I see these musical tastes don't stretch very far. All these guitarists could easily all rotate playing in the same band and hardly anyone would notice the difference. These favs represent but a very tiny and very narrow section of the musical genre from one single era and one type of music. All from classic commercial rock bands.
This hardly scratches the surface of the guitar as in instrument and it's greatest practitioners.
But it does give away is your ages. These are the lists of middle aged white dudes.. lol
And as for Eric Clapton.. he too is just simply way overrated.
Quote:
Eric Clapton “God” himself. “Slow Hand” if you will. The slowest hand at finding exciting new guitar solos since 1970. His work in Cream, Blind Faith and “Layla” has essentially given him a pass for forty years. Any work in the 70’s is stripped down and soulless soloing expression. It’s not that he wrote bad songs in that era or anything (many are really good), it’s just that his actual guitar playing was hindered by years of drug abuse and coasting on his reputation. Through the 80’s, he just gave up any inventive musical ability and played by numbers. He almost started making a comeback with the Unplugged album (as there were a few inventive touches thrown in here and there), but over all the album seemed to become fodder for wedding reception dances. Live performances not caught on official video from the 90’s on have rumors of sloppy playing, or Clapton not even soloing anymore. Which all well and good, but coming from the guy who painted musical landscapes in the 60’s, he’s not lived to his own hype.
When Rolling Stone labelled Eric Clapton the 4 th greatest guitarist of all time David Fricke wrote:
“Just turned twenty…Clapton was already soloing with the improvisational nerve that has dazzled fans and peers for forty years…Clapton soloed with daggerlike tone and pinpoint attention to melody.”
Oddly, despite placing Clapton high on this list there is only one minor phrase that irks me in that otherwise excellent write up: “for forty years”. No one questions that on Rave It Up and Disraeli Gears the young Clapton played with both an effortless sauntering swagger and a luscious melting tone that could pierce one moment and ooze seductively the next. This, after all, is the man who put the finishing touches on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” - his calibre is unquestionable.
There is nonetheless a disconcerting theme. His glory lays in the distant, distant past. The halcyon days of youth, when his sound was a revelation, and it seemed he could take an old staple like “I’m A Man” in an unknown but brilliant direction.
Regretfully, after a spritely start to his post-supergroup career, Clapton quickly began to wane, and Slowhand set about an arduous three and half decades of meandering jams, indulgent and unspectacular live performances, and innovation free LPs. Clapton has consistently deflated fans’ expectations since the early 70s with racist outbursts (“Enoch was right”), second hand ideas, and the mind bogglingly frustrating restraint that has defined his playing in the last two thirds of his career.
A top 100 guitarist? Maybe for a week. One of the greatest ever? Now that’s pushing it.
Crap hand?