“Is he really that good?” Eric Clapton on Jimi.

Crazy. Saw that a few years back. You gotta remember, this was all new. Lotta guys, along with Clapton, were blazing the trail. Eric and Cream set the bar for it all. I read somewhere that Eric plugged into a tweed bassman once and it all took a hard turn for the whole Blues/Rock thing.

 

Eddie moved it...

 

Jack Bruce- "Eric was a great guitar player, but Jimi was a force of nature!"

 

This is the period of "Clapton is God". On the night that Jimi jammed with them, he learned that he wasn't.

 

Eric knew, he wasn't God. He wouldn't have consented even, wouldn't have granted permission, except maybe he wanted to back off the excess, over the top adulation.

 

Possible some of this is over-exaggeration? According to Clapton, he first heard Hendrix when he went to hear him at a club, not when he asked to jam with Cream. He said he got there too late to catch the beginning of the set and ran into Pete Townshend walking out. Eric asked Pete, "What, is he that bad?" Pete rolled his eyes and said, "No, Eric, he's that good!"

 

Jimi once said he moved to England to play with Eric.

 

Never put any guitar player next to being godly in any way shape or form. That would be putting limits on them

 

I was around to hear most of the great players of the ‘60s through the present day. And I respect EVH as a player and innovator tremendously.

But he did not fundamentally change the way guitar is heard, played, and recorded in the same way that Jimi Hendrix did.

With respect: N F W .

 

Since I was a kid, I dreamed about being there that night, trying to imagine what it was like. I think that night changed everything.

Of course, I'm a peon in the guitar world, but I do remember being radically astounded by seeing Robbin Ford one night on '88 or so, and also wondering "Is he really that good?" Like a million times better than I'll ever be.

 

I love EVH. He was brilliant, a genius. But there is truth to this, that - and this is my opinion, of course - I see this way:
Eddie was like Jaco. When you first heard either one of them, you couldn't believe it. It was amazing. (Jaco is still, to this day, one of the best musicians - maybe the best - I've ever heard live.) And for a minute, everyone wanted to sound like them.
And players worked hard, and for awhile, there were many players sounding like Jaco, and later, like EVH (and to a lesser, but very important degree, Larry Graham). Their sound was everywhere.
But then it became apparent that if you did this - played like Jaco or EVH - you were copying something very personal.
Jaco told me once that when he played Donna Lee, he never played Charlie Parker's solo, just the head, because, "that was personal..."
All the guys sounding like Jaco and EVH were doing that.
Where do you hear it today? Who does it?
Right. You don't.
But I still hear a big Hendrix influence in the sound of much modern guitar playing.

 

The story was Eric Burdon and the Animals' manager Mike Jeffreys went to see Hendrix. Hendrix was surviving on reputation gigging to small packed venues. They said, if you come to England you will blow a hole in the music scene.

Hendrix was sceptical. They said, we can introduce you to Eric Clapton, which is what swung him.

Pete Townshend rang Clapton when he heard Hendrix was coming and said 'Mate, we're finished' or words to that effect.

Mike Jeffreys was the tough ex-SAS soldier who managed Hendrix and was implicated in his death. Hendrix was supposedly scared stiff of him, and alleged Jeffreys put a gun to his head to sign a contract.

Jimmy hated formulaic blues and rock and rehashing the same hits every gig. He wanted to go play freeform jazz with guys like Miles Davis.

 

I just discovered Winterland. Tax Free is so good.

 

If you're going to praise ROBBEN Ford, at least get his name right!

 

I saw McCartney in concert a few years ago and he had some good stories to tell about Clapton and Hendrix. He started out by saying they released Sgt. Pepper on a Friday and by Saturday Hendrix was already covering it (Sgt. Pepper the song)

Eric and a lot of that crew (I imagine the Beatles and some other big name guys would come along and watch Hendrix play in clubs and he'd hang out in the back watching. At one point Jimi had used his whammy bar so much he knocked his guitar completely out of tune and he stops and leans into the mic and says "hey Eric, can you come tune this for me?" to which he replied "tune it yourself!"

 

I think Chet and Eddie van Halen raised the bar also. Mark Knopfler too.
Clapton. hmm?

 

If you see Tommy Emmanuel live you wonder at the possibilities of mankind.
Smohin' Joe Robinson is following him also.

 

Funny that, Smokin' Joe was mentored for quite some time in his early years by Tommy's older brother Phil ( RIP )