Obvious influences like John Fahey and Michael Hedges come through in the coruscating brilliance of his technique, but he has also dedicated original compositions to Miles Davis, bassist Jaco Pastorius, and Allman Brothers guitarist Warren Haynes (who's also on the album). Many finger-style guitarists who've reached Johnson's level have settled for riff mongering: the ornamentation of their solos is admittedly impressive, but too often it's just tinsel scattered over the bare branches of a song. Language, however, suggests that Johnson wants to do more: a few of the tracks push toward an idiom in which the prestidigitation adds up to more than the sum of its parts, growing and evolving thematically. Jazz's reigning acoustic guitarist, Ralph Towner, epitomizes this style, and in fact Johnson shares Towner's gift for painting sonic landscapes with pointillistic splashes. So far" Johnson has only edged up to the line between folk-guitar virtuosity and jazz improvisation, but I suspect he'll straddle it soon enough.