JOHNSON AND JOHNSON

The Texas guitar great has concocted not one, but two albums bursting with new material — plus a few extras. “It feels good to clear out the vaults and to get everything out there…”

- Joe Bosso

ERIC JOHNSON ISN’T known for flooding the market with product. Since he first began issuing studio recordings in 1986, his average span between albums is four years, and he’s been known to sometimes make fans wait five and even six years for a new disc. “I know it might appear as if I’m taking my time,” he says, “but whenever I make an album, I usually record another one that I put aside.” He chuckles. “Looking at it that way, I’m really not that slow.”

During the remainder of 2022, Johnson devotees can revel in an abundance of riches, as the Grammy-winning Texas guitar star will issue not one, but two separate albums simultaneously — The Book of Making and Yesterday Meets Today — and he’s even offering a bonus disc of outtakes (inventively titled Takeouts) to fans who purchase both records together.

Interestingly, none of this was in Johnson’s plans whatsoever. “I hadn’t figured on either record, really, let alone both of them,” he says. He explains that the Covid lockdown period from 2020 and into 2021 offered him an unexpected opportunity to comb through his music files and assess the recordings he’d stashed away. “I came up with 28 tracks, three of which were totally embarrassing, so I tossed them. Seven of them would go on Takeouts, so that left me with 18 songs. Some of them sounded really good right off the bat; other ones I needed to work on to bring them up to snuff.”