<\/p>\n
During the past six decades, Eric Clapton has become one of the most influential guitar players of all time and has helped to popularize the Blues around the world. He is always featured on lists of the greatest players, but many other guitarists are often overlooked in those rankings.<\/p>\n
Stephen Stills, known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young<\/a>, is one of them. Over the decades, Clapton has shared his opinions on many of these underrated musicians, including the American guitarist.<\/p>\n Eric Clapton\u2019s opinion on Stephen Stills<\/p>\n Eric Clapton is a big fan of Stephen Stills as a guitarist and also liked Buffalo Springfield, the band in which Stills first achieved fame alongside Neil Young<\/a>. He really enjoyed their song \u201cBluebird,\u201d and it was because of that track that their friendship began. Clapton even admitted that he \u201ccopied\u201d that song when creating \u201cLet It Rain,\u201d one of his greatest solo tracks. \u201cWe went to L.A. with Cream. I hadn\u2019t been there more than about an hour. There\u2019s a knock on the door and Stephen Stills was there with a guitar, you know. He just came in, took his guitar out of the case and said: \u2018I hear you like this\u2019 (and played Buffalo Springfield\u2019s \u2018Bluebird\u2019),\u201d Clapton said in the documentary \u201cEcho in the Canyon<\/a>\u201d (2018).<\/p>\n During the recording of that documentary, Bob Dylan<\/a>\u2019s son Jakob Dylan (of The Wallflowers) re-recorded some of the biggest classics by artists who were part of the Laurel Canyon movement in California. One of the tracks he covered was Buffalo Springfield<\/a>\u2019s \u201cQuestions,\u201d and he invited Clapton and Stills to play on it. The British musician said the song was a direct influence on \u201cLet It Rain,\u201d and that people should know it.<\/p>\n Eric Clapton continued:<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t listened to that stuff for a long time, the west coast music at all. I haven\u2019t heard the original version of \u2018Questions\u2019 for a long, long, long time and it really took me back. It took me back to the song that I had done around the same time. A little later actually, called \u2018Let it Rain\u2019, it was one of the first songs I\u2019ve written. I was influenced by it, I think, I must have copied it and not even known, you know. (Jakob said they would cut that part of the interview) Clapton replied: \u201cNo, no! That\u2019s very important for people to know,\u201d he said (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).<\/p>\n Curiously, at the time he invited Stephen Stills himself to play on the song. The American musician played the famous guitar solo in the bridge and the bass guitar in the outro, as well as providing backing vocals. Clapton is also a fan of Stills\u2019 solo hit song \u201cLove The One You\u2019re With\u201d as George Terry, who played with both of them, said in the book \u201cStephen Stills: Change Partners\u201d (2019). \u201cI clearly recall Eric telling me that Stephen would go to heaven for writing that song,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Also in 1970, Clapton played on Stills\u2019 solo debut album, recording guitar parts for the song \u201cGo Back Home\u201d. In the next year he recorded again with Stills, being part of the song \u201cFishes and Scorpions\u201d, released on his second studio record.<\/p>\n The funny story of when Stephen Stills escaped through a bathroom window and Clapton was arrested<\/p>\n Stephen and Eric had the chance to play together many times over the years and hang out. When their friendship started back in the late 60s, Clapton ended up being arrested by the police but Stills managed to escape through a bathroom window. \u201cI had got an invite to go and watch Buffalo Springfield rehearsing in a house in Laurel Canyon. I had met this girl called Mary Hughes, who was the kind of beauty queen of the strip at that time. Jeff Beck was dating her, Keith Moon was dating her and I somehow managed to get into the equation. I\u2019m with this beautiful girl and there\u2019s joints being passed around, and they start to play.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey played at a level where it wasn\u2019t too loud for everybody. They were rehearsing a set, I think, to play for a show. Then there\u2019s a knock on the door and someone goes to answer and there\u2019s an immediate vibe in the room that something is wrong. They opened the door and there\u2019s a policeman standing there and there\u2019s a squad car in the background. He says: \u2018You\u2019ll have to keep it down, we\u2019ve had some complaints about the noise.\u201d<\/p>\n He continued:<\/p>\n \u201c(Then he smells and says:) \u2018What\u2019s that?\u2019 Next thing you know they\u2019re in the room. I had just put down a joint but I had nothing in my hands. I was handcuffed to somebody. So we were all taken to L.A. County Jail. Meanwhile, people were like \u2018What happened to Stephen?\u2019 Stephen, when he realized who was at the front door, jumped out of the bathroom window and ran off (laughs),\u201d Eric Clapton recalled in the documentary \u201cEcho in the Canyon\u201d (2018).<\/p>\n Unlike Clapton, who has been called \u201cGod\u201d for more than 60 years, Stephen Stills never really got the real recognition he deserves as a guitar player. His bandmate Neil Young already called him one of the most underrated guitar players in the world. Graham Nash has the same opinion and once said: \u201cStephen had moments when no one could touch him. Not Clapton or Bloomfield or Beck or Santana, or anyone in that league.\u201d<\/p>\n What Stephen Stills learned jamming with Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix<\/p>\n During his career Stephen had the chance to meet and jam with some of the greatest guitar players of all time. Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix were some of them and he said in the CSNY biographical book by Peter Doggett that he learned a lot of things playing with them.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing I learned about playing with Eric Clapton and all the great British Blues<\/a> guys is that there\u2019s a courtliness, a kind of manners involved in jamming. I wouldn\u2019t trade that, period, for the world. The issue for me wasn\u2019t so much fitting in, or being a chameleon, as simple good manners, which can be a problem when you\u2019re going out and getting hammered, and end up looking like a jerk. I realize now that I was simply being shy, and trying to overcome it in a haphazard, clumsy kind of way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He curiously became the only person who ever had Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton playing on the same album. They both recorded guitar tracks for his solo debut record released in 1970. Talking with Classic Rock<\/a>, Stills recalled a guitar he gave Clapton and said he adores him. \u201cI saw him at Ahmet\u2019s<\/a> (Erteg\u00fcn, Atlantic Records head) funeral. He was looking at Crosby with this English bulldog disgust. It\u2019s hard to think of Eric Clapton as an English bulldog, but he is after all. He\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n Stephen continued:<\/p>\n \u201cI gave him a guitar once for doing a session, a really nice Martin F series that had been turned into a round-hole. And he rather liked it. He did his first solo acoustic song, and Bill Halverson recorded it, and I gave him the guitar. And then of course when they sold the collection, some roadie took credit for it. I was vexed. I\u2019m sure it was so long ago he didn\u2019t remember, and the miles in between were long and hard. I absolutely adore the man,\u201d Stephen Stills said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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