page_title: Eric Johnson (guitarist, born 1954)
section_title: Guitars
hierarchical_section_title: Eric Johnson (guitarist, born 1954) / Guitars and equipment / Guitars
caption_attribution_description: Fender Stratocaster electric guitar. Eric Johnson signature model.
context_page_description: Eric Johnson is an American guitarist, vocalist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist. His 1990 album Ah Via Musicom was certified platinum by the RIAA, and the single "Cliffs of Dover" won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.
  Best known for his electric guitar skills, Johnson is also a highly proficient acoustic, lap steel, resonator, and bass guitarist, as well as an accomplished pianist and vocalist. He plays many musical genres, including rock, blues, jazz fusion, soul, folk, new-age, classical, and country. Guitar Player magazine has called him "one of the most respected guitarists on the planet."
context_section_description: Johnson is best known for playing the lightly modified Fender Stratocasters and Gibson ES-335 electric guitars through a triple amp setup that consists of Fender, Dumble and Marshall amplifiers. He tends to swap out the bridge pickups in some of his Stratocasters for DiMarzio HS-2 pickups, because they don't hum as much as standard single-coils. Johnson has also played other guitar brands such as Robin, Rickenbacker, Jackson, and a Charvel, which appears on the cover of the Ah Via Musicom album. In 2001, Johnson added a Gibson Custom Shop '59 Les Paul Reissue to his collection of guitars. It is noteworthy that he no longer uses a Dumble amplifier, as he had to replace a faulty component in his favorite Dumble, the Steel String Singer. It never sounded the same afterwards, and he sold the amplifier to Carlos Santana.
  Johnson has had several models built by his specifications for sale in the mass market. In 2003, C. F. Martin & Company released a limited-edition Eric Johnson Signature MC-40 guitar built for him. Johnson donated 5% of the guitar's sales profit to his father's college, Jefferson Medical College (Now called the Thomas Jefferson University). Johnson has also been known to use the Martin D-45 before his signature Martin guitar was released.
  In 2005, Fender released an Eric Johnson Signature Fender Stratocaster also built to his specifications. This was followed up by the Eric Johnson Signature Stratocaster Rosewood model in 2009. It featured the same specifications as the Eric Johnson Maple Neck guitar, but with the addition of an unusual three-ply, eight-hole white pick guard, hotter treble pickup, and a bound rosewood laminate fingerboard with pearloid dot position markers.
  Eric generally doesn't collect guitars as he isn't interested in owning a lot of superfluous items. His collection is small and limited to the best playing examples of the guitar he finds.
  1967 Flying V: Traded at a show for a 30s Dobro guitar he purchased just to swap for the Flying V.
  1964 SG Maestro Vibrola: an instrument famously played by George Harrison on stage and during the recording of several Beatles albums. Eric Generally avoided SGs for being unable to stay in tune, but traded two Marshall amplifiers for this particular one for its ability to hold a tune extremely well.
  1962 Fender Stratocaster: This is the instrument stolen from his apartment in 1982. It had a Mustang pick up that Seymour Duncan had rewound himself. Found at a pawn shop 24 years later, Eric cross referenced with serial numbers he had written down, and found the pawn shop had his stolen collection of guitars. He bought it back. It has 6.5-ohm single-coil pick ups (Similar to the Seymour Duncan five two pick up available for purchase).
  1957 Fender Stratocaster: Bought at a show in Florida
  Undated early 80s Martin D45: A reissue of a pre-war design purchased for him by his father after the 1982 incident.
  1964 Gibson ES-335: Block inlay stop tail-piece with lower output pickups. It has a ding from the photographer dropping equipment on it during the Venus Isle photo shoot.
  1966 Fender Bass VI: The replacement for one of the guitars stolen in the 1982 incident. Featured on Bloom "tribute to Jerry Reed" and "On the Way to Love" on Up Close and other tracks.
  In March 2018, Fender released an Eric Johnson Signature Thinline Fender Stratocaster built to exactly the same specifications as his first signature Strat, the sole exception being that the guitar is a semi-hollow design, which is a rarity for Fender. The guitar is available in Vintage White and two-color Sunburst, with quarter-sawn maple necks exclusively.
  Prototype EJ Signature Fender Stratocasters: Eric tours with the final prototypes sent to him before production began of his signature models including the thinline, and is not using examples from the production line up available in stores.
  In January 2006, a man named Brian Sparks was arrested for posing as Johnson and, in the process, defrauding businesses out of about US$18,000 worth of guitars and equipment. Also in 2006, some of Johnson's guitars that h
caption: Fender Eric Johnson Stratocaster.
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