Grammy-award winning guitarist Eric Johnson releases two new singles, "Move on Over" and "To Be Alive"
Eric Johnson, the prolific Grammy-Award winning, Austin-based songwriter and guitarist releases his third set of two new singles today, “Move on Over” and “To Be Alive” from his forthcoming albums, The Book of Making and Yesterday Meets Today. The duo of album releases will be available on July 29, 2022 via his new partnership with Blue Élan Records. A pre-order is available now where fans will have the opportunity to unlock Eric’s Takeouts, a collection of seven bonus tracks, when they purchase both albums together.
Click here to listen to both singles.
From Yesterday Meets Today, “To Be Alive” was co-written with the only guest on the two albums, singer/guitarist Arielle, whose sweetly powerful crystal-clear vocals shine on the slightly moody piano-based ballad. “It was a song I wrote years ago but never had any lyrics for. It was recorded a couple years ago after Arielle wrote some very nice lyrics for it. I’m a big fan of her voice and I love the way she sang the song."
‘Move on Over” is the latest from The Book of Making and Johnson describes it as “A variation on a John Lee Hooker riff and I just added some vocals that would talk about getting out of the way and letting the universal spirit flow through you. It was actually a live track from an Alien Love Child gig."
It was during the mandatory “lockdown vacation” that all of us endured throughout 2020 when Johnson realized, “I have the time, let’s go through the vaults and see what’s there.” What he found was enough material to emerge with two albums featuring nine songs on each LP. The Grammy-winning, multi-genre guitarist took inventory—both emotionally and musically—delving into the many unfinished tracks, outtakes, demos, and sonic ideas in his archive to compile the 18 songs that ultimately ended up on the albums.
“I started pulling these recordings out of the vault at my studio. Some were professionally done, some were just scratch tapes, some were rehearsal recordings on cassette,” Johnson explains. The music spanned 25 years of “creations, thoughts and ideas that remained unfinished for many years.” In some of the deeply moving music Johnson discovered a “certain personal magic” and decided to allow song cuts to remain as they were initially created. Others were embellished; a few songs are new.
Among Johnson's many accolades are a Grammy award for "Cliffs of Dover" (a track from his Platinum certified Ah Via Musicom), ten more Grammy nominations, lifetime induction into the Guitar Player Gallery of Greats and his listing among the "100 Greatest Guitarists of the 20th Century" by Musician. In his hometown of Austin TX, a city full of guitarists, the readers of the Austin Chronicle have voted Eric Johnson the city's "Best Electric Guitarist" and "Best Acoustic Guitarist" in their yearly poll year after year. They also named him "Electric Guitarist of the Decade" and one of the top five "Musicians of the Decade". He appears on the cover of the June 2022 issue of Guitar Player alongside Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, celebrating the anniversary of the inaugural G3 Tour.