Tommy Emmanuel CGP

Andy Timmons

As guitarist for pop-metal band Danger Danger, he toured the world opening for Kiss and Alice Cooper, sold over a million records worldwide, and had two #1 videos on MTV, plus amassing a discography that includes 7 solo releases that range from blazing guitar instrumentals, to blues, and even a Beatles/Elvis Costello-inspired collection of pop tunes.

As a session player, he’s been highly featured on CDs by drumming legend Simon Phillips, a live CD with Olivia Newton-John (Andy has been her music director/guitarist for several U.S. tours), two internationally acclaimed CDs by Kip Winger, recording sessions for Paula Abdul, Paul Stanley, and countless radio and television jingles. He has also played alongside many of his heroes such as Steve Vai and Joe Satriani (as a regular guest on their G3 tours in Dallas), Eric Johnson, Steve Morse, Mike Stern, Ace Frehley, Ted Nugent, and Pierre Bensusan, as well as some of his fave ’60’s singing stars such as the Beach Boys, Lesley Gore, and Gordon Waller (of Peter and Gordon fame!)

Andy’s musical career began in his hometown of Evansville, Indiana at the age of 13 with his first band, Taylor Bay. “Early on, I realized that making it in a rock band was such a long-shot, that I better figure out other ways of making a living playing guitar. I began reading about players like Steve Lukather and Larry Carlton who made their living as session musicians. This really appealed to me, since I really loved a wide variety of musical styles.”

The decision to pursue the studio scene led him to more serious music studies. He studied classical guitar for two years before moving to Miami to study jazz guitar at the University of Miami (largely because the Dixie Dregs, Pat Metheny, and Jaco Pastorius had all gone there). He eventually ended up in Dallas where he was very fortunate to get a foot in the door of a very good studio scene. In 1988, the Andy Timmons band was formed and he quickly gained a following in Texas. Around that time, Epic recording artists Danger Danger recruited him to finish their debut record, film several videos, and begin touring.

After 4 years in New York with Danger Danger, Andy returned to Dallas in 1993 to resume his studio career and the Andy Timmons Band. His first solo release, ear X-tacy, was released in 1994 to critical acclaim followed 1997’s ear X-tacy 2. He then released Pawn Kings (1997), Orange Swirl (1998), The Spoken and the Unspoken (1999), and And-thology 1 & 2 (2000). In 2001 Andy signed with Favored Nations and released his first international record, That Was Then, This is Now, a compliation of the first two ear X-tacy records and and five new tracks. Resolution (2006) marks Andy’s first full-length new release for Favored Nations.

Andy has been consistently voted a “Top 20 Favorite Guitarist” in most of Japan’s rock music magazine’s reader polls, as well as being voted “Musician of the Year” four years in a row in the acclaimed Dallas Observer Music Awards. He also has become one of the most respected and sought after clinicians representing Ibanez Guitars, touring the world on their behalf.

Clive Carroll

Heaven McCoury

Heaven McCoury is an emerging guitarist and vocalist from the renowned McCoury bluegrass family. The son of mandolinist Ronnie McCoury and grandson of bluegrass legend Del McCoury, he represents the genre’s next generation. Known for his versatility on both acoustic and electric guitar, McCoury has performed with the Del McCoury Band and The Travelin’ McCourys, earning praise for his accomplished flatpicking and blues-infused style. He has also contributed guest guitar work on recordings and leads his own R&B/soul/funk/pop project, The Broomestix, showcasing a musical range that extends beyond traditional bluegrass.

Jaime Hanna

Jaime Hanna has been at the forefront of country music for over 25 years. After graduating from Belmont University in Nashville, TN, Jaime put his focus into performance and songwriting. He signed with EMI Music Publishing writing hits for major Nashville artists, and he joined The Mavericks as a vocalist and guitar player touring the world. Though songwriting was Jaime’s focus, his undeniable abilities as a performer attracted much attention and was signed as an artist with Dreamworks Music.

During his time with Dreamworks, Jaime and his cousin, Jonathan McEuen, released a self-titled album, Hanna/McEuen, and toured extensively with the biggest country stars of the 2000’s. In 2006, he accepted an offer to tour and write with country superstar Gary Allan. After 12-years of creating and performing as Allan’s right hand man, Jaime was presented with an opportunity he couldn’t say no to.

In 2018, Jaime joined his father, Jeff Hanna, as a member of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, singing and playing lead guitar with the band he grew up surrounded by. Music is a family tradition for many, but it is rare for a father and son to represent such a recognizable and influential group. With nearly six decades under their belt, NGDB remains an undeniable presence in country music and continues to record and perform around the world.

Jaime’s passion for writing, recording, and performing has ensured his place of importance in country music, a true musician’s musician and singer’s singer. Will the circle be unbroken? For Jaime Hanna, the circle continues.

John Knowles CGP

John Knowles has worked with the world’s finest fingerstyle and classical guitarists including Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed, Lenny Breau, Tommy Emmanuel and the Romero Family. John’s Gorilla Song (co-written with his son Jay) is an international hit with recordings by Raffi and XUXA.

John is a highly regarded teacher, known for his publications and workshops including a recent Artist Residency at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Thousands of guitarists around the world are learning from his publications including his FingerStyle Quarterly.

John’s work has won a Grammy and two Emmy nominations. In 1996, Chet Atkins awarded John the first Honorary CGP (Certified Guitar Player) degree and in 2004, John was inducted into the National Thumb Picker’s Hall of Fame for the second time. John earned his PhD in physics from Texas Christian University in 1968.

“When I lead a workshop, I bring a tune or two we can all learn, but I especially enjoy hearing what other players are working on… their arrangements or compositions. As we work together, I look for ways to share what I’ve learned… and how I work. We have so much to learn from each other.

Trey Hensley

Keeping true to the roots of country music is not only a lovely sentiment of nostalgia, but a necessity for the growth of an artist…and staying true to the roots just comes naturally for Trey Hensley. After picking up a guitar at the age of 10, he quickly took the bluegrass world by storm —even performing on the Grand Ole Opry when he was 11. Through the years, Trey has had the opportunity to perform with the likes of Marty Stuart, Earl Scruggs, Johnny and June Carter Cash, Charlie Daniels, Steve Wariner, The Oak Ridge Boys, Ricky Skaggs, Blue Highway, J.D. Crowe and many others and Trey has opened shows for Marty Stuart, President George W. Bush, Former First Lady Laura Bush, Dick Cheney, Charlie Daniels, Peter Frampton, Alabama front-man Randy Owen, Sara Evans and others.

In the Fall of 2012, Trey had the opportunity to sing a “scratch vocal” on a song in the studio for legendary Bluegrass super group Blue Highway. The group ended up liking the vocal so much that they left Trey’s vocal on the finished product. The album, titled “The Game”, was released January, 2014 with Trey Hensley as a special guest on the song ‘My Last Day in the Mine’. In reference to Trey’s vocal on the song, Tim Stafford of Blue Highway said,

“It’s one take, live from the control room. That tells you how good this guy is!”

In the Summer of 2013, Trey relocated to Nashville, TN and started playing on a regular basis with IBMA’s 15-time “Dobro Player of the Year”, Rob Ickes. In the Fall of 2013, Trey and Rob decided to go work on an a duo album together. The outcomes of those recording sessions have turned into a new album, titled “Before the Sun Goes Down” due for release in January 2015. The duo has recently been signed to Compass Records in Nashville, TN and will start working on the second album sometime in 2015. “Before the Sun Goes Down” features new material from Trey, Bobby Starnes and Barry Ricks as well as a few standard covers and several more obscure covers from artists as diverse as Jimmy Martin, Merle Haggard and Bob Wills to Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Marty Stuart recently said this about Trey:

“I first met Trey Hensley at a concert in East Tennessee when his guitar was almost bigger than he was. He played me his version of “Jimmy Brown the Newsboy” by the Carter Family that night and I instantly became his fan. As a musician, singer and songwriter, I’ve watched him evolve since that first meeting, but the one thing that has never changed is Trey’s authenticity. It’s one of his God-given virtues. In the ever changing world of country music, it’s comforting to know that the real deal still exists. I’m counting on Trey to keep the voice of the mountains alive because mountain boys always have something to say that’s worthy of a listen.”

Eric Johnson

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 set out for a 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”.

Jimmie Vaughan

When it comes to the blues today, there are a handful of guiding lights to make sure the music stays true to its powerful source. The sound of pleasure and pain that first sparked musicians to create such a sound is a force that can never be underestimated. The mojo has to be there. For Jimmie Vaughan, he’s dedicated his life to making sure the blues not only stays alive, but remains full of life and an inspiration to all who listen. It’s a spirit he holds close to him, and for over 50 years of holding the blues close inside him, Vaughan isn’t about to stop now.

Jimmie Vaughan’s new album, BABY, PLEASE COME HOME, is a rolling and righteous celebration of everything the blues can be. The songs can go up, down, sideways and even off in their own distinctive direction, but one thing is certain, each and every one of them is packed with pure feeling and striking originality. That’s because while the blues is almost as old as America itself, every time a musician lends their soul to living inside these songs, something new comes out. There is a constant reinvention for musicians like Vaughan, because the blues demands it. There can be nothing less than a revelation, because that’s how the music stays alive. It is almost like an alchemy exists, where instruments and voice join together to make a joyful noise. And above all else the blues, in the capable of hands of Vaughan and his musical cohorts, is a path to salvation. One that is birthed in the ability of songs to make life on earth a better place to be.

Sometimes it takes decades to finally arrive at a place called home. When a young player starts out as a teenager to find a spot to call his own, there can be enough twists and turns to throw even the most dedicated of souls off the mark. Life can be a tricky endeavor, and between the bright lights and the dark nights, that road ahead can be full of false starts and deceiving roadblocks. But on BABY, PLEASE COME HOME Jimmie Vaughan proves without doubt all his efforts and energy have taken him to the promised land. Maybe that’s because blues is really the art of distillation, seeking the sound where there are no extraneous notes, or unnecessary additions to the feeling of freedom. It takes years to get there, and patience is most definitely a virtue. Above all else, feeling is the most important element of all. With that, all else can be conquered.

“Playing what you feel has always been my main goal,” Vaughan says. Considering the Texas guitarist and singer has had the kind of career that makes him a living legacy, those are no idle words. His first group when he was starting high school played Dallas’ Hob Knob Lounge six nights a week, learning the kind of lessons that can’t be taught. They have to be lived. Other bands in the ’60s convinced the young man it was time to find a way to play the music he felt the strongest about: the blues, That took him to hitchhiking to Austin in the early ’70s and carving out a new crew of blues players who shared his musical excitement. Jimmie Vaughan started in the lead, and has remained there. After worldwide success with the Fabulous Thunderbirds during the ’80s, it came time to leave that band and build his own path in exploring different approaches to the blues. He did not hesitate. And what Vaughan discovered was that he could take it anywhere; there were no boundaries. “I wanted to find out what I could really do,” he says, “and when I started singing it gave me a whole new side to explore. When I was young I didn’t really pay much attention to categories of music. I just heard what I liked and decided to explore that. And that’s really what I’m still doing.”

For the past few years, Jimmie Vaughan has been recording a series of albums dedicated to the songs he’s always held in high esteem, recorded by artists that inspired him from his very earliest days of performing. The sessions have been held in studios near Austin, and he was surrounded by fellow musicians who understand that music is intended to ignite the heart and fill the soul. There can be no shortcuts or sleight-of-hand when playing these songs. They come from writers and performers who responsible for so much of modern popular musics, some well known but many are other who are still names not known outside the blues world. On BABY, PLEASE COME HOME, some of those original artists are Lloyd Price, Jimmy Donley, Lefty Frizell, Richard Berry, Chuck Willis, Bill Doggett, T-Bone Walker, Etta James, Fats Domino, Gatemouth Brown and Jimmy Reed. In so many ways, this is a list of some of the prime purveyors of America’s greatest music. That it can range from seminal bluesmen like Jimmy Reed to one of the founding father of modern country music Lefty Frizell proves the point that Vaughan has always believed: music is not about what it is labeled, but rather how it makes the listener feel. On BABY, PLEASE COME HOME, those feelings are played to the hilt by some of Jimmie Vaughan’s long-standing A-team, including George Rains, Billy Pitman, Ronnie James, Mike Flanigin, Doug James, Greg Piccolo, Al Gomez, Kaz Kazonoff, T. Jarred Bonta, John Mills and Randy Zimmerman. They are joined by guest vocalists Georgia Bramhall and Emily Gimble.

These sessions, mostly held at San Marcos, Texas’ Fire Station studio, were the kind of recordings that are based on musicians who have been playing this music for decades. They’ve come to have a near-silent style of communication, where a look or a smile communicates much more than words ever could. As bandleader, singer and guitarist, Jimmie Vaughan is a master of how everything is captured for posterity. His singing voice has grown into a study in strength. And while sometimes he might say, “Sometimes you can sing and sometimes you can’t,” like everything else the Texan touches, Vaughan knows when it’s right and never stops until it is. He has always looked to his soul as the ultimate barometer of when the music is right, and when that is satisfied Vaughan knows he has found that spot where the music is ready to be shared.

The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards once said, “The blues. It’s probably the most important thing America has ever given the world.” To which Jimmie Vaughan would likely add, “Amen.”