Eric Johnson: Happy to Play the Blues

When I was growing up, my dad worked as an anesthesiologist at St. David’s Hospital in Austin, Texas. One day, he tapped one of the hospital’s technicians, Morris Young, to install some electrical outlets outside the house so my dad could light a landscape garden. Morris had his own way of testing the circuitry. Most people would just screw in a few light bulbs, but Morris brought his guitar along. He plugged his little amp into one of the outlets and just started jamming away. Old blues stuff: Elmore James, Jimmy Reed, a little bottleneck with an old piece of pipe. I was just a young boy at the time, and it was my first experience hearing a guitar. And the first thing I heard coming out of it was this fantastically distorted blues. It just sounded awesome. Morris was just playing for fun, and I know he saw me jumping around to the music and having a great time. I just flipped out. I’m sure it made him feel good. The memory of that day has always been with me. Morris planted that seed. He was the spark that set it all off for me. By the time I was eleven, my dad brought home a Fender Music Master. He wasn’t quite ready to commit to it, though; the guitar was on loan from the store for a one-week trial period. At the time, I was taking classical piano lessons, and my parents really wanted me to stick with that; they weren’t terribly enamored with the idea of my dropping piano to play Rolling Stones and Ventures music! But a happy accident changed all that. I had the guitar sitting on my bed when it fell off and hit the floor hard. Put a big scratch in the bottom of it. Dad looked it over and said, “Well, I guess we have to buy it now.” That scratch was a blessing. Many years later, I learned that Morris had passed away. And though I didn’t keep in touch with him, his wife, Lillie Mae, had followed my career. When Morris died, she gave me his guitar. And when it arrived, a very special circle had been closed. This was the first guitar I had ever heard—a 1958 Gibson 225 big-bodied archtop with a two-tone sunburst finish and a single P-90 pickup—and that old piece of pipe was still in the case. Morris’ guitar. And now it was mine. Whenever I pick it up and play it, there seems to be a bit of a vibe to it—a bit of Morris in it. The magic of the music he made all those years ago still comes through.
Visit Eric Johnson at www.ericjohnson.com