Since Jimi Hendrix, every guitarist has wanted to outdo those who came before. No one has the ambition to become the third best musician of all time, so you should always face the competition and try to keep a stock of tips and tricks that you can use at any time. Eric Clapton had already tasted what it was like to be the greatest blues musician on the planet, but he knew he was at best a wedding band guitarist next to Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Because outside of the strict blues, “Slowhand” was destined to take a million different directions. Listening to The Band, he had moved in a more melodic direction, and when he got to big songs like “Wonderful Tonight”, the calmness of his lead playing was as important to the song as the vocal melody. And Clapton had good reason to start changing things. Times had already changed since the psychedelic 60s, and after proving himself as a songwriter with Derek and the Dominoes, it was natural for him to start focusing on other genres of music rather than repeating the same routine every day.
But while Clapton glided across the board, Vaughan was pure muscle from the moment he started playing. Through their greatest hits, “Love Struck Baby” and “Pride and Joy” were some of the fiercest rock performances of the 80s, almost as if they were channeling the spirit of Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson with a twist in Vaughan May’s play. being the only guitarist to get through it, saying: “The worst thing for me was that Stevie Ray had been sober for three years and was in his prime. When we played that night, he made us all stand there with our jaw dropped I mean Robert Cray, Jimmie Vaughn and Buddy Guy were watching in amazement. There was no one better than him on this planet. Truly incredible. »
Perhaps more than anything else, Vaughan helped Clapton return to learning the blues. As much as Journeyman and Pilgrim have seen the guitar icon evolve in different areas, hearing him make whole albums with BB King and a whole tribute record of Robert Johnson could be the result of preserving the blues soul that Vaughan was alive
At the same time, the blues is not really something that leaves the musician’s system in a frenzy. It’s something that exists in the bones before you pick up a guitar, and once it’s open, there’s no real limit to what you can do after that.