Ronnie Johnson is taking his new custom Mariner AX-6H guitar on the road with him. Mariner® Guitars has added Ronnie as an endorser to their product development team.

Best known perhaps for the decade he spent playing with Van Morrison and his musical direction of that band, Ronnie’s talents transcend electric and acoustic playing disciplines. His skills as a composer have enhanced the performances and recordings of many leading artists. Apart from his own albums, solo and with First Light, Ronnie has racked up three with Peter Green, Sting’s Living Sea movie soundtrack, and others with such musical aristocracy as Georgie Fame, Joe Cocker, Tom Jones, Michael Bolton and Leo Sayer.

With a new solo album in mind, Ronnie Johnson is looking forward this year to scheduled studio time with his AX-6 and giving the company valuable feedback as it develops the Mariner? range. “Having such an eclectic and accomplished musician feeding ideas into the design and development process is terrifically stimulating for us here at Mariner,” commented Ken Achard, the company’s founder. “Ronnie is such a nice bloke as well. There’s no prima donna BS with Ronnie and that is very refreshing.”

In live performance, Ronnie has pulled licks for the best of them. He is modest about his gigs with Bob Dylan, but his resume illustrates his own musical diversity. As a formidable blues technician he has played with John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Witherspoon and Zoot Money, but he has crossed over easily into jazz. folk and pop, backing John Hendricks, Sting, Ritchie Havens, Georgie Fame, Marianne Faithful, Cassandra Wilson to name but a few. He has toured extensively with Van Morrison and Leo Sayer and performed with bands such as Incognito and The Blessing.

Mariner Guitars offers a range of premium handcrafted acoustic guitars that are distributed in the UK and Ireland by Ashton Music Ltd.

More info at www.marinerguitars.com

Photo by Shane Madden

ArtistWorks, Inc has formed a partnership with Resonance Records recording artist Andreas Oberg to create the “Andreas Oberg Guitar Universe”, an online video guitar school. Launching early 2009, the subscription-funded online guitar school is expected to attract guitar students from all over the world. Student members post videos on the site and, utilizing ArtistWorks’ VMS video handling system, Oberg responds to these student videos from anywhere in the world he is playing. Andreas is offering his personal guidance and suggestions to all levels of players, creating a one-to-one learning experience that breaks the barrier of one?sided learning.

At his online guitar school, Oberg will teach many diverse styles of jazz, pop, fusion, and
blues to all levels of guitarists. As an additional specialty, Oberg teaches Europe’s contribution to the jazz lexicon, Gypsy jazz, the legacy of Django Reinhardt. “We are proud to have Andreas as our latest partner,” says David Butler, CEO of ArtistWorks. “He is a new kind of guitarist, a master musician who is embracing technology as a way to expand his reach and influence. He is destined to be one of history’s greatest guitarists and guitar proponents.” The Andreas Oberg Guitar Universe expects to launch late January or early February.

Andreas Oberg was born in Stockholm Sweden and is one of the famed “Benedetto Players and his most recent CD is “My Favorite Guitars” released by Resonance Records.

More info at www.andreasguitaruniverse.com