Eric Johnson hit my radar in the mid to late 90's when a buddy in my circle bought his 1990 released Ah Via Musicom. The instrumental track Cliffs of Dover quickly became our group's favorite, and we would blare it in his car as we trekked down the road to nowhere, as most late teen early twenty year old young adults did.
The album was one I added to my collection soon thereafter, and kept with me for the longest time. While I don't remember if I eventually parted ways with it, and had to repurchase it when building my CD collection, as of this writing, I know its among the collection.
However, despite my favoring of the album, I never really looked in to Johnson as an artist, branching out past Musicom. This would only change during a trip to one of my favorite used CD's shop hot spots, McKay's. It was during a visit that I came across the album Tones while thumbing through the fodder of stuff I already had, or simply didn't want.
If I recall correctly, I was a little shocked to see that it was from 1986, mainly because I equated the guitarist to a 90's act. Despite the higher price sticker on the album than the usual around the store, I decided I would grab it.
As many times in the past, Tones was ripped to my digital library immediately, but them physically sat on the shelf untouched, and not played until now. One of the things that I really dug about his aforementioned 90's album was Johnson's mixture of instrumental tracks, as well as tracks that he sings on. He's not shy of letting the guitar work be the star of the album, and this is definitely a pro in my book.
Tones starts out in the same fashion I was accustomed to with his later work, wherein an instrumental track takes center stage to start the show. Soulful Train has a good lick and riff to it, but had a high bar previously set by Cliffs of Dover that it had to reach. It was okay, but honestly not as memorable as I hoped.
The tracks Emerald Eyes and Zap are re-recorded versions from the guitarist's prior unreleased initial debut from 1978. These songs were initially recorded between 1976 and 1978, after Eric's prior band, Electromagnets, disbanded. The original versions would later be re-released on his 1998 album, Seven Worlds, which featured several of the original tracks recording during these latter 70's years.
What I like the most about Tones is the familiarity of it. You know how when you hear an artist, and you immediately know who they are just from the sound of the music? That's Eric Johnson. He has a specific style to his guitar that you can immediately spot when it's him.
Overall, while I won't say I walked away with anything that necessarily stood out as a hit single from Tones, as a whole, it was a fantastic forty-five minutes spent listening to it. A hidden gem, if you will. It's solid through and through, and one that would definitely intrigue me enough to hear more from the artist, if I hadn't already done so.
Despite the album bringing recognition to the artist, and even a Grammy nomination, Tones didn't sell well. As a result, Warner Bros. let his contract expire. He would later sign with Capitol, and follow up with his already mentioned 1990 album, and 1996's Venus Isle. That's a long gap between studio albums, which were brought about from Johnson touring for three years straight in support of Ah Via Musicom, and then hindered by perfectionism, continuously scrapped and re-recorded tracks for Venus Isle, delaying its release. The lackluster sales of Venus resulted in Capital dropping him.
Though he did rebound, and continued to release studio albums through 2022, there is a noticeable sporadic gap between them. Fortunately, Johnson would no longer be hindered by labels, as he would release his albums from this point on via his own studio, Vortexan. Though in his 70's now, he remains very active, continuing to tour. His most recent was G3 2024 with Steve Vai and Joe Satriani.
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| THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS May 31, 1980 |
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| THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS May 31, 1986 |
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