Never one for the outsized theatrics of peers like Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page, Clapton favoured a more graceful style that mainlined the pain and longing at the heart of the blues.
After all, this was a guy who left British Invasion trailblazers The Yardbirds in 1965 because he felt they were becoming too commercial.
In the mid-'60s, the words “Clapton is God” became a familiar spray-painted sight around London, but throughout his career, the artist born Eric Patrick Clapton in 1945 has carried himself with the humility of a mere mortal.
