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.
"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.