Guitar Gods: Jimi Hendrix vs. Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton had earned a reputation as “God” in the mid-‘60s for his virtousic guitar work in R&B-inspired British bands like the Yardbirds and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. Then an unknown American named Jimi Hendrix hit London in 1966 and changed the game entirely. Hendrix’s unparalleled playing and explosive style forged a new genre and redefined what it meant to be a guitarist — and sent the British boys back to the woodshed. Clapton’s status as London’s top axe-man had been challenged, but their rivalry was mostly a friendly one. Clapton was in awe of Hendrix’s talent and the pair bonded over music and mutual admiration. Hendrix’s tragic passing in 1970 left Clapton devastated. In the 50 years since, the reputations of both men have diverged. Hendrix has been sanctified in death and his immense talent seemingly magnified. Clapton, on the other hand, has been dinged for a series of questionable musical and personal decisions later in life. The question in this episode is not “Who’s the better guitarist?” but rather, “Is it better to burn out or fade away?”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rivals as a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone,
and welcome to Rivals, the show about music beefs and
feuds and long simmering resentments between musicians. I'm Steve and

(00:21):
I'm Jordan. And today we're gonna settle the age old
question who's the better guitarist, Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton.
Actually we're not gonna answer that at all. Instead, we're
gonna look at the much deeper and more important question,
is it better to burn out or fade away? Yeah?
That really is the issue here. I mean, it's not
so much about the people actually feuding. Unlike a lot
of our episodes, the principles here actually got along and

(00:43):
even revered each other. It's more that they represent opposing ideas.
I wrote about this in my book Your Favorite Band
is Killing Me, And I really believe that you won't
find a better example of one musician in a way
benefiting from burning out in another musician in some ways
being punished because he was able to fade away. You know,
I recently invoked the Dark Knight in our David Crosby episode,

(01:05):
and I might have to do it again. You know,
you either died the hero or live long enough to
become the villain. That's the story of Jimi Hendrix and
Eric clapped into me. I can't wait to dive in.
Let's get into this mess. You know. For all the
flak that clapping gets in later years for playing like boring,
workman like blues, he actually had a really complicated family

(01:25):
upbringing that contributed to his really intense inner pain as
a boy. He grew up believing that his mother was
actually his elder sister, and he was raised by his grandparents,
and his mother was a teenager who had an affair
with a Canadian soldier who was just sort of passing through.
And when Eric learned the truth as an adolescent, it
really traumatized him, and he withdrew into his music and
his guitar, and he started listening to old blues guys

(01:47):
like Elmore James and Big Bill Bruns and Robert Johnson,
and then he went over towards the Chicago blues players
like Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy and t bone Walker,
guys like that and uh. He started playing in a
local band side of London called the Roosters before joining
the Yardbirds, who were London's one of their best blues
bands up there with Alexa's Corner, and they were famous

(02:09):
for sort of banging out these really fast and furious
versions of Chuck Berry songs and Slim Harpow songs, and
Clapton would later say this was kind of his apprentice
period and the band uh. They backed Sonny Boy Williamson
for a while. They did an album together which is
actually pretty good and just to sort of let you know,
like Clapton's where his head was at at this period.
He would later say that he didn't think he didn't

(02:30):
really respect Sunny Boy for a while. He didn't think
he was one of the like the good blues guys.
So when he first met him, he was kind of
stuck up around him, and then Sunny Boy very very
quickly put him in his place. But then the band
is the sixties progressed and sort of the Mersey beat
thing got bigger in London. Um the Yardbirds progressed more
towards like the pop sound. In six they released a

(02:51):
single called fore Your Love, which is it's pretty innovative,
way ahead of its time sounding record. It almost sounds
like on like Indians roans through like heavily distorted guitar.
It's a cool record, but Clapton absolutely loath that. He
thought this was like pop crap, so he quit the band.
He said, you know, the whole thing had gotten so
business like with finances and promotion, and we became machines

(03:14):
instead of human being. So he left, left the hit group.
It's funny with Clapton because he does have this reputation now,
like you said, as being this very middle of the
road classic rocker, and you know, we're gonna get into
this in our episode. I don't think there's a member
of that generation at sixties baby boomer rock generation whose
reputation has suffered more over the years. And Eric Clapton,

(03:35):
like his stock was sky high in the sixties and
I feel like it's gone down steadily since then. It
went up again a little bit in the nineties when
he had the Unplugged thing and he had like the
Jason Priestly haircut, and you know, he was having hits
at the time, and the beard certainly was never cool
though during that period. And but like when you look
at his early years, he really was like one of

(03:55):
the original like indie hipsters, you know, like he left
the Yardbirds because they were too commercial and of course,
the Yardbirds go on to become I think, like a
really seminal British rock band. Like they're not as successful
as like the Beatles are the Stones, but like you
don't have led Zeppelin without the Yardbirds, you don't have
like a lot of hard rock bands, I think without
them operating off the template that the Yardbirds designed, but

(04:17):
like clapped in at least initially it was like I
didn't want any part of that. So he started playing
with this guy named John Mayo, who was a British
blues guy, the epitome of the you know, purest blues.
We're only going to you know, focus on the real
American stuff. We're not going to try to have pop hits.
And this is where air Clapton really starts to make

(04:37):
his name as like a guitar hero. He ends up
playing on the Blues Breakers record that comes Down sixty
five I guess known as the Beano record because he's
is he holding like a comic called Beano on the
cover of the album. Oh yeah, he can't be bothered
to look up at the photographer. He's just reading his
comic book. Way too cool to look up. And uh,
the album is one of the great blue rock records

(05:00):
to come out of Britain in the sixties, but like
they're really known the Blues Breakers as a great live band,
and that is where Eric Clapton gets this reputation where
people start spray painting clapped in his God on the
walls of London because they just think this dude is
so cool, and that really leads to him becoming a superstar,
which in a way is what he didn't want in

(05:22):
The Yardbirds. But I guess maybe in the sense he
felt like he was becoming famous for the right reasons
with John may All. At any rate, he ends up
forming one of the first, I guess maybe the first
supergroup in rock, which is Cream. It's him Jack Bruce
Ginger Baker. And it's funny to me because like he
didn't want to play the pop trip in The Yardbirds,

(05:43):
but in Cream there is that blues base, but like
they didn't play straight blues. I mean they took it
and exploded it out and it became this I guess
you could say, self indulgent display of like instrumental virtuosity,
even though I really I really like Cream, And you know,
when I think about clapping in the sixties. What jumps
out to me is that he was always in bands

(06:05):
and he was always offset with like equally strong personalities.
And that was true certainly in the Yardbirds, it was
true with John Mayle. It's the case in Cream. And
then after he leaves Cream, of course he does blind
faith with Steve Winwood. And I just wonder, like, ultimately,
is there clapping just like a great side man, you know,
like because I feel like whenever he has to be
the focal point, he just retreats and his music gets

(06:28):
so much more boring. And it's like, if you can
be in a band, he can just play the guitar,
you can you know, be a hot shot. And maybe
that's more suited to him. And I just wonder in
his own mind, even if he thinks of himself that way,
like this guy once called a record journeyman for crying
out loud. I mean, I feel like that's his mentality
in some way. It's but you mentioned them earlier as

(06:49):
being sort of one of the first indie rock guys.
For just the way that he's sort of shunned commercial ventures,
it's weird. Maybe it's just it's just a testament to
how much his reputation has suffered that I don't and
even see him as this like paragon of like, you know,
I've got integrity, my musical integrity. I think of him
now of all the bands that he's left, is just
thinking he was just a pain in the ass like

(07:10):
a prima donna back then. I feel like that's kind
of the quotes that you get from like the John
Mayles when he left Bruise Breakers, and when when you
talk to guys from the Yardbirds and stuff, it makes
it makes him seem like just a big prima too,
which is really interesting. Yeah, I the pivot from wanting
to leave the Yardbirds to pursue like hardcore blues to
then doing Cream and doing stuff like you know, the

(07:30):
track wrapping paper and even like singles like I Feel Free,
it's so in the pop realm. I never really was
able to figure out, like how we decided, Okay, now
it's time to move that way, because that just seems
way more poppy than anything yards Birds were doing in
nineteen five. I never really figured out what the change was. Yeah,
I just seemed like in Cream, you know, he could
just be the total hot shot guitar player. And again

(07:53):
I think It has something to do with the fact too,
that he was with these two other guys who had
as big as egos as he did, so he could
be a star. But again I feel like in some way,
as much as he could be a prima donna, I'm
sure that his mentality is that of a sideman. I
just think that when he's in that role he shines.
When he's making solo records, it just gets more and

(08:14):
more boring. But as it is at this time, he
is I think the pre eminent guitar hero of rock music.
But there's another guy who's gonna be coming along who,
I think it's fair to say, kind of blows him
out of the water absolutely, James Marshall Hendrix. Uh. Jimmy
also a rough upbringing in the Pacific Northwest. He grew
up in poverty and his parents split when he was

(08:35):
when he was a young boy. His mother was an
alcoholic and died of complications from liver disease when Jimmy
was a little boy, and his father refused to take
him to her funeral. Instead, he gave him a shot
of whiskey and told him that this was how men
deal with loss. So this is the background that he's
coming from. His first instrument was a one string ukulele
that he found in the trash, So I just think

(08:55):
of going from that to the Jimmy Hendrix that you know,
it's it's mind blowing. And he eventually got a real
guitar and used it not only to learn blues tracks
and Elvis songs, but also to imitate sounds that he
would hear from cartoons on the TV, which actually, when
you think of the stuff that he would do later on,
it makes total sense that he was into exploring the

(09:17):
different kinds of sounds that you could make with a guitar.
It wasn't interested in just being a virtuoso. He really
wanted to explore the sonic pallet to what you can
get at a six strings in a Wammi bar. So
he does a stint in the army, which even just
looking at pictures of him in the uniform, it's just
so weird to see very quickly say he was a paratrooper,
which is pretty cool. But yeah, I quickly became apparent

(09:41):
to both sides that this was a really bad fit,
and he was given a an honorable discharge even though
he was unable to I think the report read individuals
unable to conform to military rules and regulations. Mrs Bedcheck
sleeps while supposed to be working unsatisfactory duty performance. So
of course, and it's Jimmy Hendrix, Like that's what you
would want him to be doing in the military. I

(10:02):
just want to say that, like, if Jimmy was going
to be in the military, I'm glad that he was
like falling out of the sky. You know, at least
there's some sort of mystical element to what he was doing.
He wasn't just a grunt. He was flying among the
stars as Jimi Hendrix. So he gets out, he's discharged,
and he pays his dues on what was then known
as the Chitland Circuit, which was a series of venues

(10:23):
in the South and the Northeast for African American artists.
And he's a backing musician primarily at this time, back
in the acts like the Easley Brothers and Little Richard
and Curtis Knight, and he does package tours with Sam
Cook and Chuck Jackson, and he keeps getting in trouble
because he's supposed to be a backing musician and he's
playing like Jimmy Hendrix. He's I think, uh, little Richard

(10:44):
screaming him for playing with his teeth and stuff like that.
He would just would outshine the stars, so he kept
getting fired from all these all these guys. Have you
seen the clip of him, he's I think he's playing
with the Eisley Brothers. I think it's his first filmed
appearance and he's playing shotgun and it is unreal because
the Holy Brothers are out front, but then there's this
you know guy in the back doing all Jimmy Hendricks tricks.

(11:04):
It's it's like, you know, years before. He's got like
shorter hair in the suit and everything, but it's very
clearly Jimmie Hendrix. It's really cool to watch. Well, it's
funny too because eventually, you know, the Asy Brothers are
going to have Ernie Eisley playing essentially Jimi Hendrix inspired guitar.
Like eventually a lot of these R and B and
funk groups we're going to have to have a Jimi
Hendrix type element to them, like after Jimmy of course

(11:26):
transformed rock and pop music when he became a big thing.
But yeah, like in the sixties, the early sixties, what
he was doing it wasn't really gonna fly, so like
by like sixty six, he has to start doing his
own thing. And he's performing in Greenwich Village under the
name Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, and he's stuck
in this weird predicament because he can't really play Harlem

(11:47):
because the Harlem audiences consider him to sound too white.
And yet playing for white audiences, this black guitar player
playing again a fusion of like rock, R and B
soul looking ahead to it's gonna be happening in hard
rock and funk. American audiences really can't stand it. And
the other thing too about Jimmy Hendrix is that he
ends up being part of this tradition of like British

(12:10):
music fans appreciating American music before Americans, you know, which
is something that is going to be happening. Of course,
it happens throughout the sixties with all the British blues
bands who were really responsible for like introducing a generation
of like white kids to music being made by black Americans.
Like if it weren't for like the Rolling Stones or

(12:31):
you know, the Yardbirds or the Animals, it's possible that
a lot of white kids like wouldn't have been turned
onto the blues. Uh. And a similar thing happens with
Jimmy Hendrix because he can't find an audience in America,
but British people start taking notice of him. There's this woman,
Linda Keith, who I think was she like Keith Richard's girlfriend,
Rich's girlfriend on a model and she was really plugged

(12:52):
into the British rock scene at this time. And her
last name is Keith. She kind of looks like Keith Richards,
so like Keith Richards was only dating women that looked
like him, which is pretty cool something you can do
with your Keith Richards. She's encouraging Jimmy though, to like
come over to England, and you know, she has some
connections to like the British music scene. So Jimmy goes
over there and that's where he becomes a pretty big star.

(13:14):
He starts mingling with other rock stars, including the Guys
and Cream, and there's this story. I mean, it's pretty incredible.
I mean it makes sense now because we know who
Jimmy Andris is, but like at the time it seems
kind of insane because like he basically went to Cream.
I think they were having a rehearsal maybe, and I
think it was a live show. It was a live
show at a college. Did like he joined them on

(13:35):
stage or was this like before they go this was
on stage? Is before the show? He goes up to
him because his manager is Chas Chandler, who was in
the Animals and that you know, they were big in
the in the British blues rock scene, and uh and
Chas goes, yeah, ay, Eric, I got I got this
friend with me. He loved to jam with you. And
you know, the British rock scene in the mid sixties

(13:56):
it's just as regimented and class oriented as the rest
of British society at this time. I mean, there's a
hierarchy and cream they are the cream there on the top.
And you know, no one asks to play no one
asks to play with This is insane, I mean. And
so they're like they're just taken aback by the audacity
of the request, Like clearly this is some American guy

(14:17):
who doesn't know decorum, Like this is not like you know, alright, fine,
we'll let you come on stage and jam with us,
but like this is weird. They're definitely like this is
this is not an everyday occurrence, but they let it
happen because it is so bizarre. And then Jimmy ends
up playing this song Killing Floor. It's a hallowing wolf song.
And I know his rendition because this is the song

(14:38):
he played at Monterey Pop. I think it's the first
song that he plays when he comes out, and it's
like this electrifying like version. When Jimmy Andricks plays it, it
it just sounds like his guitars on fire, even before
he is actually sounds like a train. Yeah, it's unbelievable,
and you know, I imagine it's sounding something like that
when he played it at this concert. And of course

(14:58):
Eric Clapton, he's Jimmy Hendrix playing Killing Floor, and he
like wets his pants immediately because it is amazing. It's
Jimi Hendrix, and it's like an alien has come down
from you know, some other planet. And he is the
greatest thing to ever touch the guitar ever. And you know,
when I think about the Clapton Hendrix dynamic, I think

(15:20):
about the movie Amadeus. You know, like we have Mozart
and Salieri, and Mozart is like the young hot shot
and he's a genius. Of course, Saliari is the more
established popular person, but like Salieri is cursed with this
special insight into appreciating Mozart's genius, like he can see

(15:40):
it really before anyone else, because like even in the cream,
like you know, Hendrix is is just blowing minds by
playing killing floor. But I think like Ginger Baker heard
it and he was like, I'm not really feeling it,
which is a very Ginger Baker type of reaction. A
ship we're about playing about virtuosity exactly. This guy is

(16:02):
all flash. There's no substance to what he's doing. Meanwhile,
Eric Clapton again, he's wet his pants, he's backstage, and
I mean it seems like he's like almost inconsolable because
he knows that this guy is the real thing. And
it's like Clapton is a really great guitar player. But
the difference between these two guys is that Clapton is

(16:23):
a great formalist. He can play great blues, he can
like replicate what other people have done. He can uh be,
I guess, the best British example of American music. And
then you have Jimmy Hendrix coming along. Is he's the
real thing. He's reinventing the guitar, like he is inventing something,
he's not just sort of reviving something or preserving something.

(16:44):
Like this is a whole new thing and it's going
to change the world. And like Clapton could see that
before a lot of other people could. I think there's
the famous long he's backstage after the show, after after
Jimmy's just blown his mind and he's trying to light
a cigarette and he can't because his hands are shaking.
He's just so shocked, and and Chess Chandeler, Jimmy's manager,
comes up to him, and Eric just goes, he didn't
tell me he was that fucking good. It's like Chess

(17:06):
Chandler introduced John Wilkes Spooks to Klibradham Lincoln. You know,
it's like this is the guy who's gonna take you out,
you know, and like you're gonna shake each other's hand,
and you know, like like if they could have had
some formal meeting ahead of time, Like that's basically the
dynamic here, Like Jimmie Hendricks is John Wilkes Booth to
Eric Clapton's Abraham Lincoln, and that's the way it's going

(17:28):
to be from now on. And they both know, Jimmy
Made said he felt bad about it. He thought it
was like pushy getting on because now he's like, you know,
I love Eric. This is years later the thing and
I love Eric. I can't believe I did that. I
can't believe I like pushed my way on stage into
his set. But you know, I was young. I was
trying to make an impact on the scene and that
was what I had to do. But yeah, I guess
his His girlfriend later said that that he actually said

(17:49):
at least that he felt bad about that. Um so
that was his his I think that was his first
time ever playing in London. I think the borrow of guitar,
he'd only been there for a week. But the word
gets around, you know, God is long live Hendrix. That
people know that that's there and Chess Chandler arranges is
very well orchestrated. Uh formal debut at the Bag of

(18:09):
Nails club in London, which was this really hip Carnaby
Street club and you know, like I said, word has
gotten around. All the leaders of the British music scene
there in full force. Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Brian Jones,
Jeff Beck, McCartney, Eric Burton from the animals John Mayle. Uh,
Eric is so freaked out that he calls Pete Townsend,
who he's not even particularly close to, to go with

(18:32):
him just because he like needs back up to see
this guy. Because he knows that that this is this
is possibly the end, he said, of his career. He's
going down. Uh. So they all go out to see Jimmy, everybody,
I think. Uh. Pete Townsend later said that he and
Clapton were so moved that they held hands. They just
like clasp each other's hands in the middle of the
performance because it's just like you said, it's it is

(18:54):
reinventing the guitar. It's like nothing anyone has ever seen before.
And every guitarist in the joint is just rattled to
their core. Like Jeff Beck later said that he thought
his career was over when he saw them, But everybody
goes home in the practice, I'll put it that way. Yeah,
And you looked at this earlier, and and this was
part of I think Jimmy from the beginning, him trying
to recreate the sounds on the cartoon. You know, he

(19:16):
just contextualized the instrument in a totally different way from
what his contemporaries were doing. You know, they were trying
to emulate their heroes from the blues scene. Jimi Hendrix,
he loved those guys too, but he was also thinking
of ways that he could communicate other types of things
with his guitar, and it just seemed like he had
figured that out already at this point. And Yeah, all

(19:38):
these people who are the legends of the biggest legends
of classic rock, really that you would think, oh, they
should already feel pretty assured in what they're doing. They
just feel like jumping off a bridge seeing this guy.
You know, it's like, we're done. We're done already. And
um with In terms of like the personal relationship between
Clapton and Hendrix, you know, we said this earlier that
you know, in a way they were rivals because the

(20:00):
public pitted them against each other fairly early on, But
in terms of their personal relationship, it seemed like they
always got got on together pretty well. Like there was
I think the first time that they met was like
not long after that original Cream gig where again Hendricks
murdered clapped in front of everybody John Wilkes booth style.
But then they actually met. I think like Clapton walking

(20:22):
into a restaurant where Hendricks was giving an interview, which,
by the way, well, how amazing would have been to
been like to be in London at this time when
you could just like walk into a restaurant and you
see Jimmy Hendricks giving an interview and then there's Eric
Clapton over here, and now they're gonna have a pow wow.
I mean, it's just just so amazing. But yeah, it
does seem like they were able to talk to each

(20:42):
other because they were the closest thing that the other
guy had to a contemporary Like they could just get
together and talk about guitars, talk about gear, talk about techniques,
talk about like their favorite guitar players, and it seems
like that was how they were really able to bond
at that time. Yeah, it's finally clapped in later say, like,
you know, it was great talking to him about music
and stuff, but Jimmy had such an abstract imagination that

(21:05):
he would go off and start talking about like you know,
clouds in the sky and stars and everything, and it
was really hard to actually like keep them on track
and have like a you know, a secular based conversation
with him, which is you know, kind of what you
want to hear about Hendrix. I guess exactly. I wouldn't
want to hear that like Jimmy and conversation was like
talking about you know, tax laws or or you know,

(21:26):
transmissions or literature anything else. I want to Yeah, I
want him just to be purely a space cadet. You know,
that's the Jimmie Hendrix that we all know and love
all right hand, We'll be right back with more rivals.

(21:47):
I'm curious to get your take on this, because you're
a musician and I'm not so you I think probably
have more of an insight into this than I do,
just comparing their different playing styles. And you know, I
was saying before about Clapton in essence being sort of
like a preservationist, Like he's someone who's studying the past,
trying to carry a tradition forward, whereas Hendrix he has
also studied those same reference points, but he's more about

(22:10):
pushing it out and and taking it into outer space.
Along with the showmanship aspect too, I mean, he is,
especially early on, much more of an effusive performer. You know,
he's setting his guitar and fire, he's having sex with
his amplifiers. You know, he's doing all the things that
like rock bands are gonna be doing forever after they

(22:31):
see Jimi Hendrix. But like, how else would you say
that these two guys divergent terms of their playing styles. Yeah,
I mean, I think Clapton is more reverent, probably because
it's a scene that is not native to him. You know,
he was not not a black kid born in the
United States, you know, not to put to find a
point on it. And so he for all the reasons
like we mentioned about him wanting to leave the Yardbirds
because it was getting to poppy into commercial, I think

(22:51):
he he wanted to be a stylist, whereas Jimmy, like
you said, was pushing it out. And Jimmy's main stock
in trade was for years is just as a straight
R and B backing musician, you know. And so by
the time that we got to know him as Jimmie
Hendrick's guitar god, he was really bored with just straight blues.
I think the only real straight twelve bar blues type
song that he ever recorded was Red House, and so instead,

(23:15):
I think Pete Townsend it a really great way describing
he married the blues with the transcendent joy of psychedelia. Um,
I think he kind of made Clapton and others in
the scene no that kind of their their act was
sort of more old hat. And there's something else that
I really love about hendricks stuff and showman ship aside.
I mean, maybe this is getting a little two granular,
is that Hendricks started off, as I said, a backing musician,

(23:37):
and so those guys were mostly doing rhythm guitar and
whereas the front guy was playing lead like single line
bends and stuff on the lead guitar. Clapton was known
for doing that. He was kind of the guy out
front putting the guitar embroidery on top or as. Hendricks
could not only do those fills, but he would also

(23:58):
play sort of more polyphonic stuff. He would hit chords
in between playing the solos, which is so it sounds
like you've almost two people playing at once, which is,
you know, incredible. So his sense of rhythm is really
one of the hallmarks of hendricks is playing. And he
would later say he said about clapping, you know, I
wish he would play more chords. You know, the guy doesn't,
that's not really what he does. Eric clapping is a

(24:18):
great guitarist and we think along the same lines, but
I'm not sure he's playing exactly what he wants to.
He later said, I was said, I was jamming with
Eric the other day and it was pretty nice, but
I wanted to hear him bring out some chords. So yeah,
I think that he thought that. Well, Yeah, Jimmie Hendricks
saying that Clapton doesn't play enough chords is a very
Jimmie Hendricks power move, is he It's pretty good playing
with him, you know, It's like, all right, it just

(24:40):
sounds like Michael Jordan playing basketball with like the JV team.
It's like that's pretty good. But I couldn't really do
everything I that I can normally do, you know, because
this guy is I think, you know, the thing with Clapton,
I always think like his style is maybe cleaner, you know,
it's a little less cluttered and which is like, again,
I think in a lot of the band situations that
he's been in that works really well. But yeah, with

(25:02):
Jimi Hendrix, you just feel like sometimes he's playing like
three or four different guitars at once. I mean, there's
just so much going on sonically, it's just overwhelming and
you don't necessarily get that influence with Clapton. Although I
think is it fair to say that, like in the
short run, that like Clapton was trying to play like
Hendricks and Cream. I mean because because when I look
at Hendrix I don't really see any influence there. I

(25:24):
don't think he was ever really trying to do what
Clapton did, you know, even when he was playing straight
up blues like you mentioned Redhouse for instance, I don't
really hear a lot of Clapton influence in that. Whereas
if I look at what Clapton ends up doing on
like Wheels of Fire or just really gears, I wonder
if like he would had maybe Hendricks in his head

(25:45):
a little bit. Oh yeah, absolutely, I think Jack Bruce
later said, a couple of days after they first saw
Hendricks perform, they had a Cream rehearsal, and Eric shows
up trying to do all the Hendricks tricks. He's trying
to play with his teeth, he does all these showboating
moments rehearsal. He's like trying to, you know, figure out
how to be like like Hendrix. And then a couple
of weeks later they show up to a gig and

(26:07):
Clapton has his big perm, you know, Hendrick style perm,
starts shopping at the same like psychedelic clothes stores that
that Hendrix does. So he was pretty unabashed in his
in his worship of Hendrix at this time. Um I
would say for the other way around, probably the biggest
thing that Clapton did for Hendrix, and he probably would
have stumbled on this anyway, is probably hooking him up
with with Jim Marshall, with Marshall stax, which was, you know,

(26:30):
such a crucial component to uh to Jimmy sound. Clapton
started using those early with like the Blues Breakers stuff.
But yeah, that I would say would probably be the
closest thing I could say to Clapton's influence on Hendrix,
and even that something he probably would have discovered on
his own pretty soon. I mean, it seems like the
biggest thing that clapped in and other British rock stars
did for Jimi Hendrix was just giving him an audience

(26:53):
that he couldn't get in America. That again, he was
a struggling musician in America playing Greenwich Village, you know,
not really make a name for himself. And then he's
able to go to London and you know, just blow
away all these British rock stars and eventually there is
a buzz about him that starts building in America. People
are hearing about this guy. And then he ends up

(27:13):
playing Monterey Pop and and and that's the big gig
for him. Yeah, I mean he was welcomed into the
scene pretty quickly. I mean there wasn't In fact, I
can't really think of anyone that was trying to like,
you know, jealous. He took over and shut him out.
He was given a place he needed a place to stay,
so he ends up crashing at Ringo Star's apartment in London.
He's giving gigs on on package tours for the young

(27:34):
Cat Stevens. Was you know that Dan in his pop
star incarnation. He's embraced pretty quickly. And as you said,
but buzz from England is very quickly heard over in America.
And when John Phillips is putting together the Monterey Pop Festival,
he calls Paul McCartney and says, you know the Beatles
like to play. Well, we're not really performing right now,
but you should get this guy, Jimmy Hendrix and uh

(27:55):
and so yeah, it was on Paul McCartney's recommendation that
that Jimmy got the Monterey gig. And you know, I
always wondered Clapton. It's sort of always been around and
rose through the ranks and kind of he was sort
of always there. Jimmy in England and in the United
States kind of had this element of surprise. We just
kind of exploded. And you definitely see that at Monterey,
where you know, he came out and people didn't know

(28:18):
what to expect, and you know, it's this guy with
these monster, massive hands coming out playing killing floor and
like you said, it sounds like a freight train coming
through the auditorium and then he sets his guitar on fire.
I mean, it's just he knew how to make an entrance,
which is something that I think Clapton never really had.
He never had that that breakout moment. It was a
slow burn, whereas Hendricks was explosive whenever he entered the

(28:41):
scene on both sides of the Atlantic well. And I
think also Hendrix's early music just was similar enough to
Cream that you couldn't help but put the Jimmy Hendricks
experience next to Cream and to compare them, you know,
they're both power trios. They're both led by these hot
shot guitar players. They have very busy rhythm set sans
you know behind them, you know, making this like fairly

(29:03):
catchy but like you know, also bluesy psychedelic rock. And
in nineven you have again I mentioned this earlier. They
you have the album just Really Gears by Cream, which
ends up being their most successful record, and that's the
record that has like Sunshine of Your Love on it,
for instance, and there's a bunch of other like radio
classics on their strange bruise on that record. I'm a

(29:24):
big fan of just Reeli Gears. I like Cream in general.
I think that's a great record. But then you have
are you experienced by the Jimi Hendrix experience? Another power
trio record, and what is better than are you experienced?
You know, like there's not many records by anyone that
are better than that record. And I mean that album
by itself is like the greatest hits album, Purple Hayes,

(29:46):
Foxy Lady, you know, the wind cries, Mary uh Stone Free.
I mean, every song on that record, I feel like
is is famous and the sound of it too. To me,
it's like you listen to Cream and it sounds like
this sixties and I love that sound, but like Jimmie
Hendrix experience, it sounds like the seventies and eighties and

(30:06):
nineties and like the future of hard rock essentially, like
that record and like the early led Zeppelin records, I
feel like, are the albums that rock bands still want
to sound like, you know, like just sonically they sound
so amazing, and uh, Eric Clapton was not going to
come out well and that equation because of what Jimmy
was able to do in basically the same lane, right,

(30:27):
you know, it's funny and the sound was so fully
formed too. I mean, you wish in the fresh cream.
It doesn't sound anything like Israeli gears as far as
I'm concerned, there's something there's still sort of finding their way,
whereas HENDRICKSIX debut is you know that classic sound immediately, Yeah, absolutely,
and yeah there's something about their playing and also just
like the production styles of those albums. Again, like the

(30:48):
way that the Hendrix records sound. They're so forward thinking,
and I think that continues as both of their careers progress.
I mean in sixty eight and you know they're both
putting out double records. You have Cream put on Wheels
of Fire, which I think is a great record. You know,
you got white Room on that record, huge hit. I
think Jimmie Hendricks said that he wished he wrote that song,
Isn't that right? He said, you wish that song? And

(31:10):
then Jack Bruce very sort of gallantly said, well, you
know I ripped it off from you anyway. Right, So
even in a moment of triumpher air clapp and there's
something sort of undercutting him at the end there. But yeah,
you have Wheels of Fire, really good record. But then
Jimmie Hendrix makes Electric Ladyland maybe the best double record ever,
certainly in the conversation with like ex on Main Street

(31:30):
and Sign of the Times by Prince, you know, like
just a masterful record that when you listen to Wheels
of Fire next to that album, it just makes Wheels
of Fire sounds smart. I mean, you see this again
again with the clapped versus Hendricks thing. It's like clapped
up by any other metric would be just massive, huge,
should feel great, And you have this crazy outlier that

(31:51):
is Jimmie Hendricks and it just dwarfs whatever he's done
all throughout the sixties and beyond. I think Wheels of Fire.
I think it's my favorite Cream album just for the
just the breadth of it. And just like you said,
White Room, amazing track. But yeah, I can't hold the
candle to Electric Lady Land. So around that time, it's
funny like how these things work up, because I mean

(32:12):
Cream falls apart in sight, and like the Jimmy Hendrix Experience,
I mean they fell apart around the same time, didn't they. Yeah,
and they they paid this great Cream broke up first
and they did their sort of farewell tour at the
famous show at the Royal Abbott Hall, and they put
out their last album, Goodbye, and the news of Cream's
demise hits newsstands in uh in January, and the Hendrix Experience,

(32:36):
which are you know, also on their last legs, are
playing a show with Lulu to Serve with Love uh
singer Lulu on this like really not that hip BBC show.
I don't know how they got booked for that, and
it's a live television broadcast. And they stopped their song
mid set and say, you know, we want to we
want to shout at Cream. We just amounts to announced
that they're breaking up today. We want to play a

(32:57):
tribute to them, So they placed Sunshine of Your Up
and this incredible searing version that that goes on so
long that it actually, because it's a lot of television broadcast,
they don't just cut it. It actually ends up delaying
the news broadcast later that night because it just goes
on longer than the show time limit is allowed. Incredible
showboating version, uh, which you could again read as either

(33:20):
a beautiful tribute to Eric and his now former band
or just like Hendricks dancing on Cream's grave, depending on
how you want to look at it. I think what's
crucial at this time is that you know there, you know,
you have Hendrix and you have clapped In. They're both
free of their bands that you know, really made them
huge stars. And I think this is where they start

(33:41):
to diverge because Clapton again in Cream, it seemed like
he was trying to do a Jimi Hendrix thing. He
even had again, like he had his own like white
dude Afro and Cream for a while, which is kind
of awkward to see when you look at old photos now.
But then when he goes into blind Faith, and then
especially when he starts may King, the Derek and the
Domino's record, it seems like instead of following Hendrix, he's

(34:03):
going back to his American roots, And in a way,
is I guess looking at you know, groups like Delaney
and Bonnie and the Alman Brothers as being his new
sort of artistic north star, whereas Hendrix he's going to
go into banded gypsies, moving in more sort of like
a funk almost jazz direction. Of course, we're not going
to know the full fruition of that because he's going

(34:24):
to pass away tragically in nineteventy. But clapped in with
Derek and the Dominos, he makes Layla. And you know,
I think as a solo artist, and I've said this
before in this episode, I think Eric Clapton is a
pretty boring solo artist. There aren't many of his records
that he's made under his own name that I really love.
I mean, I like slow Hand, I like four sixty

(34:44):
one Ocean Boulevard. There's a couple of records here maybe
after that that are okay, like to me, like Layla. Yeah, right,
Old Sock is a masterpiece. But in my mind there's
no question that Layla is like his higher water mark
as an artist. And to me like what separates that
from like a lot of his work is that I

(35:04):
just feel like Eric Clapton is kind of lazy on
his own. I think he evolves into this sort of
like the middle of the road, like Journeyman blues Stick
that as he got older, it just got more and
more dull. And when you listened to Layla, you know,
it just sounds like he is something at stake. There's
a real fire and his playing, and of course he
was in love with George Harrison's wife and he was

(35:26):
starting to use hard drugs and I mean, I think
everyone knows that story. But I mean, am I being
too hard on him? I mean, I just feel like
there's something in Layla that he didn't have later on.
Maybe in some respect it was because he's still at
Hendricks There, being someone that he wanted to impress. I
just wonder if that had something to do with it.
I mean, Hendricks There and also bringing Dwayanne Almond into
the mix, because I think for a number of weeks

(35:48):
or maybe even a month, sessions for the album were
torturous and really not much was accomplished and he didn't
really have somebody to spar with. And then when they
brought Dwayne Almond into the mix. That was when the
sessions really took off. So he definitely he needs It's
like what you're saying earlier, he's just he's a sideman.
He's best as a sideman. He needs somebody to sort
of spar with and also getting back to you know,

(36:08):
whatever Clapton does, it's never quite good enough. He's just
cursed with that you've got. He always has Hendrix above him,
and in this case with um Patty Boy, George Harrison's wife.
You know, I mean, you're you're air clapping, you're in cream,
You're a guitar god, you should be feeling pretty good.
You could probably have any woman you want, but not
the wife of a Beatle, you know what I mean.
Like he just seems perpetually cursed to have, like to

(36:30):
do really great and then just be topped by this
crazy outlier situation, uh, which I mean I wonder how
much that factors into just is clazy playing. It's just
kind of like you know, or or something just like,
oh man, no matter what I do, Yeah, it's a
chicken or the egg thing with him, where like is
he in this perpetual Bridesmaid's role because of his mentality,

(36:54):
or does he have that mentality because fate relegates him
to that. I don't know what it is. And again,
it's it's a little weird to make that argument about
someone like Eric Clapton, who you know, is he a billionaire?
I don't know. I mean, he's like, I'm sure he
has like hundreds of millions of dollars in his bank account.
He's a very successful musician. He's a huge rock star,
so it's not like, you know, he's just some obscure

(37:15):
guy living in a shack somewhere. I mean, he has
done very well for himself over the years. But again,
I just I always feel like with Clapton there is
this sense of like squandered potential um And maybe I
feel that way because I feel like Layla, the Derek
and the Domino's album is so brilliant, and to me
it's an example of like what happens when this guy's
really applying himself. Of course, the thing that we haven't

(37:38):
mentioned yet is that Jimi Hendrix ended up dying during
the sessions for Layla, and one of the most powerful
songs on that record is Clapton's cover of Little Wing
from Access Bold His Love, which I think did they
record that after or before Hendrix? Just before, like weeks before.
So it's very strange because you listen to it and

(38:00):
it almost sounds like it could have been recorded after
Hendricks did. It's a very emotional, kind of bombastic version
of the song, but it ends up being this sort
of weirdly precient track that they recorded for the record.
It ends up being a posthumous tribute to Hendricks, and
in a way, it kind of plays into what we
were saying of Hendricks being up here and Clapton being

(38:20):
the Saliari figure who admires the guy up there, you know,
because it's like, I guess Hendricks played Sunshine of Your
Love on that show, but he never recorded Clapton songs
just for the hell of it on his records, you know,
Like it was pretty clear that he was his own man.
I like clap that he's my friend, but like I'm
in my own class, right. I mean, it's very it's
very telling that Clapp in making this monster album that

(38:42):
I think it was recorded late enough in the sessions
that I think he knew that it was going to be,
you know, a substantial piece of work. They still made
space for a tribute to to to hendricks On there.
I think it was a very uh telling, a very
generous thing to do. And when you look at like
Clapton's reaction to Hendrix's death, I mean there's like sincere
grief there. I mean it really did destroy him. Oh yeah,

(39:06):
I mean there's this really there was this unreleased documentary
called what was that Eric Clapton and his Rolling Hotel
that was done in the late seventies and he's talking
this is ten years after Hendricks's died, and Clapton is
still welling up, I mean choked up. It's talking about
Hendrix's death ten years later. He was supposed to see him.
He bought a gift of a of a left handed

(39:28):
strato caster, which was hard to come by in England
in nineteen seventy and they were supposed to go to
a sly Stone show and uh and they didn't end
up meeting. And Clapton is just looking at the camera.
Ten years later, Sandon, I could see him, and I
couldn't get to him at the concert, and then whack
the next day he was gone and I was left
with that left handed strato caster oh my god. I mean,

(39:48):
he's it's heartbreaking to see him tell his story, and
that was an awful year for him to his his
his grandfather, who he knew was his father, died that
year and and Patty ended up not leaving George Harrison
for him at that time. So he that was really
the year where he fell deeper into his heroin addiction
and just kind of hold himself away for a few
years there too. But yeah, Jimmy's death really sent him

(40:11):
off on a horrible spiral. And you know, even now,
like you know, it's been fifty years since Jimi Hendrix died,
and you know, we've had a lot of time to
get over it, I think by now. But you know,
for me, I still don't think there's a bigger tragedy
in not history than Jimmie Hendrix's death at the age
of seven. I mean, it's like I just try to imagine,
like if Miles Davis had died at age seven, you

(40:35):
know that that would have meant he would have died
in nineteen fifty three. You know, just think of all
the music that like Miles Davis wouldn't have made if
he had died at that age. You know, and I
really think you could make a comparable case for Jimmie Hendrix,
because again we're talking about three studio albums. You know,
like he did not have much time to build a legacy,
and yet what he did in that short window that

(40:58):
he was famous, you know, it's it continues to reverberate
in rock music. Um, of course we go back to
the burnout versus fade away argument. And I'm sure there
are a lot of people who look at Jimmie Hendrix
as this sort of like perfect musician because he died
at age seven, Like he never had his bad eighties period.

(41:18):
He never made like goofy synth rock records. You know,
he didn't like appear in Michelobe commercials, He didn't do
like the Lame Unplugged album, you know all these things
that say Eric Clapton did when you know, he got
into his eighties period and got into the nineties. And
it is an interesting, I guess brain experiment to think about,
like what would have happened if Jamie Hendrix had lived, um,

(41:41):
and like what kind of career would he have had?
Would he have continued to be brilliant or would he
have like faded away like Eric Clapton did, and then
you can do the other way where you imagine like
what if Eric Clapton had died right after Laila came out?
You know, because he could have died. I mean he
was not in a very good way. He was, you know,
us a lot of drugs. He was drinking a lot.

(42:02):
You know, he wasn't really any healthier than Jimmy Hendrix
was at that time. How would we think of Eric Clapton?
Would Eric Clapton be this like romantic figure now like that, Oh,
he made this record for George Harrison's wife because he
was so in love with her, and then he died,
you know like what she said no and then he
went off and yeah, and then died and then and
sorrow and died. Yeah. How would that have affected the record?

(42:26):
You know how we think of it? Like why does
love have to be so sad? You know that's a
song on Laila? Like how would we hear that now
if Clapton had died? Uh, and Jimmie Hendrix was the
one doing tributes to Clapton. It's it's something it's sort
of a ghoulish, you know, brain experiment to play. But
I think it's something you can't help doing if you
care about these two artists. Yeah, I mean it's like

(42:47):
listening to Amy Winehouse is back to Black, you know,
and hearing Rehab now you can't hear it without you know,
divorcing it from knowing what happened later on, and it
definitely abused it with this, you know, horrific ghoulish, as
you said, the tragedy that was to come. Yeah, I mean,
and his legacy if he died and say, you know
January Nino would have been incredible. I mean, going from Yardbirds,

(43:10):
the Blues Breakers, to Cream to Blind Faith to having
this one killer album with Derek Thedomino's I mean, yeah,
it would have been a an insane legacy, uh, in
that same window, I think because what Hendricks, I think
died almost four years almost to the day that he
arrived in London. I mean, he only had four years
to do everything that he did. And I think Clapton
in that same period was also incredibly prolific. It was

(43:33):
incredible run for both of them. I think the thing
that must be stated clearly for the record here, unless
people think that we're glamorizing early death too much in
this episode, is that I think fading away is a
privilege and it's something that people should ultimately aspire to.
And that was something, you know, like when I wrote
about these two guys in my book, that's what I

(43:54):
landed on, you know, because you know, Eric Clapton, to me,
has always been someone who's been easy to clown, easy
to make fun of. You know, it's something that people
still do to this day. I mean, like Phoebe Bridgers.
I interviewed her this year. She took tons of shots
at Eric Clapton, and you know people are going to
go for that because you know, he's done a lot
of like questionable things in his career. But I wish

(44:17):
that I could hear Jimmie Hendrix's bad records. You know,
I would give anything to hear a synth rock record
that Jimmy Hendricks made in three you know, I would
love to see his like embarrassing MTV Video Music Awards appearances,
you know, where it was like him and like jaw Rule,
you know, performing a song in like ven. You know,

(44:39):
I think that would have been amazing to see, like
and it's sad to me that like we weren't given
that opportunity, you know, because again ultimately, Yeah, it's it
makes for a more perfect discography if you die tragically
when you're young. But you know, nobody wants to die
before their time. I mean, that's a sad story. And
you know, we all get lame, we all get older,

(44:59):
we all get fatter, we all get you know, more
lame as we age. It's one of the great things
about being alive, you know. And it's it's sad to
me that Jimmy Hendrix didn't have that privilege in his life. Yeah,
the narrative of the artist's life, I think is is
such a big question and how you separate that from
their music. But at the end of the day, you're right,
we are talking about human beings here. We're gonna take

(45:20):
a quick break to get a word from our sponsor
before we get to more rivals. So we know, we're
just a part of the episode where we give the
pro side of each part of the rivalry. And again,
I feel like it has to be said that, like,
these guys were not rivals in the sense that we

(45:41):
normally talk about in this show. You know, they weren't feuding,
you know, they weren't throwing shoes at each other. They
weren't saying mean things about each other in the press.
They were friends, but they've taken on this stature of
being rivals just because of us in the audience wanting
to compare their different guitar styles, which we've done in
this episode, and also just looking them as signifiers of

(46:01):
of different ideas of like how to age as a musician.
And with Eric Clapton again, it's the idea of fading away,
which is not a very romantic thing to talk about,
the idea that as you get older, maybe you aren't
as artistically artistically relevant as you were when you were
in your twenties. You know, you're not making the same
sort of fiery records that you did at that time. Um,

(46:24):
but you're still allowed to live and to evolve. And
you know, with Eric Clapton, you know, I don't think
anything that he's done later in his career should obscure
how good he was in the sixties as a member
of the Yardbirds, the Blues Breakers, Cream Blind Faith, playing
with Delaney and Bonnie as a sideman, and then going
into Derek and the dominos Um. His work in the
context of bands, for me is his best work, and

(46:47):
it's music that I still turned to I think is
really good. The records he made on his own, I
think are another story. But this is the pro side,
so I'll ignore that for now. I think there's still
a lot of music that Eric Clapton made that um
deserves to be discussed in terms of like the great
guitar music that's ever been made in rock. Yeah, I mean,
I definitely think he's probably the most accessible guitarist of

(47:07):
the two. I'd say he's much more precise and restraints
some might say tasteful player than Hendrix, who you know,
obviously was flashier but ultimately sloppier. I think he would
He's sort of like the neo young of like guitar virtuoso.
I think it was less about the notes and more
about the field and even I think he said in
a Dick Cavit appearance, you know, I never practice. It's
just I always like to jam. It's hard for me
to remember any notes because I'm constantly trying to create

(47:29):
other things, which you know is part of his brilliance.
But I think Clapton was more of a hardcore student
of the blues. And you know, some people maybe labelhim
a copyist, but you know, still an incredible player. I
think it's unfair uh to really ding him prow much,
you borrow from the blues because Hendrix did the same thing.
And uh. I also, this is maybe a controversial opinion,

(47:51):
I think that Clapton is a better singer than Hendrix.
I don't know, there's something it's more soulful about his voice.
What do you think? I I like just Clapton's kind
of bluesy whale. I think that Hendrix, for all of
his incredible gifts as a guitar, as kind of more
like talk song his way through a lot of his work,
and it's kind of mumbled. But I don't know, maybe
it's Yeah, I mean I don't I don't even think
that's controversial. I mean I think, yeah, like as a

(48:13):
pure singer, I think Clapton from the beginning was uh
just better technically than Hendrix was. I mean, I like
the sound of Hendricks's voice. I think he sounds cool
on the mic. But yeah, like he he wasn't really
a singer, right. He famously said that like he didn't
have the courage to sing at all until he heard
Bob Dylan, you know, like he was a huge Bob

(48:33):
Dylan fan and like, what's like, what this guy's singing
that I can sing too? Yeah, I mean I think
with Clapton, you know, for the longest time, I think
he was fairly regarded as like the most overrated rock
musician of you know, to come out of the sixties.
And now there's like a weird thing where I almost
feel like he's like underrated, you know, I feel like,
you know, it's like him in the Doors are like

(48:54):
the two big sixties institutions that like people always clown,
you know, they always dunk on those, and I think
that they both have at this point sort of underappreciated charms. Um.
So that would be my defensive Clapton for going over
to the Hendrick side. I mean, look, it's Jimmy Hendrix.
I mean, what more do you need to say. I

(49:15):
think if you look at the true geniuses of twentieth
century music, you're gonna talk about Miles Davis, You're gonna
talk about Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Billy Holliday, Louis Armstrong,
James Brown, and I think he puts you me Hendrix
on that very prestigious list as well. I mean, he
is the very best of the best. And you know, again,
it's sad to me, you know, a half century after

(49:37):
his death that he wasn't allowed to fully blossom, you know,
because we we only got a small taste of what
he could do. And you know, I think that rock
music generally suffered tremendously because he died so young. In
the same way, again, if Miles Davis had died at
I think the loss to jazz would have been, you know,

(50:00):
just unfathomable. And we'll never know what we lost because
he died so young. But the work that he gave
us is pretty freaking great, you know, and I think
it stands up, you know, all these years later. Oh yeah,
I mean were do you even begin to praise Hendricks?
I mean, I think Ginger Baker said, Yeah, Eric was
a very very good guitar player. Hendricks was a force
of nature. You know, he's a genius. I mean, if

(50:21):
you define genius as being able to do something that
no one else can do and do it very, very
very well to the highest level of proficiency, I mean, yeah,
Hendricks is incredible. Clap. They may have had more taste
in restraint or whatever, especially as he matured, but to Hendricks,
it was bigger than the guitar, you know. I think
clapped In it was all about sort of the instrument
and what came out of his fingers. But with Hendrix

(50:42):
was just all about the sound and the soundscape he
was able to do. I mean, you really wonder what
he could have done because his sort of musical laboratory,
Electric lady On Studios in New York opened like right
before he died, and you really do wonder what he
would have been able to do with his own, you know,
laboratory like that. Um. Also, I feel like for all
of his guitar pyrotechnics of virtuosity, we don't talk about

(51:05):
Hendricks is a songwriter enough. Like I just think that
the number of songs that he wrote, just regardless of
how well he played them, is truly crazy. Man. If
you go through Clapton's discography, there's really not that many
transcendent songs that he himself wrote, you know. I mean
I feel like a lot of the things like stuff
that we think of him playing with Cream was a
lot of like Jack Bruce's rifts and stuff. So I

(51:25):
think that Hendricks is a songwriter. Beats clapped in hands down,
oh yeah, and it's a shame that we didn't spend
more time on that because you know, if you talk
so much about him as a guitar player, it almost
sounds like a prog rock thing where it's just about
how his technique is great and we were just modeling
at his virtuosity. When you know, this guy wrote like
Foxy Lady, like one of the most primal rock songs ever.

(51:48):
He wrote, you know, Voodoo Child's that Return. You know,
he wrote machine Gun, you know, credible protest song. Um.
And also him as as an arranger, like him or
him as an interpret of other people's songs. I mean,
all Along the watch Tower, one of his most famous
songs is a Bob Dylan song, and even Bob Dylan
now plays it the way Jimmie Hendrix plained it, you know,

(52:09):
because he took this thing and he just arranged the
hell out of it and like made it his own.
So yeah, definitely he was the complete package. And yeah,
you just think of like where was he going to
go as a composer, you know, as his musical outlook expanded.
It's it really boggles the mind, you know what was
lost when he died. Um. But you know, when we

(52:30):
look at these two guys together, you know again, you know,
like they weren't rivals, but I think they do amount
to like a philosophical equation about life. Like you know,
in life and in art. Sometimes you know, burning out
is better for your legacy if you're concerned with sort
of like a romantic idea of of of youth and

(52:51):
of vitality. But clearly we should all aspire to fade away.
Like as I get older, I look forward to being
as lame as I can be. I want to my
old sock when I'm in my seventies, the way that
Eric Clapton did, you know, I look forward to that
because you know, that's just a part of life, and uh,
it's something that should be embraced. I think I want
to make my album with Phil Collins. I want to

(53:13):
make my August, you know, I want gonna give the
final word to Jimmy once said, you know, there's no
best guitarists. There are so many styles of music. It's
a matter of taste exactly. So is it fair to
say that these guys weren't like crosstown traffic, that they
were in some way running in parallel with each other.
I'm trying to think of a Jimi Hendrick song where
there's a parallel. I'm sure I'll think of it after

(53:34):
this episode, or tweet at us let me know if
there was a better classic rock reference I could have
made at the end of this episode, David, I think
they were both fire. There we go. That works as well.
My mind was a purple haze. If you will trying
to come up with a good joke at the end
of this episode, I think that is a good way
to end it. So thank you for listening to this
episode of Rivals. We will be back with more beefs

(53:56):
and feuds and long simmery resentments next week. M Rivals
is a production of I Heart Radio. The executive producers
are shaun Tytone and Noel Brown. The supervising producers are
Taylor chicogn and Tristan McNeil. The producer is Joel hat Stat.
I'm Jordan run Talk. I'm Stephen Hyden. If you like
what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review.

(54:17):
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