(Credits: Far Out / Raph Pour-Hashemi)
The guitar heroes that people see in the modern age are a lot different from the Jimi Hendrixes of the world. The six-string hasn’t exactly been the coolest instrument in the world for a while, but there’s still room for people to grow as well. And while Eric Clapton will forever be known as a god on the instrument, he knew that the instrument would be in good hands when he eventually bows out.
However, the school that Clapton came from is a lot different from what most people are looking at today. Although pockets of the guitar community are focused on the raw mechanics of the instrument in the world of Djent, it’s not like Clapton is expected to study what someone like Tim Henson is doing and copy it note for note whenever he goes off on a wild solo. His music has its place, but there’s no feasible way to kill the blues.
Even on those rare occasions when rock and roll finds its way into the public consciousness now, it’s focused on singing bluesy tunes. Does it sound dated sometimes? Sure, but if the success of a movie like Sinners has proved anything regarding music, it’s that the blues is a universal language, and whether it’s going into the world of rock, R&B, or hip-hop, people can relate to it if it’s got soul behind it.
Then again, it doesn’t help that many of Clapton’s contemporaries passed away before they could leave an imprint. Robert Johnson was only 27 when he died before Clapton was even playing guitar, and even with newer faces on the scene in the 1980s like Stevie Ray Vaughan making the blues cool again, it wasn’t long before he eventually perished in a tragic plane crash in the early 1990s.
But when looking at the modern age, the music of Mk.gee is still resonating with Clapton after all these years, saying, “It sits in a pop category for me, but it’s unique. He has found things to do on the guitar that are like nobody else. My daughter turned me onto that, and I trust her taste, and I said, ‘We’re safe.’” Even if it’s pop, there’s no clear reference point for where Mk.gee falls in the rock pantheon.
Outside of taking the Mark Knopfler approach by playing everything with his fingers, the whole thing sounds like a tapestry of sound being woven together whenever he plays his tunes. And compared to the other blues guitarists of the modern age like Joe Bonamassa, Mk.gee also knows when to lean back and make something that’s a little bit more melodic than what everyone else was doing.
He isn’t even the only one doing new and exciting things on guitar, either. If we’re looking back to the older generation, Derek Trucks is still performing in ways no one had ever thought possible. Clapton may have been on a song that was named after a guitar gently weeping, but rarely has someone made the guitar actually cry as well as Trucks has, to the point where it sounds like a singer every time he puts on a slide.
So while the guitar might not be the most glamorous instrument for anyone to put on nowadays, there is a lot more going on in the scene for people who know where to look. It’s not in the upper echelon of the charts, but as long as there are people wanting to express themselves, the six-string will remain evergreen.
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