by S Bond Herndon

Created on: September 29, 2007

The first half of the twentieth century saw the advent of a remarkable instrument: The electric guitar.

Les Paul, a studio and orchestra guitarist grew tired of his sounds being drowned-out by virtue of musical blend; horns and woodwinds, bow-drawn strings, cymbals and drums seemed to beat down or even choke out his licks.

So, he devised a way to be heard: placing electrical pick-ups under the strings; a new sound was born.

Blues players, such as Muddy Waters, Albert or BB King picked up their own as soon as they became available for sale; these early pioneers of a still new sound broke ground that would cause a virtual avalanche of followers who found more than one way to generate their own unique styles.

The wicked Blues sounds, sounds from the Mississippi delta, to Memphis, St. Louis and Chicago began to evolve and when an unknown drummer began to add a back beat Rock-n-roll was born.

This new format of music gave guitarists a widely expanded template with which to play. The Rock guitarist began to flex his legs. From these humble beginnings stars began to emerge. So many unique sounds came along in those early days of Rock; music most of us can still identify in the first few notes when a tune comes on our radio.

Now, with over sixty years of history behind the wailing licks, warbles and screams that we call Rock-n-roll, there is a highly contested argument as to who, exactly, are the greatest guitar heroes of all.

Certainly, the old Blues masters are owed a large debt for paving the way, but even the great BB King takes his hat off to the talent that followed, and exceeded what he had ever dreamed possible.

Eric Clapton came out of the confusing influx known as the British invasion of the early sixties. Always true to his blues influences, he remains legendary for the innovations he brought about. Through out the sixties he remained so far above the cut that he was elevated to super-star status.

"Clapton is God. . ." those words were plastered all over London, New York, LA and San Francisco. Although Sir Eric would be the last man on the planet to agree, his status as the very first true benchmark for Rock guitarists still holds sway over the legions of want-to-bees.

A survivor of all the extraneous pitfalls the business carries with it, he remained, and remains upon the lofty crest of the all time greatest; one of the very small minorities of Rock guitarists that survived his own evolution.

Not long after Clapton established himself, two more legends percolated

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