Legendary Grammy-nominated Texas guitarist Eric Johnson is pleased to announce an 11-date UK tour in Summer 2026.
Tickets go on sale at 10am on Wednesday February 4th here and here.
One of the most outstanding instrumentalists in rock over the past 40 years, Texas guitarist Eric Johnson was already a legend before he recorded his first album. By the early 1980s, many celebrated guitarists were singing the praises of this skinny kid from Austin with the mind-melting chops. Comparisons were made to such guitar heroes as Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix and when he joined the ‘70s Austin fusion band Electromagnets they were being hailed as “the Mahavishnu Orchestra of Texas”.
With the release of his highly anticipated 1986 solo debut album “Tones”, the underground guitar legend finally emerged onto the scene fully formed. It landed him on the cover of Guitar Player magazine, which hailed the album as a “majestic debut”, and earned him his first Grammy nomination for the song “Zap”. With the release of his follow up album, 1990’s platinum-selling “Ah Via Musicom”, which contained the Grammy Award winning song “Cliffs of Dover”, Eric Johnson became a bona fide international guitar phenomenon.
The New Age Music Guide once opined that “Eric Johnson plays guitar the way Michelangelo painted ceilings: with a colorful vibrancy that’s more real than life”, while Rolling Stone included him in their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of the 21st century. A dynamic singer as well as an incredibly gifted guitarist, a pianist and a prolific songwriter, Eric has been featured on the cover of countless guitar magazines around the world while also racking up critical accolades along the way.
Since 1986 Eric has released seventeen albums, in addition to albums with other artists such as Eclectic with jazz guitarist Mike Stern, and the platinum-selling G3 Live with Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. Eric has received eight Grammy nominations along with numerous other recognitions, awards and wins in various polls and magazines.
Among Johnson’s many accolades are a GRAMMY award in 1992 for “Cliffs of Dover” as Best Rock Instrumental Performance, lifetime induction into the Guitar Player Gallery of Greats, and his listing among the “100 Greatest Guitarists of the 20th Century” by Musician magazine. In his hometown of Austin Texas, a city full of guitarists, the readers of the Austin Chronicle 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”. In February 2024 Eric was honored with induction into the Texas Heritage Songwriters Association Hall of Fame.
2023 found Eric on his ‘Treasure Tour’, 67 US dates that were split between a Spring and a Fall tour. In January and February 2024 Eric joined the ‘G3 Reunion Tour’ with Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, and the resulting live album from the tour was released in January 2025. In August 2024 he made a short run of dates in the north and northeast including the Backroads Blues Festival in New York.
In September and October 2024 Eric was a featured performer on the ‘Experience Hendrix 2024 Tour’, crossing the country from Washington state to Florida, and then rejoined in March and April 2025 for the ‘Experience Hendrix 2025 Tour’ throughout the east and northeast USA and Canada. September and October 2025 saw the first dates of his ‘Texaphonic’ tour, from New Orleans to New York, featuring a set of new blues rock power trio material.
In December 2025 Eric joined the Allman-Betts Band for a series of shows as a special guest, duetting with Devon Allman and Duane Betts. The Texaphonic tour continues in the USA from April through May 2026 from Florida to California, including a headlining appearance at the Austin Blues Festival. In late June Eric returns to Europe for the first time in over a decade and brings the Texaphonic tour to Europe and the UK, finishing up in Scotland by mid-August at ‘Guitar Dreams’ with Mike Stern and others before returning to Austin for a special event with Tommy Emmanuel.
Over the course of more than four decades, Eric Johnson has been traveling on a prolific odyssey. Along the way, his creations have cross-pollinated the various musical genres which include rock, blues, jazz, fusion, soul, folk, new-age, classical, and even country. Inevitably EJ says it best himself in sharing that regardless of the genre “It really boils down to the music and the song at the end of the day”, he explains. “The most important thing for me is to grow musically and make a more expansive and meaningful artistic statement with every new project”.
UK Tour Dates 2026:
22 July 2026 – Wolverhampton, KK’s Steel Mill
24 July 2026 – Frome, Cheese & Grain
25 July 2026 – London, Islington Assembly
26 July 2026 – Basingstoke, Haymarket
27 July 2026 – Southampton, the Brook
29 July 2026 – Northampton, Roadmender
30 July 2026 – Norwich, Epic Studios
31 July 2026 – Holmfirth, Picturedrome
1 August 2026 – Edinburgh, Queen’s Hall
3 August 2026 – Sunderland, the Fire Station
4 August 2026 – Lytham, Lowther Pavilion
Weblinks:
www.ericjohnson.com
www.facebook.com/OfficialEricJohnson
