The album that brought Eric Johnson into the spotlight, Ah Via Musicom <\/i>is a fine piece of work that avoids the pitfalls a \u201cguitar virtuoso\u201d album attracts.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake, there are several instrumental rock songs on the disc that feature Johnson\u2019s solos all over the place, proof that he rightfully deserves to be classified among Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen and any other virtuoso you care to name from the 1980s and \u201890s. But many other songs feature him singing, and there is far less of the posturing, shredding and showing off that clutters up Vai\u2019s albums. <\/p>\n
This is the disc that features \u201cCliffs Of Dover,\u201d one of the great instrumental of the last two decades, with an instantly recognizable riff and some killer playing throughout. Wisely, Johnson treats it as an actual song instead of an excuse to solo for four minutes, so those moments of lightning-fast hammer notes are few and far between, coming as genuine surprise and serving the song. The track is offset by more midtempo rock fare like \u201cNothing Can Keep Me From You\u201d and \u201cDesert Rose,\u201d while the short acoustic \u201cSong For George\u201d and the fun \u201cSteve\u2019s Boogie\u201d show Johnson expanding his palette with country influence.<\/p>\n
Johnson\u2019s guitar tone is very clear and his voice sounds a little like Don Henley, so there is a sort of late-\u201880s production sheen to this that waters down the impact just a bit and makes some of the supporting instrumentation difficult to hear. But frankly, there isn\u2019t a weak song in the bunch. \u201cRighteous\u201d is the album\u2019s other instrumental highlight, all smoking guitar and harmonica, sounding equally at home in the hands of a capable bar band or an arena (Johnson, you remember, was the third member of the G3 tour, and rightly so).<\/p>\n
The songs were Johnson sings are a bit less exciting, but only \u201cForty Mile Town\u201d lacks any real impact, especially following \u201cRighteous.\u201d Better is the closing \u201cEast Wes,\u201d a fusion jazz-inspired piece with a solid hook and a pensive mood. Think of Stevie Ray Vaughan\u2019s \u201cRiviera Paradise\u201d sped up a bit and you\u2019ll be close to how this one sounds, if you need a reason to listen to this.<\/p>\n
Guitar fiends of the \u201890s knew all about Johnson, but outside of the music community his work wasn\u2019t as well known, as guitar virtuosity never received much airplay in the time of grunge, insipid synth-pop and the rise of R&B\/hip-hop that characterized the late \u201880s and early \u201890s. For shame, because this is a solid album that guitar fans would do well to discover (or rediscover).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":32478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[9694],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-44239","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-eric-johnson","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44239"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}