{"id":12497,"date":"2017-04-03T05:30:09","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T09:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=12497"},"modified":"2017-03-22T10:29:27","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T14:29:27","slug":"eric-johnson-cutting-the-cord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2017\/04\/03\/eric-johnson-cutting-the-cord\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Johnson: Cutting the Cord"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever since he broke through with his third album (1990’s Ah Via Musicom<\/i>), Austin, Texas guitarist Eric Johnson<\/strong> has been a prominent musical figure, a widely admired guitar hero. From his start, Johnson wedded dazzling technique to a strong melodic sense, gaining fans along the way. Guitar World<\/i> rated his Grammy Award-winning single \u201cCliffs of Dover\u201d among the top 20 greatest guitar solos of all time. But though he came to prominence as an electric guitar shredder, Johnson’s most recent album, EJ<\/i>, released in October 2016, is a completely acoustic effort. And Johnson’s current tour in support of EJ<\/i> finds the electric guitarist onstage alone, armed only with an acoustic guitar and piano.<\/p>\n

Even though Johnson is thought of primarily as an electric guitarist, he clearly relishes the opportunity to unplug and explore the sonority of his acoustic instrument. And he approaches the acoustic guitar quite differently. He says his goal is to \u201cproduce the song with just a singular instrument. In other words, I like to finger pick, and have the bass and the rhythm and the melody go on at the same time.\u201d Johnson’s goal on acoustic is to orchestrate a song, creating a complete musical picture with a single instrument. That’s a radically different approach than the one he brings to the electric guitar, which he thinks of as as \u201can ensemble instrument that plays just one [part] out of a multitude of pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Early in his career, Johnson developed a reputation as a painstaking perfectionist in the studio; fans often had to wait four, five or even six years between album releases. He’s still not an especially prolific musician: EJ<\/i> is only his ninth studio album in 39 years. But for this latest release, Johnson intentionally employed a new and simpler recording strategy. \u201cI was cutting stuff live in the studio,\u201d he says. \u201cI would just come in and record.\u201d And if he didn’t get the results he wanted, he says he \u201cwould come back in a few days and try again.\u201d<\/p>\n

That approach to studio work brings Johnson closer to the methods used by the folk music heroes of his youth. \u201cThose guys didn’t sit there with ProTools, putting note after note together,\u201d he says with a laugh. His back-to-basics approach lends itself to the music on EJ<\/i>: there are no guitar overdubs on the album, even on a track like \u201cOnce Upon a Time in Texas,\u201d which has the sound and feel of several guitars playing at once. The record’s sole guest spot is Doyle Dukes<\/strong>‘ guitar duet with Johnson on the 1951 Les Paul and Mary Ford<\/strong> tune, \u201cThe World is Waiting for the Sunrise.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shows on Johnson’s current tour might disappoint those wanting the dazzling electric fireworks found in his electric repertoire. But those open to the subtler \u2013 yet exciting in their own way \u2013 shades of his acoustic work will enjoy seeing the guitarist in an up-close and intimate setting. \u201cFor the most part, the old fans are liking this,\u201d Johnson says, though he concedes there are some fans \u201cwho are probably wishing I was doing the electric thing, I’m sure. It’s a change.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the songs off EJ<\/i> \u2013 including a stellar instrumental reading of Simon & Garfunkel<\/strong>‘s hit \u201cMrs. Robinson\u201d \u2013 concertgoers can witness Johnson exploring the acoustic opportunities within songs from his back catalog. The set list includes songs dating back to Ah Via Musicom<\/i>, and even one each from Tones<\/i> (1986) and his 1978 debut, Seven Worlds.<\/i> \u201cI actually have more songs than I can do each night,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Johnson hasn’t forsaken his electric guitar, but he’s considering working some acoustic material into his future electric sets. And fans can expect more along the lines of EJ<\/i>. He says that his current set includes some as-yet-unrecorded songs. \u201cI have a bunch of stuff written for a Volume 2 already,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever since he broke through with his third album (1990’s Ah Via Musicom), Austin, Texas guitarist Eric Johnson has been a prominent musical figure, a widely admired guitar hero. From […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,62],"tags":[788],"class_list":["post-12497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-rawk","tag-eric-johnson","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12499,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12497\/revisions\/12499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}