A couple of Eric Johnson videos, amazing stuff...

[Corey]

Here's one of him doing his acoustic fingerstyle thing, rare performance, a must see for anyone who likes acoustic guitar:

Dusty [1:29]
http://www.ericjohnson.com/audio/dusty.wmv

And here's a really super rare on of him playing piano. For my money this guy is about as talented as it gets in this particular genre:

Song For Lynette [2:23]
http://www.ericjohnson.com/audio/sfl.wmv

Hard to believe this is the same guy who matched Joe Satriani and Steve Vai chop for chop at G3.

In each case he executes on a wide range of skills and influences in a seamless manner. Truly masterful use of dynamic contrast both harmonically and rhythmically including usage of polychordal and polyrhythmic ideas. Both performances feature a wide range of volumes, rhythms, and harmonic concepts within each theme. The fingerings in Dusty are highly unorthodox, some profoundly difficult high level playing in there. Eric Johnson makes it look so easy that it's hard to appreciate how difficult it is, and for that he gets ten thumbs up from I. It's like Watching Gretzky snatch a face off, thread untouched through a handful of defensemen, fake the goalie into a sprawl, and tuck it upstairs effortlessly with a smile. You lose perspective on how profoundly impossible that really is to execute that once you've see him do it a few dozen times... Dusty is like that, as is Song for Lynette. Bear in mind too that it's much more difficult to execute these sorts of pieces flawlessly during a live performance than at home during practice.

[JimS]

Good stuff Corey, thanks for pointing him out. Here is another fellow that I think is pretty good with an acoustic guitar, his name is Oscar Lopez. I’m very fond of his disk called Heat.

http://www.oscarlopez.com/disc.htm

[Corey]

Oscar is a monster player. He lives here in Calgary. He's another guy with a great sense for contrast and raw skills for days. A great ear for melody also. I have seen him live, great show that I would reccomend to everyone... Oscar also has a reputation for being a very nice guy and easy to deal with. A real class act.

I'm going to go listen to some Oscar right now come to think of it. Good idea Jim.