@jszfunk RE EVH & Eruption: "Self indulgence" - that was a poor choice of words on my behalf. I guess I think of solos as part of a larger, overall work. Great piece by Eddie! Sour grapes on my end! 😉
Nah, no worries. I knew exactly what you meant. I agree with a solo within a song, yes ,part of a larger piece of work. A lot of songs do represent that, and the first that comes to mind is Blue Sky. The solos on that just " sings " so perfectly with that tune, that's why Dickey is such a masterful guitarist.
Everyone has a plan, till you get punched in the face,
@bill_graham Here is Eric Johnson on pedals and gear and amps. He is a big gear guy.
Also I was reading earlier he owns over 50 electric guitars including some Les Pauls, my favorite guitar but others including a Strat with hot pickups are up there too, and that was news to me. Never saw Johnson play a Les Paul. But he does on this. And oddly his tone is really not that different from his famous Stratocaster tone. Check it out.
@robertdee I'm not usually a fan of processed guitar sounds, but I love what Eric does with all of the stomp boxes and gadgets! I've seen him several times. After each show - I find myself swearing to anybody who'll listen that Eric Johnson is the best I've ever seen!
@rusty Eric Johnson is certainly an excellent guitarist technically and he is a gear guy with lots of pedals. Personally I think he is fantastic. And he is very clean.
To borrow a line from Mark Knopfler " He knows all the cords" BUT he is not strictly rhythm, he does like to make it cry or sing.
Before the internet it wasn't as easy to find out about musicians. I first heard the name Eric Johnson in 1991 listening to a show recorded for the radio of the Allman Brothers Band in Tokyo. A break time a Japanese reporter or announcer began interviewing Dickey Betts and Warren Haynes. Toward the end he asked Dickey are there any new guitarists who impressed you and he said yes then asked Warren " what was the name of that guitarist you played for me?" And Warren said "Eric Johnson". I remembered the name but still didn't get out and buy an album for some reason. But when I noticed he was going to be on Austin City Limits I was tuned in. There is something esoteric may be the word about his live shows so to me it's not a real rock and roll show from bands like even the Allman Brothers. There is something snooty about Eric Johnson on stage. Like watching a college professor with a PhD playing a concert.
But I was of course deeply impressed with how incredibly advanced and clean as a guitarist he is. And on many of the songs his tone reminded me a little of a concert violinist. Eric isn't my favorite guitarists but he is in my top 10. Maybe 5. I always go see him when he is not too far away and he never disappoints.
If you haven't seen this, take a look at his version of All Along The Watchtower with Earl Thomas on vocals. This is a bit different that how he presented himself on Austin City Limits.
Here is another EXCELLENT version of Watch Tower.
Gotta have some New Years guitar porn from the best of them all as Bill Graham said.
Good golly these six young men could shake the ground. Duane Allman said " Good God I love playing with these guys. That bass right in the pocket kicking you then join in with the lead guitars. I love playing with Berry"!
@robertdee I actually saw Eric Johnson several years before anybody was talking about him. There's a player from Birmingham (where I lived for most of my life) named Wayne Perkins. Wayne is a famed session player (Bob Marley, Joni Mitchell, Hank Jr. ... it's a long list!) -but who is most famous for being the first runner up to replace Mick Taylor in the Rolling Stones.
Wayne had a band called Crimson Tide (like the University of Alabama football team). They were signed to Capitol Records - released 2 or 3 records before Capitol decided to put all their money and efforts behind another band called the Knack (My Sharona). These are all components of a much larger story. I have digressed.
Anyway, Eric - and his backup of bass and drums opened the Capitol Records "coming out" party for Crimson Tide. The audience was full of friends, family, fans and well-wishers who'd come out to support Wayne and his band. The crowd was there to see Wayne and just couldn't wait for Eric and his band to get off the stage. His set, though was fantastic and mesmerizing. After he played, Eric took a seat at the end of the bar. He was sitting there all alone so I walked over and told him that he had knocked my personal socks off! He shook my hand and said, "thank you". It was another 5 years or so before "White Cliffs of Dover" began to get heard. It was a few years after that before that song made it to the radio.
In terms of $money - I don't think that Eric has earned anywhere near what a lot of much lesser musicians have made. For me, income is no measure of talent or greatness. Eric Johnson is about as good as guitar players get. This ain't just my opinion, either. 😉
Happy New Year everyone.
1967 Gibson factory tour video
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/29/retrotechtacular-gibson-factory-tour-1967-style/
@rusty I've heard of that band. I need to go to my storage room and look through my pile of 33 1/3 albums and see if I have one of their Capitol albums.
In the 1970s I was involved with the aggregate business and traveled to Birmingham several times to Vulcan Materials and a good friend of mine was a DJ at WSGN radio. Name was Steve Norris. Steve has passed away. He was a huge Allman Brothers fan and he was into Clapton, Frank Zappa, Rolling Stones and Rare Earth.
That radio station was on the top floor if I remember correctly of a 15 to 20 story building.
Eric Johnson knows his way around the fretboard of an electric guitar as well as anyone I've ever seen.
It sounds as if your first time to see Eric Johnson and him opening for a famous local guitar player was similar to the first time I saw Jimi Hendrix. It was 1968 and he opened for the Monkeys. The auditorium was filled with many people who were ,8 to 17 years old and they were not impressed with Jimi Hendrix at all. Very little applause. The Monkeys could play fairly well and Day Dream Believer and Last Train To Clarksville brought the house down. Thunderous applause.
But for me Jimi Hendrix was a real eye opener for I guy like me who likes guitars. I had never seen anyone play that loud and get all those wild notes and sounds and fast runs were impressive and using the whammy bar that way was crazy. Definitely he played in a way that couldn't be imagined when whammy bars were added to guitars. Before it was used to put some vibrato on the last note of a bar of notes not like Jimi.
Eric Johnson is just excellent. No question.
@robertdee Bill Graham use to put on shows - especially in LA at the Filmore - featuring bands that seemed miles apart in styles and genre. Seems like bands like Santana or the Grateful Dead would have someone like Duke Ellington or some other jazz heavy as the opener (probably not a correct example, but stuff like this). I'm sure this actually turned a lot of people on to music that they might never have even encountered. In some cases - Hendrix opening for the Monkees - the fans came to hear something that was familiar to them. I have heard reports of Jimi being booed at those shows. It's like someone going to McDonalds for a (really bad) burger ... and someone offers them Lobster Thermidor or something as an appetizer. Sometimes good stuff gets lost or wasted on unfamiliar ears!
@bill_graham Here is Eric Johnson on pedals and gear and amps. He is a big gear guy.
Also I was reading earlier he owns over 50 electric guitars including some Les Pauls, my favorite guitar but others including a Strat with hot pickups are up there too, and that was news to me. Never saw Johnson play a Les Paul. But he does on this. And oddly his tone is really not that different from his famous Stratocaster tone. Check it out.
I saw Johnson as part of the Experience Hendrix tour before COVID that Jimi's sister, Janie Hendrix, promotes.
She gets a bunch of incredible musicians together to celebrate Jimi's music and Eric was playing the show I saw. He was fantastic on the songs he played on. Great night of music and highly recommended if they ever do another tour.
https://www.experiencehendrixtour.com/
There are a lot of stories about how Johnson's so tuned into his gear he can hear the difference in battery brands he uses in his pedals. Evidently that is just a myth but Johnson felt Duracell batteries sounded the best. There is some science behind that but not related to brand but rather how much juice is left in the battery impacting how a pedal sounds.
A couple of articles explaining the details
https://missionengineering.com/inside-ejs-box-of-dead-batteries/
https://delicious-audio.com/does-the-type-of-battery-you-use-affect-your-pedals-sound/
@bill_graham I read once Eric Johnson likes his batteries run down just a touch so he has them in a flashlight for awhile before he loads them in his gear.
And he takes an SG and Les Paul on the road ( he owns over 50 electric guitars) but only uses one of the Gibson's if the room causes his preferred Stats to hum too much. The other musicians say that can't hear any hum when they start playing but Eric Johnson can.
If he had took the time to play in Motorhead or Black Sabbath for a few years, he wouldn't be able to hear a Marshall Amp at all if iit was turned down to 8 or lower.
Here is a short a guy sent me today. This guy claims he can play as good as Eric Johnson BLINDFOLDED!!!
https://youtube.com/shorts/vY-jwHAn2dk?feature=share
Jeff Beck is asked about Wah Wah and other pedals.
Looks like the Les Paul he used on much of Blow by Blow.
https://youtube.com/shorts/6uYcJlEipmw?feature=share
Everyone try to watch this on the Ventures. It is a very cool inside look how these guys became a top guitar group for many years. And a lot of the time he looked as if they would flop with zero success.
Several record labels rejected this. Informed them IT WOULD NOT BE A HIT!
A DJ friend at a Seattle radio station in 1960 did agree to play a portion going up to the news casts if the boss allowed. In just hours the phones were ringing off the hook demanding they play the entire thing. One of the record labels changed their mind and released it in 1960 and it went to the top of the singles chart!!!
And this is such smooth playing and classic single coil tone and just enough whammy bar to put icing on the cake.
And this is crazy man crazy. When they cut this they didn't have a drummer and they found a guy playing in a club who sounded pretty good and they talked him into playing the drums at a two track studio with the vocal mic in a shower in the bathroom.
After they got a good take, the drummer said he had no interest in joining their band. So they said " We will give you a percentage of the money it hopefully makes or $25 dollars right now.". He said he would take the $25 dollars and left.
The guys in the band said they never saw or heard from him again and he never cashed the check. But he had to have noticed it was on every Top 40 station in the country for over a month!!! But maybe he didn't notice.
@robertdee My one gripe with Jimi Hendrix - saying, "you'll never listen to surf music again!". The Ventures and Chet Atkins were the first two instances of guitar music that I encountered. Before I knew what a guitar even was, I knew that these guys were playing them very well! And I forgave Jimi a long time ago. 😉
@rusty I agree rusty. A lot of late 60's early 70's artists assumed now that we've found their music we would done with 50's and early 60's music.
Not me. I still enjoy the Ventures, Chet Atkins, the Shadows, The Beach Boys and others.
Jimmy Herring rig rundown
I enjoy that series from Premier Guitar, some really good ones.
Everyone has a plan, till you get punched in the face,
@jszfunk I just visited the Charvel website to refresh my memory and yes the distinctive headstock design of most Charvel guitars is owned and under federal copying law by Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. And both Charvel and Jackson guitars are owned and guaranteed for two years to be free of workmanship defects by Fender.
Wayne Charvel sold out to Grover Jackson who inturn sold Charvel and Jackson over 20 years ago to Fender.
That is why most Charvel headstocks are designed and cut just like a Stratocaster without a law suite.
Gibson recently sued Dean guitars over their headstock design. Apparently too close to the Gibson flying V.
Wow Dickey Betts was born in Atlanta, Georgia. All these years Dickey claimed to be a Florida native and it's not true.
https://www.fuelrocks.com/dickey-betts-a-founding-member-of-the-allman-brothers-band/
@robertdee "I was born in the backseat of a Greyhound bus - goin' down highway 41..." 41 runs through Georgia ... where Dickey's father was a gambler ... 😉
PS (Edit) - The Wikipedia entry for Dickey says that he was born in West Palm Beach, FL . If it's in a Wiki it has to be true!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickey_Betts
Gibson recently sued Dean guitars over their headstock design. Apparently too close to the Gibson flying V.
Everyone has a plan, till you get punched in the face,
@jszfunk It looks very different than the Gibson flying V headstock to me. I just checked and Gibson sued Dean for body shapes on several guitars.
https://www.guitarworld.com/news/gibson-dean-court-ruling
@robertdee The Flying "V" shape got copied by several manufacturers - especially those in countries along the Pacific Rim.
It seems to me that like airplanes (especially the "private" types - Cessna, Beechcraft etc.) that the optimal design for guitars was established years ago. Those V's, Explorers and some of the others are just uncomfortable to play. You can't sit and play one.
@rusty That is interesting. Hendrix went through a phase when he used a Flying V on a few songs each show. Albert King was a regular flying V man but he eventually had a custom guitar made with a more traditional headstock design. I'm not sure Gibson made that for him.
Clapton used a Gibson Explorer for awhile in Creme and liked the tone but didn't like how it felt.
Allen Collins of Lynyrd Skynyrd played an Explorer regularly. I was becoming a guitar nerd by the time I saw Lynyrd Skynyrd the first time and I still remember Allen Collins on a Gibson Explorer, Gary Rossington on a Gibson Les Paul and Ed King on a Fender Stratocaster. King did all the solos on Sweet Home Alabama and Collins did most of the long solo on Free Bird but the other two were banging away right behind Collins.
I'm not sure how they decided who played what. Gary Rossington I thought had fewer solos than the other two.
The Les Paul has some copies cats I've seen that are just too close to see how they don't get sued. And the Stratocaster body looks exactly the same on many guitars including Paul Reed Smith's John Mayer Custom. Has the well known PRS headstock but the body is so close to a Strat!!
Yes standard guitar shapes are widely used especially on acoustic guitars. So many look so similar I have to look at the headstock to see what make it is and there are a lot of makes of acoustic guitars.
Signature guitars worth their weight in gold. At least according to the author
Part 1
Part 2
Tons of Guitar reviews.....pick your favorites
https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/reviews/electric_guitars/
