Best blues guitarist, Clapton or Green

Shubertmaniac makes a good point about Muddy Waters. He was the real thing. I saw him twice in Chicagos' South side in the mid 60s.
I had the opportunity to meet and get to know Jeff Beck for awhile in 1969. What was interesting was getting to know him in a non musical way. He was in Detroit at the time recording with Stevie Wonder at Motown and during his off time, he was haunting hot rod and speed shops to repair his collection. I was working at such a shop and immediately recognized him when he came in. I eagerly began talking to him and ended up punching out the clock and taking him around town the next few days to visit speed shops and car museums, etc. He showed me how to play his version of Greensleeves on a black Les Paul he was carrying at the time. I'll never forget those times, very special. I would add that of the guitarists that Shubertmaniac mentions, Green struck me the most as the one trying to interpret the blues from a more traditional perspective. It became even more obvious from his recent acoustic work and exhaustive interpretation of the Robert Johnson catalogue. I find it difficult to tell that he is white when I listen to his vocals of late. Still, Clapton brought more immediacy to the blacker blues when he was with Mayall, very nice stuff.Just my opinion and I certainly respect the other comments being written for this thread.

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I have had the privelege of seeing and hearing Peter Green and Eric Clapton many times. I saw Green with the first Fleetwood Mac tour in the 60s. Clapton several times with each of his incarnations starting with Cream (5X). Green has been my favorite white blues guitarist since the first time I heard him but I cannot disagree with the other contributors that the great black guitarists played from another dimension. No race owns the blues but playing them and feeling them are obviously not the same thing and invariably, in my experience,white musicians have more often played them. Robert Johnson would be my top nomination for sheer creativity and interpretation.

Bobgates,

Green was the founder/cofounder of the original Fleetwood Mac. He wrote Black Magic Woman (which Santana took even higher) and many other memorable pieces like the Green Manalishi and Albatross (hello Santo and Johnnie). There is something of a mystique around Mr.green due to the fact that he went from a mediocre guitar player to a wunderkind in a remarkably short period of time. Some people because of his interest in Robert Johnson, compared him to the Johnson myth that he had sold his soul to the devil in return for skill and fame. Whatever, he could make a guitar cry like nobody else. He had a distinctive style as did Clapton and a few others in those early years of English white blues players. You can learn a lot more about him from the liner notes in the many CD compilations out there like "The Vaudeville years" and "Showbiz Blues". Also check out Mick Fleetwoods book about the early Mac years (How do you spell decadent?) Hope this fills him out a little.
One last thing, Peter still tours occasionally. Go the distance to hear him if you want to hear the closest possible interpretation of Robert Johnsons' acoustic blues left on our planet. It can make the hair on your arms start to curl.

Roy Rogers was Trigger happy. Happy Trails.....

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I wouldn't call Hendrix a blues guitarist by any means. He could certainly play a blues and add his specialness to what he played; witness Red House and Voodoo Chile but he did not front a blues repertoire and that was the focus of this question.
In my humble opinion, many of the responders to this question are including fringe blues players that are really more rock n roll. Blues is more than a few songs it's also a lifestyle for the men and women who can really be called blues players. To me, the artists that have had longevity and consistency with the style rather than exploring other genre better fit the question being asked.
I saw BB king in the 60s and again last year, he epitomizes the consistency I'm referring to.

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John Cippolina, now there was an interesting musician. How about "The Fool"?

I replied to this thread 7 years ago and read the various replies written since then tonight realizing that the thread wound through a myriad of permutations mostly having nothing to do with the original question of the two blues guitarists and no-one else.

Obviously there can be no definitive conclusion. Each of these guitarists have brought their unique best to each their forefronts.

Clapton as an interpreter bar none and Green as a Blues innovator bar none and what do we do with those observations? SRV, Hendrix and all of their brothers (and sisters) have been introduced into this thread but the comparison remains; Green vs Clapton.

Why must there be a best or a winner? Are we not the better, the more musically enriched blueswise for the both of them to have co-existed and developed in their own unique ways?

I lay down tonight to my flawed reproductive system (I am 60 after all) ecstatic in the knowledge and audible estate knowing that I have lived in a time of greatness where I have physically and recordibly heard the works of contemporary genius unfold for the pleasure of those the receptive masses to which I humbly belong. To make scale of 10 choices as to who is superior seems irrelavent at this humble point in my short life.

It would be nice to lay this thread to rest reflecting merely upon the privilege of having so much musical Blues art available to all of us regardless of our individual preferences...

Having personally seen both of these men many times from the time they were in their early twenties until recently, I think the thread question is moot but then that's the personal and worthless opinion of just one musical soul among the millions who have an opinion totally worthwhile and of their own...

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