Eric Clapton

I’ve always liked the Freddie King/B. B. King rich tone, and at the same time, I like the manic Buddy Guy/Otis Rush Strat tone. So I’m always caught in the middle of the Gibson and Fender sounds. If I’m playing my black [Fender] Strat, and I’m in the middle of a blues, I kind of wish I was playing a [Gibson] Les Paul. Then again, if I was playing a Les Paul, the sound would be great, but I’d be saying, “Man, I wish I had the Stratocaster neck!”

In fifteen seconds the difference between composition and improvisation is that in composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in fifteen seconds, while in improvisation you have fifteen seconds.

An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself.

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night, but differently each time.

The first time I went to Paris, it just felt like I was home. I didn’t question it.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write to ultimately be at peace with himself.

You can practice to learn technique, but I’m more interested in conceiving something in the moment.

The way a band works is a metaphor for all sorts of collaborative and larger enterprises that people do.

When you are so strongly drawn to music, you can’t ‘not’ be a musician.

Jazz affirms the noblest aspirations of character, individual discipline, perseverance and innovation.

The people who really got me off were dealing with the musical potential of their instrument.

What we hear is the quality of our listening.

Somebody asked me once, ‘Do you think that swing will ever come back?’ And I said, ‘Do you think the 1938 Form will ever come back?’

For me, there wasn’t a line between working and getting paid or simply playing for fun.

The main thing is you want to emote.

Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be Jazz.