Ah Via Musicom is Eric Johnson's platinum-selling third solo album, released in February 1990 (see 1990 in music).

Several of the songs on the album are dedicated to fellow guitarists. Johnson revealed in an interview with Guitar Player magazine in March 1990 that the song "Steve's Boogie" is dedicated to Austin pedal steel guitarist Steve Hennig. Johnson also revealed in the same interview that the song "Song for George" is dedicated to an 80-year-old guitarist friend of his named George Washington. Additionally, "East Wes" is dedicated to jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery and is a take off on the name of the album East-West by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

A 5.1 DVD Audio version of Ah Via Musicom was released in 2002 from Capitol Records without Johnson's input, but was soon dropped. Johnson apologized to fans on his website for the DVD Audio release.

Eric Johnson commented in the September 2005 issue of Guitar Player magazine that the 5.1 DVD Audio version of "Ah Via Musicom" is in the works, but at this time there is no release date.

Eric Johnson (born August 17, 1954) is an American musician, songwriter, and vocalist from Austin, Texas. Best known for his electric guitar skills, Johnson is also a highly proficient acoustic, lap steel, resonator, and bass guitarist as well as an accomplished pianist and vocalist.

Johnson has mastered a wide array of musical genres evidenced by the many different styles incorporated in both his studio and live performances including rock, blues, jazz, fusion, soul, folk, New Age, classical, and country and western.

Guitar Player magazine has called Johnson "one of the most respected guitarists on the planet". Johnson's stylistic diversity and technical proficiency with the guitar have been praised by Bill Hicks. His 1990 platinum-selling, full-length album, Ah Via Musicom, produced the single, "Cliffs Of Dover", for which Johnson won the 1991 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

Born into a musically-inclined family, Johnson and his three sisters studied piano and his father was a whistling enthusiast. Johnson started learning the guitar at age 11 and rapidly began progressing through the music that would heavily influence his future style, including Eric Clapton, Mike Bloomfield, Chet Atkins, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Wes Montgomery, Jerry Reed, Bob Dylan and Django Reinhardt, among others. At the age of 15, he joined his first professional band—Mariani, a psychedelic rock group. In 1968, Johnson and the group recorded a demo, which saw extremely limited release; years later the recording became a prized collector's item.

Man are a rock band from South Wales whose style is a mixture of West Coast psychedelia, progressive rock, blues and country-rock. Formed in 1968 as a reincarnation of Welsh rock harmony group ‘’The Bystanders’’, Man are renowned for the extended jams in their live performances, and having had numerous line up changes.

Man evolved out of The Bystanders, a successful close harmony pop group from Merthyr Tydfil who played numerous club residencies in Wales, often playing several clubs a night. The Bystanders issued eight singles, including "98.6" (#45 in UK Singles Chart, in February 1967) which featured in the 2009 film, The Boat That Rocked (although Keith's version was the bigger hit, reaching #24 in the UK) and "When Jesamine Goes", written by their manager Ronnie Scott and Marty Wilde under the pseudonyms of Frere Manston and Jack Gellar, which was later covered by The Casuals as "Jesamine" and got to #2 in the UK Chart. They also recorded sessions of cover versions for the BBC as rules restricting needle time required "live" performances between the records during the 1960s; becoming regulars on the ’’Jimmy Young Show’’, "The David Symonds Show" and others.