So, Van Halen is back...again and, the guitar community is all abuzz as it tends to get every time Eddie Van Halen emerges from the shadows and proves that he can still play.
It appears as well that it is time once again to revisit the old E.V.H/Eric Clapton discussion as evidenced by the fact that I've found myself involved in the conversation with many guitar buds lately.
As we know, Eddie invoked the Eric Clapton influence early on in many interviews. A lot of Ed's disciples don't hear, see or wish to acknowledge the connection.
And the talk often centers around the idea of evolution; both in gear and musicianship. Without getting in to the validity of either of those notions, I would like to point out one simple aspect that seems to be overlooked. That is; the power trio compared to the power quartet (a power quartet being a front man+guitar, bass, drums format for this discussion).
I will point out that when Ed was cutting his guitar teeth, he was smack dab in the era when power trios, namely Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, ruled the guitar roost. That was the stuff floating around the atmosphere and stuff of licks to be copped.
A couple of years later, you had bands like Led Zeppelin coming to the fore and the three piece with a front man unit became all the rage. But, I submit that Eddie, at that point, was already stylistically on his way and when recalls early influences he reaches back before the power quartet (which has always been the Van Halen format) became the norm.
The thing is this; you play differently in a power trio than in a power quartet. If one player, who is responsible for holding down part of the groove, is singing lead at the same time, he/she plays different and therefore the other players play different.
If you have three players backing a vocalist, they have a different level of groove concentration going on.
When it comes time, to solo section or non-vocal sections, in either case (trio-quartet) the overall vibe is going to differ as well because how you attack a section is influenced by what you were doing directly before it.
So, I will say that Eddie Van Halen took something away from Clapton's playing in a power trio, and you can argue tone-phrasing-licks here, and applied it to the quartet format which, allows for different grooves and overall attitude in playing.
And...you may say I'm off my rocker and if so, so it be.
Take a look at the live videos here and notice how the grooves hold during vocal sections and how musical transitions flow in the live settings with the prime suspects.
Page was so cool with a Tele, wasn't he?
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