The Who guitarist Pete Townshend discussed what he doesn’t like about Eric Clapton’s guitar sound in a new Guitar interview, though he praised other aspects.
“I have to say, that was my experience listening to Cream – it felt to me that sometimes it sounded so empty.
“I thought they would’ve been so much better if they had a Hammond player. I always loved Eric’s playing, but not always his sound.
“It always felt to me like it was a bit muffled, in the Marshall days. That’s why I prefer Traffic and Blind Faith. I like the sound of that.”
He said about Jimi Hendrix, “Hendrix, although he played single lines, he was such an elegant, remarkable, decorative player as well, and just in a different league, I think.
“I’d like to say I was influenced by him, but who in their right mind would back that up today – even some of the shredders of the modern world – and say they could cover what he does?
“And even if you can, you can’t make it speak the way he did, and of course, the other thing, which is not shared often, which is unless you were there, you kind of missed 80 to 90 percent of where the magic was.
“He was just such an extraordinary presence once he walked onto the stage with a guitar. It was kind of weird.
“It was almost like he was some kind of angelic, seismic, metaphysical force, who seemed to have light rays coming out of him, and then, as soon as he walked offstage, it would switch off.
“He was an extraordinary presence. And that definitely made what he did as a player penetrate in a soulful way as well as musically.
“So those early recordings – they were great, of course – but I always felt they were missing something. Like they’re missing one bite of magic.” Paul McCartney ‘Ripped Off’ The Who Classic.
