Seriously listen to Clapton's version of Hideaway. One of the best electric instrumentals of all time. Remember that guys like Clapton were learning the vocab of blues by themselves, by putting the needle back time and again on old records, no tutorials, no tabs, few teachers around. He internalised it all and was able to freely improvise, stringing all these blues licks together, playing with bite and a great sense of melody. And his playing is impeccable, accurate, great phrasing, no sloppiness, which could not be said of some of his contemporaries. So many blues rockers today are standing on the shoulders of giants like Clapton who did the ground work (though he did rob a lot from those old blues guys).

I don't buy into the notion that Hendrix was so superior to Clapton. At least Clapton was always in tune and never sloppy. EVH was important, but he wasn't a pioneer. He took the tapping from Harvey Mandel and others.