The Definitive 1000 Songs Of All Time 1955 to 2005: Number 934

Monday, August 07, 2006

Number 934 - Eric Johnson

Number 934

Eric Johnson

"Cliffs of Dover"

(1991)
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................Genre: Guitarist...............

Stevie Ray Vaughan is a guitar God, critics say Eric Johnson is almost one too, lets find out why.....

"Very few musical artists achieve a true signature style -- one which makes comparisons to other musicians impossible. But Texas guitarist Eric Johnson arguably comes as close to this echelon as any musician from the past quarter-century. Like fellow Lone Star State guitarists Johnny Winter, Billy Gibbons, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnson blends the rock style of Jimi Hendrix and the blues power of Albert King. Yet Johnson's wide array of additional influences (from the Beatles and Jeff Beck, to jazz and Chet Atkins) make for a guitar sound as unique as his fingerprints. "When I first heard Eric," Winter recalls, "he was only 16, and I remember wishing that I could have played like that at that age."

Former Doobie Brothers guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter says, "If Jimi Hendrix had gone on to study with Howard Roberts for about eight years, you'd have what this kid strikes me as." The Austin prodigy appeared on the cover of Guitar Player magazine while working with Texas jazz/fusion band the Electromagnets and as a session player (Cat Stevens, Carole King, Christopher Cross), and a 1984 performance on the TV show Austin City Limits set his recording career in motion. Johnson's 1986 debut album, Tones, certainly proved that the hype was warranted. Playing with the ace rhythm section of bassist Roscoe Beck and drummer Tommy Taylor, Johnson mixed blazing instrumentals ("Zap," "Victory") with Beatles-influenced vocal tunes like "Emerald Eyes" and "Bristol Shore." Johnson used the same half-and-half format on the 1990 follow-up, Ah Via Musicom; but a trio of the album's tunes surprisingly made him the first artist to have three instrumentals from the same album to chart in the Top Ten in any format (with "Cliffs of Dover" earning Johnson a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental" [Source:ArtistDirect]

For Jimi Hendrix see Number 718
For Stevie Ray Vaughan see Number 592
For the Beatles see Numbers 947, 894 & 587
For Jeff Beck see Number 636
For Doobie Brothers see Number 868 & Number 776
For Carole King see Number 808
For Christopher Cross see Number 850 & Number 604
For ZZ Top see Number 647

Rolling Stone Top 500 Songs ranked this song at Number (Nope, They hated it) and the Album ranked at Number (Nup, Still clutching their Hendrix records)

This song has a crowbarred rating of 54.1 out of 108