Eric Clapton on the artist who wrote “the finest music ever”
For the first half of his career, Eric Clapton seemed like a guitar player first and a songwriter second. He could certainly write excellent riffs no matter what phase of his career he was in, but it was always about painting pictures through the different sounds he got out of his guitar. Although Clapton may have been able to spend the rest of his life playing the same guttural blues licks that he built his career on, Robert Johnson was the one who introduced him to what good songwriting was supposed to be.
Then again, it wasn’t like Clapton’s generation lacked good songwriters to try to emulate. This was the same decade that brought us everyone from The Beatles to The Rolling Stones to Neil Young to Joni Mitchell, so there were plenty of ways for Clapton to expand his craft when it came to sitting down with his guitar and pumping out melodies.
That was all regular pop songs, though, and the blues came from a different side of the heart. As opposed to artists who spend an eternity trying to crack the code of what good songwriting is supposed to be, seasoned blues artists have always known how to take the core pieces of their broken hearts and unleash them like demons through their instruments.
Muddy Waters may have been able to play the blues like no one else, but Johnson was a completely different animal. Looking at his short career, Johnson could have been considered the real rock star of his time, going against the grain of what was considered “normal” guitar playing and making the building blocks for everyone who came after him.
His gifts also may have had some diabolical origins, with the legend being that he had sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his skills. Some may have believed in it, but there’s a good chance that Lucifer himself couldn’t have helped create something as open-hearted as ‘Love in Vain’ and ‘Crossroads’.
Compared to the other bluesy guitarists that Clapton had seen before, he had never heard a man lay his emotions bare like this, telling Rolling Stone, “When I heard him for the first time, it was like he was singing only for himself, and now and then, maybe God. It is the finest music I have ever heard. I have always trusted its purity, and I always will”.
While Clapton was never going to say that he came close to what Johnson could do, the blues legend’s way of quoting his heart has been going through ‘Slowhand’s work ever since. He may have just wanted to make music that could blow your eardrums out in the beginning, but it takes someone who knows the shape of his own heart to make something like ‘Tears in Heaven’ or ‘Wonderful Tonight’ years later.
Just because Clapton allowed himself to open up because of Johnson’s work, that didn’t mean he stopped proving why he was one of the greatest blues players in the world. If there’s one thing that Johnson taught every guitarist who came after him, it’s that it takes a true artist to be able to open up their heart and use their instrument to tear everyone else’s emotions to pieces.