The seeds for this extraordinary six-string summit meeting were planted in 2009 when Johnson played on two tracks from Stern’s GRAMMY® -nominated album Big Neighborhood. For his latest recording, he joins forces with renowned jazz guitarist and former Miles Davis sideman Mike Stern on their first-ever studio collaboration, Eclectic, which Eric calls “one of my favorite double guitar situations that I’ve ever done.” A collection of originals, including a hard-hitting Electromagnets tune from the mid ‘70s, “Dry Ice,” and a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s scorching blues, “Red House,” this 2014 Heads Up/Concord release is a scintillating six-string summit that should leave guitar aficionado slack-jawed in disbelief. Johnson has 10 albums as a leader under his belt to date, the latest being Europe Live, recorded on tour in April 2013 with his working trio of bassist Chris Maresh and drummer Wayne Salzmann II. This fall, Johnson will participate in his seventh Experience Hendrix Tour overall. He has also been a fixture on the Experience Hendrix Tour, performing the music of his main guitar inspiration across the country. He has been a featured performer at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival and appeared alongside fellow six-stringers Steve Vai and Joe Satriani on their celebrated ‘G3’ tours of 19. A dynamic singer as well as an incredibly gifted guitarist and prolific songwriter, Johnson has been featured on the cover of countless guitar magazines around the world while also racking up critical accolades and mega-sales along the way. The New Age Music Guide once opined that “Eric Johnson plays guitar the way Michelangelo painted ceilings: with a colorful vibrancy that’s more real than life” while Rolling Stone included him in their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of the 21st century. And with the release of his eagerly-awaited follow up album, 1990’s platinum-selling Ah Via Musicom, which contained the GRAMMY® Award-winning crossover hit single “Cliffs of Dover,” Johnson became a bona fide international guitar phenomenon. With the release of his highly-anticipated 1986 solo debut, Tones, the underground guitar legend finally emerged onto the scene fully-formed. Comparisons were made to such guitar heroes as Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix while his ‘70s fusion band Electromagnets was being hailed as “the Mahavishnu Orchestra of Texas.” And though the band’s 1975 self-titled regionally-distributed debut album was long out out of print, the legend of Eric Johnson spread via cassettes passed around within guitar circles.
By the early ‘80s, such celebrated guitarists as ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, the Dixie Dregs’ Steve Morse and famed session man and former Steely Dan member Jeff “Skunk” Baxter began singing the praises of this skinny kid from Austin with the mind-melting chops. One of the most outstanding instrumentalists in rock over the past 30 years, Texas guitar slinger and GRAMMY® Award winner Eric Johnson was already a legend before he recorded his first album.
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