First off, Clapton's strength as a player has always been in the blues. He can rock, but he has some very tasteful and very clever blues chops that work really well with his voice.
Comparing him to Rory Gallagher or Gary Moore is like comparing apples to oranges. Yes they are all guitarists, but with very different styles. Rory's work with Taste is his only serious foray into a straight blues format and while he does a credible job, his body of work as a rocker heavily influenced by his Irish roots is a stellar example of a rock guitarist with some blues influence, but a rocker nonetheless. Same for Gary Moore, he's a rocker who did a vanity project of an album full of blues tunes and with the exception of the title track, while in the basic blues format is without a doubt more rock influenced than blues. Still Got The Blues is currently in rotation on my MP3 player so I've been listening to it a lot in the last month or so and it rocks way more than it testifies.
IMO, what makes Clapton noteworthy is being the first white Britisher to gain wide recognition for his blues style that was authentic and true enough to form that he is the only British guitarist to be invited by Mr. Morganfield and each of the 3 (American) kings to play with them on both stage and recording projects. In short, the guys who invented and perfected the electric blues genre as we know it today were impressed enough with Clapton's blues chops that they wanted to share the stage and studio with him.
Oh, and to those who don't "get" Clapton, don't feel too alone. If you read Eric's autobiography you will find Clapton is still trying to "get" Clapton. You will also find a very compelling and often heartbreaking story about a very shy young man who grew up in some of the worst economic times in his country's history, who even after all these years of fame is still humble enough to be eternally grateful for his success and to still seriously wonder how it all happened.
If you don't "get" the blues, it's little wonder you don't "get" Clapton. Not saying there is a thing wrong with not being as big a blues fan as some. Outside of hillbilly string bands and early country music, blues is my anchor in music so I'm pretty ignorant about rock and like those who don't "get" Clapton, I don't "get" a whole slew of guitarists who have achieved legendary status in the rock world. I play rock stuff because my brother has this thing about not being known as strictly a blues band so he throws in a lot of guitar rock tunes.
It's not a good or bad thing, it's just a different thing.
Great Post. So in the beginning there were African field hand work songs that were brought to the U.S. with the the captured people who mostly became slaves. They were rythmic, repetitive, and simple. The were used in the field to ease the work and coordinate the workers.
At about the same time whe had English, Irish, and Scotts gathering in the hills of the central eastern part of the country. They brought their fiddles, tabers and fifes to continue their music traditions.
Over time, things change. The field hand music evolved into blues. One thing to notice here is the difference between the traditional African scales and the westen scales helped this evolve. Those used to the African scales would sing the 7th flat. That's why the 7th is som prominent in blues. The hill billies, as they became known, had evolved their music into the early beginnings of bluegrass and later into the very early country music.
So now these musics start to see one another and start borrowing from each other. They earliest "rock and roll" was sometimes on the country side and sometimes more on the blues side. Look at some early artists like Chuck Berry who was intrumental in this because he wrote lyrics aimed at the white kids. Remember the scene from Back to the Future at the school dance. And on the other side maybe Jerry Lee Lewis who was very country, but was, like most of us kids at the time, listening to and borrowing from the Chuck Berry, Little Richard camp.
As this all came together, we had what became "Rock and Rolll", which in the old blues parance was a description of the sex act.
Then the Brits were listening on their shortware radios to American music and likeing it, so they started playing it. But, because of their difference in musical background, didn't quite get it right. Don't start, it is not a qualitive comment, just a statement of fact. Thus came the "British Revolution." The American liked what the British (I told you not to start), and begin playing that, but since they weren't British, they did the British music in an American style. That brings us into the 70s where things started going in many different directions.
