#Cliffs of dover guitar hero cover full#
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He was tapped by Eric Clapton to appear at the 2004 Crossroads Guitar Festival and plays his second stint of the Experience Hendrix tour in fall 2010. He enjoys the admiration of many of his fellow players and has performed/ recorded with such notables as Chet Atkins, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and others. His achievements include being enshrined in Guitar PlayerвЂ™s Gallery of Greats and named one of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of the 20th Century by Musician magazine amongst numerous other awards. And itвЂ™s been followed by a diverse and fascinating musical journey that inspired The New Age Music Guide to rave that вЂњEric Johnson plays guitar the way Michelangelo painted ceilings: with a colorful vibrancy that's more real than life.' Hailed as a record that reached near-classic proportions within the guitar community, it was preceded by dedicated groundwork as a live performer that marked him as a talent bound for great things. Johnson leapt to the forefront of contemporary music some 20 years ago as вЂњan extraordinary guitar player accessible to ordinary music fans,вЂќ as the Memphis Commercial Appeal hails him, with his landmark million selling 1990 album Ah Via Musicom. With its sonic immediacy (thanks to a mix by engineering legend Andy Johns) and openhearted musicality and songwriting, Up Close truly lives up to its name as Johnson continues to forge fresh and compelling new dimensions of his artistry. The lyrical themes of reflection, emotional revelations, personal growth and fulfillment are underscored on the album by JohnsonвЂ™s most daring, urgent, progressive and at times raw and fervent guitar work to date. Johnson caps the CD with the uplifting grace note of Your Book on which he and Landreth interweave their playing (including JohnsonвЂ™s stately piano work) with emotive elegance.

#Cliffs of dover guitar hero cover plus#

Interstitial instrumental snippets like the spellbinding Indian music-flavored opener Awaken and the dreamlike Traverse and The Sea and the Mountain plus Change (Revisited) weave the collection together. On The Way is a delightful Texas meets Tennessee twang romp, and A Change Has Come To Me opens with a six-string nod to Jimi Hendrix (a prime Johnson influence) that carries through the track as it burgeons into a celebration of the pleasures of the deep and soulful groove. His early years and influences are explored on the Mike Bloomfield/Buddy Miles-composed blues song Texas (from the 1968 Electric Flag album A Long Time CominвЂ™) on which Miller sings and JohnsonвЂ™s and VaughanвЂ™s guitars engage in stirring interplay, and Austin (sung by Lang), which looks back to his teens in his hometown as a budding player and avid music fan who would be allowed to slip under-aged into music nightclubs and вЂњgo sit in the back and listen to bands.вЂќ Gem is splashed with bright and painterly six-string colors, Soul Surprise finds Johnson weaving a picturesque tapestry of both his guitar and piano gifts, and Arithmetic summons up a swirling and spectral kaleidoscope of guitars, keyboards and JohnsonвЂ™s singing. That vitality and vivid musicality brims from such hook-filled numbers as the hard-rocking instrumentals Fat Daddy and Vortexan and the driving vocal song Brilliant Room (sung by Milligan). I like my work to have a high proficiency, but I also want to go for the energy and magic of the performances.вЂќ вЂњThatвЂ™s a direction that works better for any artist, and especially for me. вЂњI decided to let go a bit and allow things to happen and just go with the flow,вЂќ explains Johnson about his approach to the album. The 15-track disc finds the noted master craftsman cutting loose, roaming through variations on the rock, blues, pop, country and jazz genres, pushing the dynamic range of his artistry, and mixing it up with such friends and peers as guitarists Jimmie Vaughan and Sonny Landreth, plus guest vocalists Steve Miller, Johnny Lang and Malford Milligan. His myriad and distinctive musical gifts are vividly evident on JohnsonвЂ™s current studio album, Up Close, released on his own Vortexan Music label.

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The full range of his talents marks him as a gifted songwriter, dynamic live performer, singer, pianist, and song interpreter. Eric JohnsonвЂ™s stature as one of the premier guitar players in contemporary music is his artistic trump card, backed by a Grammy Award and five nominations, platinum album, Top 10 hits like Cliffs of Dover, praise from critics and the esteem of his peers.