Can't say that I am a fan but purely by accident, I saw a performance of his along with Steve Winwood at Madison Square Garden from last year (was on BBC4).
I thought the guitar playing was superb and didn't realise EC had such a good, natural voice. Great backing band too.

My question is why does Clapton take such a bashing from the press and music journalists??
Is it simply a case of being unfashionable??

No, the truth is he's really not that good. He's average at best. He may have been good for 1966, but he's long since been overtaken and left well behind by far, far better guitarists, and as a singer he's rather like George Harrison - extremely limited and OK only in small doses, and certainly not for leading a band.

Any examples of better guitar players?

Because his playing is boring & one-dimensional, he hasn't written a classic since 1970, and he simply doesn't know how to ROCK.

The Armani gear & perma-furrowed-brow-tortured-artist expression don't help matters either.

Jimi Hendrix
Jimmy Page
David Gilmour
Rory Gallagher
Mick Ronson
Johnny Thunders
Eddie Van Halen

The list is endless.

I think songs like Lay Down Sally are to blame. They probably sounded good to Slowhand when he was still using H, but when he 'woke up' his music stayed laid-back. His guitar playing is actually very good, but not as exciting as Page's or Beck's. It says a lot that the BBM (Bruce-Baker-Moore) album sounded so vital. What's also strange is that he employs brilliant guitarists like Albert Lee, as though he'd rather concentrate on being a 'singer who plays guitar'.

Probably because he managed to turn himself from an incendiary risk taker with The Yardbirds, John Mayall (he demanded that his volume wasn't to be reduced on the Bluesbreakers album) and Cream into a torpid play-it-safe snooze merchant who has produced hardly anything of interest since the days of Derek & The Dominos. Even during the recent Cream reunion he sounded too subdued and polite.

A bit of a harsh judgement from Martin! I would say at his best (65 - 74) he was in the top three or four guitarists in the world. I would agree that most of his post '74 stuff is sterile, middle of the road cleaned up cr*p. But if Martin and others doubt his talent they should go and listen to the John Mayall Bluesbreakers album. When he was playing pure unadulterated Blues he was great! Also Cream, Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominoes and his first solo album were good. He does seem to have lost a lot of passion and adventure since coming off drink and drugs which is reflected in his output of late.

I have many albums with Clapton, a very early purchase of mine was Five Live Yardbirds when originally released in 1964 and I have followed his career ever since, though not purchasing everything he has produced!

It appears to me that you are all inferring that speed and volume equates to a great guitarist!

Whilst he does not really play like he did 40/45 years ago, he can still produce some of the most emotive music. Like I said on my recent "Favorites" thread, great artists evolve and change, but at times that means changing their audiences as well. Give the man a break!

"You gave all you got, why you wanta give more"

I quite agree with you Schiz about the Bluesbreakers album, but as I said, that was 1966. He certainly helped make Cream what they were (though I was more of a Jack & Ginger fan - Gary Moore and Robin Trower proved that he was by no means indispensable), but from Bland Faith onwards he became increasingly dull and ordinary. It's nothing to do with speed and volume, it's a matter of style and inventiveness, and he's long since become just another good guitar player.

Cornish Deadhead is correct on this one Martin you,ve went from distinctly average to quite good very quickly will your next post be GREAT guitarist
in Erics case i think Harry Hill's Stuffer got it spot on with "RESPECT DUE"

Personally i always thought he pissed his talent away - from Cream to "tears in heaven" is a fall from grace to impress Lucifer.

Tad harsh me thinks not many artists remain at the top of the tree over 40+ year careers.
but it's reasuring to note that you recognised that he had talent in the first place

Ha, Ha, Ha, Is that the reason he still plays to sell out audiences because he's average! What a joke. You better stick to evaluating the likes of the spice girls or beyonce. Extremely limited DOESN'T sell out world tours or consistently get albums in the charts. Get a life and look what Clapton has contributed to music for over FORTY years and see where your one hit wonders are in that time!!!

spot on Neil although you put your point across slightly more viciverously than i did

He's very good, very successful. has - in the main - gone the distance.
This is the great British public, did you really expect them to react in any other way than to try and bring him down for any one of these things never mind the lot.

" Extremely limited DOESN'T sell out world tours or consistently get albums in the charts" yes it does, though not for 4 decades.

That's not my view of EC, I think he's a wonderful, graceful, effortless, player, but he's put out a fair bit of tosh over the years.

not nearly as much as peter!

Marc Ribot
Simon McBride
John Martyn
JJ Cale
Jim Armstrong
Ron Wood
Billy Gibbons
and so on...................

I got the Cream box set years ago and had it on the stereo a couple of weeks ago. Great stuff! Eric was the bizz. The work he did with John Mayall, top notch. The first couple of solo albums had some outstanding songs on them.

I lost interest around the time of Behind the Sun/August although I would give the odd album here and there a listen to. Riding with the King, with BB King, had some good tracks, as did Reptile. The concert with Steve Winwood certainly seemed to inspire Eric to reach towards his past playing style and knock out some good soloing. 24 Nights was dreadful by comparison.

Just to link with the tickets thread, I would have paid big bucks to have seen Cream in London.

Just goes to show its horses for courses as I find Reptile a truly repellant album and well into the tosh bundle.
With a career this lonf bound to be some tripe but a very high percentage is excellant, the concert with Steve a definite highlight though.

So...the majority of us agree? Clapton had his golden age (as many musicians do!) but has failed to live up to it? Well tht's no bad thing. I always think that if people doubt him listen to 'Crossroads' by Cream or any of the stuff he did with the Yardbirds or Bluesbreakers to get to the heart of his real talent.
Actually..I stuck on his first solo album the other day and was really impressed how good it was, he had some great tracks on it...'Easy Now', 'Slunky', 'Blues Power' etc..a lot of this stuff he was doing with Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett and was really cool and funky!

Having said all that though...I actually prefer the Bluesbreakers album after Eric left...Peter Green!!! Now he was a a top guitarist! (I have a slight bias here...Peter is a distant cousin of mine! My mother's maiden name was Greenbaum. We East End Jews!! Stamford Hill and proud me!)

Why should i bother with him a so called genius when i can hear the real thing in the likes of Django Reinhardt. Clapton may have been new and interesting along time ago, but he was in reality mediocre at best.

Mind you Django was new and interesting an even longer time ago and I fear he is weel past his best these days.

Peter - him being dead for over 50 years would also limit him being up to his best!!!

your forgetting " dear friend's" Django could do more with only two fingers on his right hand, that Clapton has been trying to do all his life with four and has never been bettered yet. Charlie Christian, Hendrix, Joe Pass and countless others who if you read biographies or interviews with, a good 95% of guitarist mention Django as their main influence. put a record of Django on and watch any guitarist just melt, they all know who he was and what a technical wizard he actually was, like Art Tatum on the piano, Django's ability made a lot of people give up playing or made them go and do a lot of "wood-shedding before they ever played before the public again.