Artist · chart history
Eric Johnson
Solo artist Austin United States guitarist and recording artist from Austin, Texas
Eric Johnson is an artist from Austin. Eric Johnson has 13 chart appearances on 13 radio countdowns from 8 stations on RockLists, spanning 1994–2024. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Cliffs Of Dover”, which appears on 12 lists with a best position of #371. The station that charted Eric Johnson most often is KISW (Seattle-Tacoma, WA), with 6 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2010.
Eric Johnson, born in 1954 and rooted in Austin, is a guitarist's guitarist: a player whose electric lines come out polished, singing and crystal clear, never just loud. He's no one-trick specialist, either. Beyond the electric, he plays acoustic, lap steel and resonator guitar, handles bass and piano, and sings, and his playing roams from blues and country to jazz fusion, soul, classical, folk and new-age without ever losing its rock spine.
The breakthrough came in 1990 with Ah Via Musicom on Reprise, a record of liquid, carefully sculpted guitar work that went platinum. Its centerpiece, "Cliffs of Dover", is an instrumental that bursts out of the gate with a cascading flurry of notes before settling into a melody as bright and open as a clear sky, and it won the Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. It remains his calling card, and decades later it still turns up on the countdowns, proof that a song with no words at all can outlast plenty of choruses.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Eric Johnson on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cliffs Of Dover | 12 | #371 | – | – | |
| 2 | Austin | 1 | #105 | – | 2010 |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 925 | Cliffs Of Dover | Q104.3 Top 1,043 Classic Rock Songs of All Time (2024) |
| 2022 | 428 | Cliffs Of Dover | River 500 (2022) |
| 2019 | 503 | Cliffs Of Dover | KZOK Top 1025 of 2019 |
| 2010 | 105 | Austin | WFIV Top 105 of 2010 |
| 2010 | 371 | Cliffs Of Dover | The Loop USO Rock 'N' Roll 500 (2010) |
| 2010 | 837 | Cliffs Of Dover | WXPN 885 Ultimate Road Trip Songs (2010) |
| 2002 | 384 | Cliffs Of Dover | KISW Top 999 of All Time (2002) |
| 1999 | 789 | Cliffs Of Dover | KISW Top 1000 of All Time (1999) |
| 1998 | 855 | Cliffs Of Dover | KISW Top 1000 of All Time (1998) |
| 1997 | 545 | Cliffs Of Dover | WBAB Top 1,023 Rock and Roll Songs of All Time (1997) |
| 1996 | 944 | Cliffs Of Dover | KISW Top 1000 of All Time (1996) |
| 1995 | 976 | Cliffs Of Dover | KISW Top 1000 of All Time (1995) |
| 1994 | 916 | Cliffs Of Dover | KISW Top 1000 of All Time (1994) |
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