but his 12 string mastery is incredible. And he can mimic EC, Jimi - anybody you name.

This is all just mental masturbation, but it underscores how much music there is for us to discover.

Thanks for all your input! Saying Derek Trucks is the greatest living slide guitarist was a mistake on my part. Should have said my personal favorite. Those of you that saw Eric with the Dominoes and Cream I sincerely envy. I was just so excited to see him do a concert for himself instead of doing "hits" for his audience. That was the "Slowhand" I had to see!

When Clapton was in his prime and in the zone, he was very good. He can still make some magic happen on the right night. There were some nice moments on the Cream reunion DVD.

"The best" to each of us is going to be different. For me, Clapton is a good but not great player who sticks very close to the blues/pentatonic scales and uses lots of nice and effective but repetative licks and cliches combined with his constant fallback first finger vibrato. His three-finger playing style also limits his versatility, but within what he does he is very capable and dependable.

On the soul scale he is good but not great. Freddie King, Albert King, BB King, Buddy Guy, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimmy Page, Jimmy Hendrix, and too many others to list, are more soulful, dynamic and captivating players.

In the area of technical difficulty there are tons of better players than Clapton or any of the guys listed in the previous paragraph. Jeff Beck is a much more technically capable rock/blues player as is nearly any competent jazz player on the planet. Bluegrass players and good country players can run rings around them all too. The same is true of guys I have no interest in like Steve Morse, Eric Johnson and Steve Vai. Then you have wildcards like Danny Gatton, Brian Setzer, and Michael Hedges, all very good technical players.

In the end, we all like who we like and there's no right or wrong in that.

With that in mind, here's a plug for my personal favorite: the slowly-becoming-famous Greg Koch from my home town of Milwaukee. He is a Fender clinician and co-author of some of the most popular Hal Leonard instructional guitar material. He did the newest "Signature Licks" instructional DVDs for Lynyrd Skynyrd and Stevie Ray Vaughan as well as his very own called "Guitar Gristle." He plays with drummer Johnny Calarco and bass player Roscoe Beck (of the Robin Ford Trio). I've been seeing him live for 13 years and have never seen anything quite like him. He's getting known now so I don't get to see him nearly as often as I used to. Go to www.gregkoch.com for info. Sorry to get sidetracked, but that what happens when you start talking about great guitar players.