how do you compare a guitar player to a keyboard player?

"Multi-instrumentalist"

And he's a darn good lead player, too.

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"Persistence Is The Father Of Invention"
-Crazy Old Man In Training

This entire thread on " Who is Best " is an old worn out, pointless argument.
Akin to asking the same question about M.C. Esher vs. Salvador Dali.

Seriously, Clapton is Clapton, Kath was Kath, all the other's are who they are.
I fail to understand the need for juxtaposition of musicians to quantify them in a personal subjective criteria which is baseless to anyone else.

Enjoy their musical contribution or don't..
But enough of trying to make it a horse race.....

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Where could this attitude and perception come from? Any one care to guess who would take a beautiful gift like music and turn it into a Roller Derby? Who would want to take all the happy little music fans and turn them into harpies, biting at the necks of one another instead of dancing and singing in blissful harmony....who could it be...hmmm..could it be........SATAN?


or just the Billboard charts?
http://www.billboard.com/charts/#/charts/

It's the nature of the industry, they only market the "Best" (as decided by quarterly sales), so the audience naturally feeds off that scene and competes for "Best" as well. Just the competitive nature of the business that is, ironically, marketing art based on cooperation.

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"Persistence Is The Father Of Invention"
-Crazy Old Man In Training

Yeah...One of the many reasons why iv'e never bought or subscribed to Billboard.
I have always liked certain bands because of what I heard, not what some so called critic ranks as top of the pops or whatever.

I appreciated Duran Duran just as much as Rammstein and just as much as Alexis Korner or Malmsteen.

So excuse me but i'll now return to listening to Anne Sophie Mutter....

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

You have got to be kidding me, 64 posts on this one? Oh excuse me 65 now.

The fact that there were some on this forum that didn't know who Kath was says it all.

However, can we let this one die...no one is going to win this contest!

T2

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What time is it? It's Fender Time.

+100

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

That's dang ol' funny right there. Seriously dude, Clapton's had a biography out for a few years now. Go pick it up and you'll find that the most competitive action Clapton had with another musician was vying for the affection of George Harrison's wife.

I choose Clapton because I like his style better.

I too am surprised at how many people don't know who Kath was. A friend of mine back in the day played trumpet and guitar so he was naturally drawn to Chicago and Kath. Kath had some great solos, but I'll always remember him for that awful "Free Form Guitar" on the first album (Strat thru a Dual Showman if I remember correctly).

BTW - Kath killed himself accidentally. He was not looking to off himself.

One of the greatest guitar solos ever on 25 or 6 to 4!!!
Especially the exstended version with the wah wah part that they don't play on the radio that often.

LOL. We'll call her Layla.

That's true, Clapton isn't a very competitive person, but the musician usually isn't the competitive one. It's fans, teachers, producers, managers, and the like.

Go to an audition, you're competing.

Try to get your cover band in a bar, you're competing with every other band that left that bar a press package.

Try to get your original band on the bill, you competing for the best slot.

Join the High School band, your competing for the best parts (if you don't compete, you fall behind or fail).

Get your material released, your competing for air space.

The only place in music with any cooperation is within the band, or after you've made it to the top.

On a side note, Clapton might not have been very cometitive, but there were more than a few acts competing for him when he joined Mayall and even more when he joined Cream. And I bet the Hollywood Bowl would love to get him back since Staples Center (aka "The Competition") stole him away.

It's only natural that the competitive spirit spills into the audience.

_________________
"Persistence Is The Father Of Invention"
-Crazy Old Man In Training

Clapton is.

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Well, I finally read this topic end to end and I finally know who Kath was. I'm 62, never cared for Chicago back in the 60s when I was learning guitar, don't have any Chicago CDs in my massive (and very competitive) 3,400 CD collection; though I do have Chicago's Greatest Hits 1 & 2 in my computer library of 45,000+ songs.

I've been playing guitar since 1963, but have never considered myself to be a competitive player. I have always tried to become a better player and I have incorporated licks from other guitar players into my playing, but wouldn't consider that being competitive on my part, just learning and growing.

I have accumulated a LOT of guitars since my first Silvertone in 1963 and I have acquired a LOT of different amps, but I've never considered it to be because I was competing with anyone, mostly just considered it a form of mental illness on my part, an opinion with which my wife would heartily agree.

Clapton is a good guitar player and I've learned a number of his solos, but I'd never use those solos to compete with anyone else.

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Dennis in CR
Rockin' since 1963

If one reads the definition of competition in a dictionary or for those who have forgotten how to manually turn a book page Wikipedia....
The very definition strikes a rather negative result when competition is used in the musical context.
We all more or less agree that music is an art form, therefore it is subject to individual interpretation which in and of itself is subjective ( sorry about the redundancy )
Paradoxically the nature or I should say... the inherent theme in Competition is the actual result of the supremacy of one, over another.
IMHO this is not a productive trait when applied to an art form.
the resulting finality is that there is a winner and a loser, granted it is not to the death per se, but it still means that someone is terminated, be it literally or figuratively, the result is the same. Resentment, revenge, humiliation all come to the fore.
Hardly a mindset to base creativity upon.

Instead of Competition, a more objective set of parameters based on an individual's musical interpretation's would be a much more pleasant outcome.
In retrospect this explains why I have never attended or been a part of a battle of the bands scenario, one of which I have always deemed to be ludicrous.

Bear in mind, dissenting opinions are still welcome to bring their Katana's to the Joust..

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "