GUITAR GODS ERIC JOHNSON AND MIKE STERN JOIN FORCES ON SLAMMING SIX-STRING SUMMIT MEETING, ECLECTIC
Acclaimed players find common ground on their first-ever collaboration - Out October 27th
Two bona fide guitar heroes in their respective fields – Eric Johnson in the rock realm and Mike Stern in the jazz world – go toe-to-toe on Eclectic, a scintillating musical showcase that brings together their disparate influences in one potent package. Guitar aficionados of all stripes will stand slack-jawed hearing these formidable six-stringers exchanging high octane licks on Stern’s funky “Roll With It” and Johnson’s cruising pop anthem “Hullabaloo” (a kind of answer to his catchy GRAMMY®-winning rock instrumental “Cliffs of Dover” from the platinum-selling 1990 album Ah Via Musicom). The two dip into a jazzy bag on Eric’s “Tidal” (a tribute to his own personal guitar hero, Wes Montgomery) and on Mike’s surging modal romp “Remember” (patterned after John Coltrane’s “Impressions” with some allusions to Jimi Hendrix’s “Third Stone From the Sun”). More fretboard flights ensue on Johnson’s jazzy “Benny Man’s Blues” (a kind of ode to Benny Goodman and Charlie Christian) and on Stern’s dark, slow-grooving “You Never Know.” And it is somehow fitting that these two sons of Jimi close out this six-string extravaganza with a scorching rendition of the famous Hendrix blues, “Red House,” with each of them trading vocal choruses. “It was my singing debut,” says Stern. “I sang the first verse and Eric sang the second verse, then he sings the first two lines of the third verse and I sing the last two lines of the third verse.” (Stern also sneaks in a quote from Jimi’s “Third Stone From the Sun” on a smoking rendition of “Dry Ice,” an Electromagnets tune which Eric revived for this session). Sterns sums up the project by saying, “This whole record, even though we did it in the studio, was really recorded live. A couple of things were fixed but there was that spontaneous quality which is what we were looking for and I definitely think that's what we got. I really dig the way this record came out. It has a lot of energy and a lot of musicality.”
