In Concert • Bijou Theatre • August 13th
Extraordinary guitarist: Check.
Multi-instrumentalist: Check.
Vocalist: Check.
Songwriter: Check.
Austin, Texas’ Eric Johnson pretty much has it all as far as musical talent is concerned. It should come as no surprise being that he grew up in a family who loved music – his mom a pianist and his dad a whistling champion. Johnson’s musical weapon of choice from the time he was 11 was the guitar. His guitar influences were greats like Chet Atkins, Wes Montgomery, and Jimi Hendrix – the latter of which we’ll dig deeper into in a moment.
Johnson released his first of 12 studio albums (along with five live albums) at the magic age of 27. We interviewed him in Everything Knoxville’s October 2018 edition after his second album, Ah Via Musicom, blew the world away with the amazing song “Cliffs of Dover” that is still considered one of the best guitar instrumentals in rock. To hear him perform this song live is a musical feast of the gods.
Knoxvillians will get a chance to experience exactly that on August 13th at the historic Bijou Theatre during Johnson’s Straight Up Tones of Blue tour. Fans will also be able to see him perform on October 15th in Nashville as part of a tour commemorating one of his biggest influences: Jimi Hendrix. The tour is the incredible Experience Hendrix tour featuring Eric Johnson and other big names in music.
Johnson chatted about both tours, starting with his solo tour.
“I’m going to be going out on a two-week tour with Tom Brecklein (drums) and Roscoe Beck (bass). I have some new music I’m working on, and I just wanted to get out and kind of play it for some people and see what works and what doesn’t. So it’s just kind of an experimentation thing. I’m going to do a bunch of new stuff. And then I guess do the Hendrix tour in later September and October.” Later, Johnson added, “I’m going to do a couple of different things this time, but I usually have a kind of a standard repertoire of ones I like to do, but I’ll try to do a couple of new things this time.”.
Segueing to the Experience Hendrix tour, Johnson shared some of his thoughts and insights about being part of a tour that salutes one of his guitar heroes.
“Well, I’ve always loved playing Jimi’s music, and I always have since I was a kid. I just… tried to play it. So, it’s kind of like it’s nothing different for me to go play his music. And every time I do, I learn something about his approach or what he did. And so, it’s always an honor and a privilege for me to do that.”
Have there been any surprises or revelations in learning Hendrix’s music?
“Well, it’s unique. And it’s not only great lead playing, but some of the tones and the rhythm guitar playing. I mean, he was a great rhythm guitarist, and that was important to him. The main nucleus or body of the song being the rhythm and how he approached that and orchestrated the songs, you could tell that was a really… it was an integral part of what he did. And he didn’t just shred on guitar. He had this whole orchestrated thing going on. You can really look at how he approached it as music, and it just happened to be on guitar. But I think the bigger picture was he was a music writer, and he used the guitar for his medium.”
Does Eric Johnson have a favorite Jimi Hendrix song that he plays?
“Wow, you know, I love them all. ‘Axis: Bold As Love’ is great. ‘May This Be Love’ is a great one – so beautiful. ‘Spanish Castle Magic’ is fun.”
As if the two tours didn’t keep Johnson busy enough, he revealed that he was working on new music.
“Well, I’m working on several different projects at once, but the main one I want to put out next is kind of a blues-flavored record. It’s how I learned to play guitar initially when I was a kid, studying all the blues greats.” Later adding, “And so I want to kind of return to that and try to give a little bit of credence to that. So, I’m writing songs that kind of are in that vein.”
Follow Johnson’s hectic tour schedule by visiting EricJohnson.com. As of this writing, a few tickets for the Knoxville solo show at the Bijou Theatre are still available, as are tickets for the Experience Hendrix Nashville show.
To learn more about his upcoming G3 live album with Joe Satriani and Steve Via due out later this year, watch this interview in its entirety on Boomerocity.com or listen to the audio of it on all major podcast platforms. Just enter “Boomerocity” in the platform’s search field.