"The High Priest Of The Wailing Guitar"

Eric Clapton WAS the classic rock guitar hero - and still is

You might say that Eric Clapton had an impact on me, long before I ever learned to play guitar or even write much about music. The day after I graduated from Nashua High School, I was invited by an old Fairgrounds friend Robert Fuller, once a brilliant super square who wore white shirts and ties to junior high and was now a cool, long-haired rhythm guitarist for a raucous local rock band.

“Come and hear us jam,” he said.

I knocked on the door and Robert opened it and calmly surveyed the kisser of the 18-year-old me, curly long brown hair framing my high cheekboned face. “You need a mustache,” he said, firmly in a voice that brooked no discussion. “You’d look like Eric Clapton.”

The mustache that currently adorns my aging face began at that moment. And the joy, delight, excitement that I always found in the way Clapton played that guitar has lasted just as long.

Sure, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page was a master, former Yardbird Jeff Beck as inventive a guitarist as you’ll find and Pete Townshend’s slashing work for the Who was brilliant as well.

But the leader, the guy who, to me, at least, was way out ahead of the pack when it came to playing lead guitar, tossing out utterly brilliant compositional solos, bursts of on-the-spot creatively that seemed to have a flawless flow, a beginning, middle and end, soaring, twisting and turning up and down the fretboard with just the right amount of abandon and style, that was Clapton.

Rock’s first true guitar hero - Eric Clapton

Of course, “Layla” the album and the song were almost unquestionably his peak but his fiery work with Cream, some of the early work with John Mayall, some of the solo work that seemed to feature him more as a singer, and radio classics like “Let It Rain” and “Presence Of The Lord” and so many others, his solos were so sharp, so crisp, you could - sing them and I did.

I remember the first car I got to drive had a cassette player and I had several tapes of Clapton live performances, especially “Derek And The Dominoes Live” the best song from it is included here - a flawless version of “Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad” which I think is a perfect example of Clapton’s improvisational brilliance.

Oddly though, in a way, right around that time, early 70’s, it seemed his career was ending. The record company released two compilation records that came out “The History of Eric Clapton” then a white album “"Eric Clapton at his best.” releases that seemed odd from a young guitarist who had just crested with the stirring double album “Layla and other assorted love songs” in 1970. At his best NOW?

But they knew what they were doing. Clapton, allegedly dejected over the failed love affair with George Harrison’s wife Patti Boyd - the inspiration for “Layla,” got himself deeply into drugs, heroin, apparently and other than a star-studded reunion concert at London’s Rainbow Theater, (just a so-so release) it was four years before we saw him back on a stage.

I saw him twice on that tour in Boston and he was so weak, he had to be helped off the stage at the end of both shows. But the accompanying record, “461 Ocean Boulevard” was a welcome return. If it was bereft of typically sizzling guitar playing, his singing and song selection was fun - “I Shot The Sheriff” was even a hit for him. He was back and if he wasn’t the guitar hero at the moment, we knew he’d be back soon.

It wasn’t until a tour with Santana a couple years later that he was back wailing like nobody’s business. I caught a show in Hartford, later filmed and shown on MTV where the white-suited Clapton was back in prime form. For my concert, the entire Santana band - and Carlos - returned for a 20-minute encore version of “Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad” that brought the house absolutely down.

I’ve listened to Clapton for so long now, compared him with the other greats - and many others (Roy Buchanan, Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, James Burton, and I also love Neil Young, The Edge, Phil Manzanera, Scottie Moore and many others.) To me, there’s an elegance, a sense of style to Clapton’s playing that is so distinctive, it seems you can pick out his lines every time. And even with all his radio hits “Cocaine,” “Wonderful Tonight,” “Forever Man” and on and on, you can’t find a record of his that comes close to “Layla” in my book.

That was 54 years ago. And there’ve been some commendable releases since then, lots of tours. I know “Unplugged” got him a lot of praise and Grammy’s, something that was healing for him after the tragedy of losing his son. But the Clapton I love, I wanted to HEAR. Last time I saw him in concert was OK, not great. But it was still Clapton.

Judging from some of the online content I’ve seen over the past few years, there’s adulation for many other guitarists and a lot of skepticism for Clapton’s body of work. He’s had some slipshod records, for sure. And some of off-the-stage comments and behaviors over the years have soured some fans on him. I get that.

But the music, which I’ve been listening to all morning, brings me back. He was a virtuoso, one that, unlike say, a Hendrix who was extraordinary but so far out he was way past his audience, he was one we could hear on the radio, one that carved out solos that stuck in our minds and kept them coming for a long time.

It’s only when you see one of the documentaries on his life or read his book that you appreciate the difficulties in his life, the pain that, like Robert Johnson’s song was “A Hellhound On His Trail.” On stage, though or in a recording studio when the song comes to that place where the lead guitar had to take off and go somewhere, Clapton would take you there. Time and again. Though rock didn’t come with an instruction kit, it just sort of happened, it made sense that it would need a guitar hero. Eric Clapton, in my book, was the first - and best.