(Credits: Far Out / Chris Hakkens)
Fri 23 January 2026 21:43, UK
By the time the 1960s ended, Eric Clapton was already considered a guitar god.
After joining the best supergroup in the world and accidentally inventing hard rock and heavy metal with Cream, seeing him find even more magic with Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominos made it look like every single thing he touched had the potential to turn to gold. But when looking at his track record for joining different groups, it was almost inevitable that he would eventually strike out on his own after a while.
Because if you think about it, all of ‘Slowhand’s favourite blues artists were always one-man shows. Everyone from Muddy Waters to Buddy Guy commanded the stage the minute they had a guitar in their hand, and while Clapton was still willing to lend his chops to everyone from The Band to Roger Waters whenever he had the opportunity, his solo career was where he had the freedom to go in any direction he wanted.
Granted, that doesn’t mean that he had the best track record as a solo artist, either. Aside from a few standout singles, a lot of the material he released in the 1970s saw his guitar playing taking a back seat to his songwriting, and while he’s far from a poor songwriter, it was always going to be much more interesting once he strapped on his guitar and reminded everyone of what he could do when the 1980s kicked off.
If you look at the best moments of Clapton’s career, they always come from him quoting his heart rather than trying to get hit singles. A song like ‘I Shot the Sheriff’ could have been a cheap way for anyone to cash in on the reggae trend, but when you listen to Clapton talk about it, it was clear that he deeply admired the work of Bob Marley and wanted to pay homage to him rather than overtly rip him off.
The same could be said of his opting for an acoustic approach in the 1990s. He had wanted to strip things down for a while, and even if it wasn’t the coolest thing in the world, seeing him transform songs like ‘Layla’ was half the reason why the MTV phenomenon blew up in the first place. He was always starting trends rather than following them, so when he found himself on the other end of that with The Yardbirds, he knew he needed to go in a different direction.
The band was a great way for him to get his foot in the door, but ‘Slowhand’ was the first to say that it was painful to work with them when they started making tunes like ‘For Your Love’, saying, “The song was such a big hit that I wished I’d stayed on a bit longer But things had got to such a state between us that I couldn’t have faced it. I think many pop bands are pushed too hard; they can’t help but lose some feeling, and tension amongst them can easily build up. Working every night, you become a machine, you play to order.”
And looking at everything that Clapton did afterwards, it was clear that he was going to follow his muse at every opportunity. All of his favourite artists were troubadours in every sense of the word, and even if he wasn’t going to sell as many copies of some of his records, he was always happy playing the music that he wanted to play instead of becoming a cog in the corporate machine.
The money may have been too good for most people to pass up, but for Clapton, being able to sleep at night knowing that he never compromised meant so much more than any paycheck. After all, none of the blues players were intended to become teenybopper acts, and when he first started work with John Mayall after The Yardbirds, he wasn’t looking for chart hits anymore. He had his sights set on being the best guitarist the world had ever seen, and he was willing to put his career on the line in order to get there.
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