I tended to lean towards the guys who both sang and played, such as Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Steve Wariner... And at the other end of the spectrum, I had Eric Clapton in a rock and blues sense, jazz guys such as Tal Farlow and Les Paul... Then Chet Atkins-type stuff.

Brad Paisley

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I really wanted to write a song like Eric Clapton's 'Wonderful Tonight.' It's just such a sweet sentiment. It's so simple but so genuine.

Andy Grammer

Time Men Write

I can't deny that Eric Clapton's and Eddie Van Halen's lead stuff has influenced a stack of people, but for me, it's the rhythm thing that's way more impressive and important to a band.

Angus Young

Way Van Halen Van

I just wonder where I was when the talent was being given out, like George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Eric Clapton... oh, there's many more! I wouldn't want to be like them, you understand, but I'd like to be equal, if you will.

B. B. King

You Would Wonder

When I grew up, I had influences as diverse as Keith Richards, Pete Townshend, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix.

Billy Squier

Pet Verse Up

I tended to lean towards the guys who both sang and played, such as Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Steve Wariner... And at the other end of the spectrum, I had Eric Clapton in a rock and blues sense, jazz guys such as Tal Farlow and Les Paul... Then Chet Atkins-type stuff.

Brad Paisley

War Who Type

John Mayer will be around forever, like the Eagles and Eric Clapton.

Brett Young

Will UN Ton

I'm a big fan of songs like Joe Cocker's 'You Are So Beautiful' and Eric Clapton's 'Wonderful Tonight' - songs that go straight to the point.

Bruno Mars

You Wonderful Wonder

Eric Clapton has earned all of our respect. He is the greatest. He opened the doors for us. Without Cream, there is no Allman Brothers.

Butch Trucks

Respect Great Without

When I met Eric Clapton, I was a very young girl. I was 20 years old. And we were linked for a very short time, and then we became friends. And then we lost touch, which I'm really sorry about.

Carla Bruni

Time Young You

No one's better than me. I'm not better than anyone. Whether it's Eric Clapton or BB King we look straight at each other. And that keeps it real.

Carlos Santana

Whether Ton Than

Eric Clapton is my dream guitarist.

Carole King

Ton T Lap

I went to London and performed in Eric Clapton's concert at the Royal Albert Hall. I'll work with him any time he asks me.

Carole King

Work Time Ya

Eric Clapton's scales - when he comes off a high note and it's time for a refrain or a little bit of a rest, he peals off scales going downwards that are so good it's unbelievable.

Chris Rea

War Time Good

Going through 'The Partridge Family,' I looked up to people like Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and all those guys. But as an actor playing a part, I had to sing what was right for the character and the show.

David Cassidy

Family Art Yin

It was pretty surreal because The Allman Brothers' 'Eat A Peach' and 'Live At The Fillmore East', and the Eric Clapton 'Layla' record was the music I grew up hearing all the time.

Derek Trucks

Time Music Use

I think guitar-wise, Eric Clapton was a big influence on me. I got to spend time around him. He's kind of strange, mysterious, serious and he always has played such hot guitar.

Dhani Harrison

Time Wise Ways

I heard Robert Johnson way before I heard about Eric Clapton.

Dion DiMucci

Way Ton T

You don't have to play the blues to play rock 'n' roll, but that's where, somewhere along the line, your influences came from. I mean, I don't care where you got it from. If you got it from Eric Clapton, he got it from the blues.

Dusty Hill

Car Your You

The one thing I do have is good ears. I don't mean perfect pitch, but ears for picking things up. I developed my ear through piano theory, but I never had a guitar lesson in my life, except from Eric Clapton off of records.

Eddie Van Halen

Life Good Up

When I was 15, I got super into Eric Clapton. My father took notice of this and got me a guitar for Christmas.

Elias

When I was a little bitty kid, I was listening to the stuff my parents were listening to. My mom was a huge Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige fan. My dad had a cover band that I sang with, and he loved Parliament, Prince, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton, the blues, James Brown.

Gabriella Wilson

Punk was sort of an angry stance against things that had happened just before, against the pop of glam rock, against progressive rock. Music had become very staid and it was about the playing and people obsessed. Eric Clapton was God and we needed an enema within the art form, and punk did do that.

Gary Kemp

I love Eric Clapton and what he did with Cream; 'Spoonful' and 'Crossroads,' those are probably the coolest solos.

Gary Rossington

I suppose when I started playing guitar, it was the means to an end. I never thought of myself as a fully fledged guitar instrumentalist. And my early excursions on the electric guitar were curtailed when Eric Clapton came on the scene, and I decided I was never going to be in the same arena as a Clapton or a Peter Green.

Ian Anderson

I can never make up my mind if I'm happy being a flute player, or if I wish I were Eric Clapton.

Ian Anderson

When Eric Clapton cut 'After Midnight,' he sold so many records and it was so big at the time, I decided that I would pursue the songwriting thing. I was 34 years old at that time. I'd been down the pike and back before I had any success at all.

J. J. Cale

People are familiar with my songs, especially through Eric Clapton. But I have a hard time drawing a crowd, because I have been a songwriter.

J. J. Cale

I know he played on the last record but I don't wake up in the middle of the night thinking of Eric Clapton.

Jack Bruce

You stop anybody on any street, around the world, and they know who Eric Clapton is. They don't know who I am!

Jeff Beck

Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck made me an Anglophile. I listened to English and Irish artists as a kid, and they were way louder, heavier, and faster than the traditional blues that I was listening to.

Joe Bonamassa

I was a kid that grew up listening to The Beatles and The Stones and Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, and I wanted all of that in there. But at the same time, a large part of my playing is Tony Iommi and Billy Gibbons. I'm just a sum total of all of the guitar players that I think were really cool.

Joe Satriani

I'm the youngest of three boys, and my oldest brother was super into Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and played guitar. I wanted to be like him, so I asked for a guitar of my own for Christmas in '93.

Kyle Mooney

I'm going to try and make you take the Beatles and Eric Clapton as seriously as the Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle.

Melvyn Bragg

Whenever I sing blues from the '50s or the kind of blues that you might have heard Eric Clapton or Duane Allman emulate, I often feel the similarity of some of the ragtime stuff I sang early on. A lot of the phrasing and the harmonization is the same.

Michael McDonald

I was very influenced by Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, both of whom I had the pleasure of playing with and becoming friends with.

Mick Taylor

I used to sit for hours and copy every lick on those early AC/DC and Kiss records. From there, I went on to Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. After a while, you kind of develop your own style.

Mike McCready

Eric Clapton always wanted to come out onstage with a stuffed parrot on his shoulder.

Neil Innes

For my 23rd birthday, I received a nylon string guitar. I told myself that if I could play Eric Clapton's 'Tears In Heaven,' then I could play the guitar. I practised every chance I got, driving my housemates insane, until several weeks later I had a shaky version of the song down. I wrote my first song on the guitar a few weeks after that.

Neil Jackson

I've heard the stories. Like, Eric Clapton said he wanted to burn his guitar when he heard Jimi Hendrix play. I never understood that because, when I went and saw a great drummer or heard one, all I wanted to do was practice.

Neil Peart

Eric Clapton was such a great player. He sounds like he's Freddie King or someone like that. He plays the roots of blues and Delta blues. He really affected me with the way that he plays, because he never really plays that many notes.

Orianthi

My dad used to listen to Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, and my mom liked Michael Bolton and Roy Orbison. She was pretty big into country music, too. So there was a wealth of music being played in the house, and I kind of took it all in.

Orianthi

I had never been allowed to go on tour with my husband George Harrison, so had no idea what to expect when I left him to join Eric Clapton on his 1974 U.S. tour.

Pattie Boyd

I have a lot of analog. I think a lot of people do. There are a lot of people that are re-discovering it. I still have a lot of my old records from back in the day. It's a joy to play things like Junior Wells' 'Hoodoo Man Blues,' and John Mayall & The Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton. There's a warmth that you can still feel.

Paul Rodgers

Everyone wanted to play like Eric Clapton in the early to mid-'60s.

Peter Frampton

First concert I ever went to was a group called The Yardbirds. Eric Clapton is the lead guitarist.

Ron Barber

I'm no spring chicken. The same arthritis that ate up my left hip that finally got replaced hasn't stopped there... And touring is a lot of work. I'm impressed when I see people like Eric Clapton out there. Gee whiz, Eric, give me a break! I know it's gotta hurt somewhere.

Steve Perry

My guitar heroes are Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and people like that - so I've tried to make an album of Robert Johnson covers that, well, while not totally faithful for blues purists, is faithful for people like me that grew up with the '60s and the electric blues-rock versions of Johnson's songs.

Todd Rundgren

When I got out of high school, I was in a blues band. It was the kind of music I was interested in, and listening to, mostly because it was becoming a vehicle for a generation of guitarists - like Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. Mike Bloomfield. And that's what I wanted to be, principally: a guitar player.

Todd Rundgren

I decided early on that I wanted to be Michael Bloomfield, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton - not George Harrison.

Todd Rundgren