Who Is a Better Guitarist: Eric Clapton Or Jimmy Page?

"Here we go again; 'Who is better...?For a start, they were both friends (as was Jeff Beck with Jimmy Page; I don't know about Jeff's relationship with Eric, though) - everyone knew each other in little old London town; when Eric left the Yardbirds Jimmy was asked to step in, but he was a successful session guitarist at the time, so he recommended his mate Jeff instead. A few years later, Jimmy joined the Yardbirds and after Jeff jumped ship (or was he pushed?) the band slowly disintegrated - salvaged by Jimmy as the New Yardbirds/Led Zeppelin.Now that I've set the scene, I can focus more on where the individual guitarists were coming from (and going to); Clapton admitted he was a staunch Blues purist and left the Yardbirds because - in his words - they were ".

.becoming more like 10.

cc; no offence.

" - meaning they were 'too commercial' for his Blues palate. Prior to that era, he was making occasional small-scale recordings with Page, also a Blues enthusiast - but Page was more well-rounded in styles.Clapton certainly lived up to his previous "God" status while in Cream, but personally I believe he went downhill as a result of a heroin addiction; after the "461 Ocean Boulevard" solo album, his creativity & playing suffered. During the early 1980s when there were 'Eric Clapton/Phil Collins & friends' concerts on TV every 5 minutes - his solos all sounded the same! No longer was the fire there from his Cream days. Also I find his JJ Cale covers to be a bit sterile - just as the overall feel was earlier on when he brought Reggae to the Western world by covering Bob Marley's "I Shot The Sheriff".Page, on the other hand had a very different career path; as a session guitarist he got to play on recordings as wide-ranging as Tom Jones, Lulu, Them, The Who, the Kinks (tambourine, apparently), Donavon and Joe Cocker. He also observed & studied studio production techniques, which he put to good use when producing Led Zeppelin's albums. In fact, at times the band even dabbled in World Music - long before that term was even coined! So he was more of a chameleon guitarist than Clapton; a lot - if not all - of his W.M. pieces involved numerous open-tunings, something Clapton is not known for. But he too got involved in the heroin game, and his playing also suffered somewhat (having more on his musical plate than Clapton?); there are some moments on 2 albums in particular where I wonder what the hell's going on - but, on a good day they were on top, on a bad day they could still give the best bands a damn good run for their money!I will be accused of favouritism by declaring Page to be a better guitarist than Clapton, but as I've outlined above - the results speak for themselves; Clapton's Blues prowess got him to be where he deserved to be - but that was it, whereas Page took a dying band and rebuilt it with new parts to go to places no other band of that genre had ever been before - and no band will ever go to again. Led Zeppelin were virtually the Beatles of the 1970s - despite what their detractors say, they cannot disprove the historical facts.Curiously enough, ask anyone what songs they associate with both guitarists, & I reckon the results would be;Clapton: either "Sunshine Of Your Love" (where he only contributed the turnaround; the song was Jack Bruce's music) or "Layla" (I believe co-written);Page: Probably "Whole Lotta Love" (despite ripping it off another English band's version, LZ settled out of court when sued in 1985) or "Stairway To Heaven" (THE most requested song on U.

S. radio; several years ago TWO ? court cases for plagiarism over the intro !? were thrown out of court).And yes, I begrudgingly acknowledge that Jimmy Plaigerism 'stole' songs - especially on LZ's debut album (a Bert Jansch tune - despite its 'traditional' category), but he took the ball and ran further than Clapton with it.With all the composing & editing on the fly - I think I've got RSI!.

Related Questions

Is Donald Trump the most hated President in US history?

Impossible to know.US Presidential approval ratings were introduced by pollster George Gallup in 1937. Prior to that, people could speculate on a presidents popularity based on appearances in newspapers and other media. But there wasnt any hard data to indicate how the average American viewed their chief executive.

Since the arrival of Gallups data, presidential popularity for every candidate has waxed and waned. Many other polling organizations have since been founded. Most of these copy the methodology used by Gallup but may seek to reach larger sample sizes or use other polling practices in order to obtain a more accurate figure.

Starting in 1938, with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, we have data to compare the highest, lowest and average popularity figures for every president to date.The lowest approval numbers thus far seem to have been on February 9th, 1952 when President Harry Truman was rated at a meager 22%. However, that doesnt necessarily mean that 78% of the country disapproved. Folks have always been able to answer in the ambivalent or to decline to answer. Around that same time, only 67% of the population specifically mentioned their disapproval of the presidency.Meanwhile the largest disapproval percentage seems to be the rating given to President George W. Bush when on October 10th, 2008 71% of the country indicated their disapproval of the POTUS.Given that approval ratings can fluctuate quite a bit over time, it might be helpful to look at average ratings throughout a presidents tenure. However, an article in the Washington Post seems to suggest that at one point Mr. Obamas disapproval ratings were the lowest of any sitting President since Richard Nixon just after Watergate.Obama suffers most from year of turmoil, poll findsBut he finished his presidency with an average approval rating of 48%, higher than at least three of his peers. So clearly an average rating seems to be a better indicator of presidential approval than a few spikes or valleys along the way.

In that case, the highest average approval rating for any sitting president since 1938 has been John F. Kennedy who enjoyed an average rating of 70.1% approval throughout his career.While there is no available data listed for the average disapproval rating of any US President, we can look to the polls to see which US President has had the lowest approval ratings throughout their presidency. That figure appears to be a near tie between Presidents Harry S. Truman at a mere 45.4% approval and Jimmy Carter at 45.5% approval. Either of those gentlemen appears to hold the record for the least popular president at least since we started polling.Though whether least popular translates to most hated might be up to you to decide.

Where Mr. trump is concerned, he entered office with a 42% approval rating, up from 34% at the time of the election. If those numbers continue, hell end up falling behind Mr. Truman and Mr. Carter in terms of lowest approval ratings of any US President since 1938. Again, that doesnt necessarily mean that all three men have the highest average disapproval ratings. But Ill look into those numbers and see if I cant compile a little more data.So not only will we need to wait until the end of his turn to compare the data but well have absolutely no way of knowing how Mr. trump ranks in comparison to his peers who served prior to FDR.We can, estimate, however.There are certain scholarly studies which have attempted to rank presidential popularity by interviewing historians and political scientists who formulate their opinions by compiling documentation from newspapers, bulletins and other physical media from the time each president served.According to historical rankings as compiled by Harvard University, Siena College and Northwestern University Law School (coupled with surveys of modern populations in order to determine the continued favorability of a presidents legacy) the most popular presidents in US history have consistently been Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt. So basically, the faces on Mt. Rushmore plus FDR.

The least popular US Presidents have been Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding and Franklin Pierce. We dont have historical poll data for any of them.So will our current president be viewed as the most hated president in US history? Time will tell. If his poll numbers remain this low he might certainly make the list. But it would be pure speculation as to whether or not hes more or less despised than anybody prior to FDR. We can infer, but we wont have the data to prove it either way. What we probably will be able to do is poll contemporaries about his legacy in order to see where he ranks over time"