You may have a few names in your list of who could be among the best guitar virtuosos in the world, and the chances are that Eric Clapton will probably find a place among your picks. Since the musician has proven himself to be a true six-string master over the years, he has become one of the few names coming to mind when someone asks you, ‘Who’s your favorite guitarist?’
So, one might wonder, if Clapton is regarded as a guitar god by millions of people around our planet, who is his own guitar hero? Well, you’re in luck because we’re here to answer that for you as we’ll go and dive into Eric’s picks of his favorite guitarists. However, who the guitarist called a ‘guitar god’ wasn’t a fellow rocker, or at least not a ‘rocker’ entirely, as he picked a country icon as the greatest guitar player of all time.
In his previous interviews, the musician’s picks included cult names such as Duane Allman as the guitarist named Allman to the greatest guitarist he had ever heard on an R&B record after hearing Duane’s take on Wilson Pickett’s cover of ‘Hey Jude.’ His other notable choices were Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, and Jimi Hendrix, as their careers occupied an important place in the history of guitar playing.
However, besides these names and picking others such as Prince and John Mayer to be iconic six-string virtuosos, the moment came to name the ultimate guitar god Clapton had in his mind. Well, as reported by Far Out in 2021, rather than picking another fellow rocker, Eric named the country icon Albert Lee to be his guitar god.
“He’s the greatest guitarist in the world,” told Clapton as he continued by discussing why he had picked Lee as his favorite guitarist of all time. “The ultimate virtuoso. His skill is extraordinary, his ear is extraordinary, and he’s gifted on just about every level.”
Even when he mostly named fellow rockers his favorite to be his guitar heroes, his ultimate virtuoso was a guitarist from the country scene. Clapton believed that Lee’s talents were unique and that the country icon had skills in every sense a musician might have. So, Albert Lee surely deserves recognition from fellow guitar enthusiasts and lovers.
