Best blues guitarist, Clapton or Green

Playing blues is very easy, making it sound "real" is very difficult. It's about touch and feel. Peter Green sweats these qualities and caresses every note with them. This is why he is so well respected by other guitarist. It's not flashy, but it's shot full of soul.

Not to sound flippant, but you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a great player and they should all be appreciated for their individual talent.

BTW, back in 1977-78 I lived across the street from Duke Robbilard in Providence. He was fronting Roomful Of Blues and he was heavily into T-Bone. It's was so cool to listen to this talented person practice. Even his mistakes sounded good.

Cream was a collaborative effort, especially "Fresh Cream", but ultimately, if it was anybody's band it was Jack Bruce's. As his career moved on, Bruce was able to recreate the Cream sound with other musicians, in particular Gary Moore, but Clapton never sounded the same. In his defense I believe Clapton would argue that he never wanted to sound like Cream again.

Regarding Mick Taylor, the Stones were a very capable band before Taylor and even now they can still rock as well as anyone, but their level of musicianship peaked during the Taylor years. No, he wasn't the creative equal of the Jagger/Richards duo, but it's widely reported that he was denied numerous writing and producing credits during his stay with the Stones.

Voodoochile, the people you lump together as old school cover a huge range. I would argue that the leap from Robert Johnson to Albert King is far greater than that from Albert/B.B. to Eric Clapton. For the vast majority of his long career EC is clearly a rocker, but in his youth with John Mayall and later the Immediate All-Stars (Jimmy Page et. al.) showed him to be an accomplished and significant blues artist. The fact that Clapton currently doesn't play with the intensity he had when he was 19 shouldn't be held against him.

Voodoochile, who said anything about age? I was referring to their individual guitar styles. To call Clapton "watered down" is an extreme statement. "Have You Heard" the Mayall/Clapton Beano album?

Voodoochile, no hostility intended. We probable agree alot more than our exchange indicates. The Mayall/Clapton album I'm referring to is:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=2:10:06|AM&sql=A9waxqj1bojaa

It's not a great album, but it contains some wonderful blues guitar playing. Particularly strong tracks are "Hideaway", "Steppin' Out" and "Have You Heard". Although it's not on the album, Mayall/Clapton also do a very strong version of "Stormy Monday Blues". You might be able to find it on one of his numerous compilations.

There never really is a best of anything, but if forced to choice I'd say Albert King is the master.

Herbert Sumlin?