The Great Guitarists: Eric Clapton & Jimi Hendrix
When it comes to talking about the two best guitarists of their time, maybe even of all time, you come to the conclusion of Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, but who was the better guitarist? This topic has been debated for years and it is still very much debated today. Because these two great guitarists have such a different style of playing the best way to compare them is when they play the same song. So when you consider both of their Sunshine of your Love performances I believe Eric Clapton is the better guitarist. During Eric Clapton’s performance he has a very spontaneous guitar solo which highlights his guitar playing ability, where as in Jimi Hendrix performance he doesn’t exemplify his ability to play guitar when playing this song and just seems to speed up the playing of Clapton’s riffs. So in conclusion when considering these two guitar players, when playing the same song, Eric Clapton to me is better. However it is hard to judge the two best rock guitarists of all time with just one song; both guitarists have such a unique and different style of playing and in order to see which one is better, if one is even better than the other, you must consider all of their music. From Eric Clapton’s Yardbird years to his time with Cream, covering songs such as Crossroads and songs like White Room shows the variety of style and skill of Clapton. You also have to consider Jimi Hendrix other music from Along the Watchtower to his very own rendition of Star Spangled Banner, which is considered one of Hendrix’s most influential guitar rendition of a song. These two guitarists are the greatest of all time and they are both greater than one another in their own ways. One conclusion that everyone can come to is that these two musicians changed rock and roll from what it originated as and sculpted it into what we now consider the real rock and roll sound.