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Im not aware that he's ever toured the uk before and though I hate guitar twaddle this guy is different.
Thought it may interest some of you
"Eric Johnson, the celebrated American electric guitarist, hailed by Joe Bonamassa as “one of the greatest guitar players of all time,” will embark on his first UK tour at the Holmfirth Picturedrome on Friday 6th July.
Guitar Player magazine called Johnson "one of the most respected guitarists on the planet". His critically acclaimed, platinum-selling 1990 recording Ah Via Musicom produced the single Cliffs of Dover, for which he won the 1991 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Cliffs of Dover also appeared in Guitar Hero 3 – Legends of Rock.
In 1996 he joined forces with Joe Satriani and Steve Vai for the original and legendary G3 tour that garnered a worldwide audience with the platinum selling CD and DVD release."
Holy crap! I didn't think he'd ever come over here again. I saw him at the Marquee club in London in '89 (I think) on the Ah Via Musicom tour - Absolutely amazing performance. As much as all the "best guitarist" stuff is nonsense, it's hard to conceive of anybody actually being better than him 😛
Great player but the guy can't sing!
Great player but the guy can't sing
Not uncommon...
To my embarrasment, I hadn't heard of Johnson - until Fender brought out a sig ed strat 😳
Personally I love his singing style but he seems to have given that up some time ago
I'm not sure if it's fair to say he *can't* sing - his pitch is very good. He does have a particularly un-macho style though. I read that he always tried to sound like Bryan Adams or Christopher Cross (make of that what you will!).
I think it's a bit like Geddy Lee in the end: It bugs new listeners but you get used to it pretty quickly. I definitely prefer to hear EJ singing rather than him using a guest singer at any rate.
Recommendations for a listen? Particularly in terms of guitaring?
Depends on the kind of guitar style you like, really, as he has quite a wide range of influences from country to jazz and rock but "[i]Ah Via Musicom[/i]" (1985) has the best playing / tone on it for me.
That will give you a pretty good overview of his electric playing though. Even better, it was back in the days of the mullet!
Personally I love the 'tones' album best cos there's more singing but you can't go wrong with ah via musicom
Just looked at that YT clip - he's a bit quick on the fretboard...
I was at that Marquee gig too jimification! It was about 1989 or 90. Personally I thought it was a bit dull - he's so good on the guitar that it was basically a flawless play-through of his albums, only at higher volume and combined with the stage presence of a shy schoolboy. But that's just my take 🙂
There's no denying he's an astounding musician and he manages to play stuff live that you assume would need at least two guitarists to pull off. Worth a watch if you're curious though.
man i would love to see him live (the guy is incredible).
someone i know has one of his signature strats (am not jealous at all OH NO! 🙂
i wish that i could be good enough to attempt to play this one day (no chance though 🙁
I think I would describe that genre of "music" as extremely bland overly technical pish.
[b]Chipps: [/b]Ah cool! Can't have been that many people there, it was quite a small venue... yeah I know what you mean, almost too perfect somehow, would be better if he let go a bit and engaged with the audience but I guess that's not him ...I can't imagine him coming out with: "[i]ARE YOU READY TO ROCK! ??[/i]"
[b]racefaceec90:[/b] The EJ signature strats are pretty widely held to be one of the best sounding strats short of going for the (much more expensive) Fender custom shop. I'm actually building up a strat of my own from parts with similar specs (light alder body, tone control wired to bridge pickup, quartersawn 1 pc maple neck with a '54 C to V profile, 12" radius and the clever flattened peghead thing the EJ strats do to get rid of string trees).I don't really like the idea of having someone elses signature on my guitar so didn't want to buy an actual EJ but he definitely knows how to make a good sounding strat.
