There has always been a mythos surrounding Eric Johnson. From the time he played in Austin’s Electromagnets in the early ‘70s, he was regarded as a virtuoso without peer. Over time, Johnson developed a reputation as something of a six-string stickler, with ears so good that he could identify what type of battery (alkaline versus non-alkaline) was powering his effects pedals while discerning different shades of tones produced by plugging his amp into different electrical outlets.
Fortunately for Johnson, these preternatural abilities eventually translated into commercial success. His best-known album, 1990’s Ah Via Musicom, went platinum, and the song “Cliffs of Cover” earned Johnson a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. The intervening years have seen Johnson remain active both in the studio and onstage, racking up more Grammy nominations and embarking on frequent tours, including a jaunt with eminent jazz guitarist Mike Stern. On Saturday, he will bring his appropriately named Tone-A-Rama tour to the House of Blues.
Speaking via Zoom from his studio in Austin, Johnson certainly doesn’t come off as some sort of musical mad scientist. Though he is worn out from the recent G3 tour with fellow axemeisters Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, Johnson is still charged from the experience. The trio hasn’t toured together in over two decades, so the road trip served as a bit of a reunion.
”One of the most rewarding things about this tour was that we got to spend a few weeks just reconnecting,” Johnson says. “Joe and Steve, they’re great players, but they’re also sweet, very nice people.”
With three hotshot guitarists sharing the stage, is there a sense of competition at work? “You want to bring your best,” Johnson says. “And that’s a funny thing, because sometimes when you want to bring your best, you really try way too much, and you don’t sound as good as when you go with the flow. You overdo it thinking about it too much.
“There’s always someone who does what they do, which you’ll never be able to do, and you kind of make peace with that and try to sail in your own direction and do the best you can for who you are.”
“I listen to [jazz saxophonist] Wayne Shorter, and then I listen to my Marshall lead guitar tone, and I say, ‘It doesn’t sound as good as that!’”
Despite his current pursuit of musical Zen, Johnson still harbors some perfectionist tendencies.
“Yeah, it’s something I’ve had to work on,” he concedes. “[Perfectionism] is kind of a double-edged sword. That’s the same engine that allows you to become decent at what you do. So it’s just a matter of how it’s used, without getting too out of hand or imbalanced.
“I’ve always loved certain instruments, [hearing] great violinists and pianists, great saxophone players. And you listen to their tone and their playing, and you automatically set this benchmark that’s really hard to achieve with distorted lead guitar. I listen to [jazz saxophonist] Wayne Shorter, and then I listen to my Marshall lead guitar tone, and I say, ‘It doesn’t sound as good as that!’ You want to transmute the sound and the playing to a place where it’s a bit above and beyond what intrinsically happens. That’s where I get into hot water.”
As the conversation continues, it’s easy to see that Johnson’s drive for tonal nirvana is powered by a deep love of all types of music. And it’s obvious that he hears things differently than most of us do.
“I like the purity of the tone, the players and the emotion,” Johnson explains. “That’s why I’m so addicted to a lot of the early rock guitar that was basically before we added 14 pedals and 55 chords and all of the state of the art digital electronics. There’s a hash-ness to that, compared to, like, if you listen to “Spoonful” off Fresh Cream. You listen to that guitar tone, and it’s like, ‘I’m done!’ It doesn’t get any better than that. It’s so pure and beautiful.”
Johnson professes a love for not only rock titans like Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, but also for classical violinists Jascha Heifetz and Itzhak Perlman, not to mention pianist and renowned Bach interpreter Glenn Gould. And then, of course, there are the Beatles.
“It’s been about six months or so,” Johnson explains, “but I took every Beatles recording, and I put them in my front seat. I went through the whole Beatles catalog. There’s no question about the songwriting and the magic and Lennon and McCartney and Harrison. It’s all great. But one of the takeaways I had was how amazing Ringo Starr was. Because he wrote these parts. And when you listen to the song, you don’t notice that he’s changed his part for the second verse. And it really helped to make the song so beautiful.”
For his brief Texas tour (there are dates in Dallas, San Antonio and Austin in addition to Houston), Johnson has recruited some top-notch players. “I wanted to do something just a little bit different, for fun. This keyboard player, Sean Gittings, he’s just a phenomenally great player,” Johnson notes. “And, of course, [bassist and frequent collaborator] Roscoe Beck. And then I thought it was a nice opportunity to play with Keith Carlock from Steely Dan, because he’s just an amazing drummer. So I thought it would be neat to try this different thing, basically put myself in a position where everybody is better than me, and they kick me in the rear!”
Guitarist Eric Johnson will perform at 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 6, at the House of Blues, 1204 Caroline. For more information, call 888-402-5837 or visit HouseOfBlues.com/Houston. $32.25-$147.50
For more information on Eric Johnson, visit EricJohnson.com.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
