There are always a few guitarists who are considered to be among the greatest of all time. Jimi Hendrix understands the lay of the land, and Jimmy Page shares some territory up there, but Eddie Van Halen was reserved for those hallowed grounds, even if all he ever did was write ‘Eruption’. Although Eric Clapton was the first guitarist who inspired Eddie to pick up a guitar, he believed that Jack Bruce was a far fiercer player than ‘Slowhand’.
However, when Bruce and Clapton were dissected, their vocabulary appeared to be radically different. Clapton grew up in the blues heritage and developed his own sound with The Yardbirds, whereas Bruce took every wonderful song they had recorded and brought it into the jazz realm.
In fact, Cream developed because Clapton wanted to veer away from conventional blues. He wasn’t going to sit around and watch The Yardbirds turn into a pop band, so he decided to collaborate with the few artists who could truly compete with him.
He may not have expected Bruce to play his bass like a lead guitar half the time. After years of blues rockers, Bruce still manages to do with just his fingertips what most players spend years to do with a pick, usually racing up and down the scales and locking in with Baker every time he plays.
Eddie knew he was listening to brilliance every time he put on a Cream record, but for as good as Clapton was, Bruce might have been better in his opinion, telling Brad Tolinski, “Listen to ‘I’m So Glad’ on Goodbye and adjust the balance to the right-Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker were playing jazz through Marshall stacks. Jack is an incredible player. The bass playing is the most insanely twisting and altering thing I have ever heard. “Clapton sounds lost.”
It’s not like Clapton would disagree with Eddie on that point. In the group’s early years, half of the guitarist’s licks came from learning how to play specific patterns and making the band jump while everyone thundered beneath him.
That’s probably why Eddie was so particular about his rhythm playing while with Van Halen. Sure, he may have only used it to connect with his brother whenever they performed together, but for all of Eddie’s tremendous tapping runs, the most of the power was in his right hand, which normally anchors everything with a rocksteady pulse half the time.
In fact, are we sure Eddie didn’t take a few licks from both Bruce and Clapton? There are certainly some bluesy licks that are straight out of ‘Slowhand’s playbook, but considering how he infused swing into songs like ‘Hot for Teacher’ and ‘I’m the One,’ Bruce may have played an equal role in creating those tunes for Eddie.
