Joe Bonamassa Interview (2010)

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Joe Bonamassa Interview (2010)
March 10, 2010
Rev. Keith A. Gordon
About.com

Blues-rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa is coming off one of his best years yet in 2009: his critically-acclaimed CD The Ballad of John Henry was released in February, and a career-making DVD, Live From The Royal Albert Hall, was released in October. Britain's Classic Rock magazine named Bonamassa its "Breakthrough Artist of the Year" for '09 and audiences in both Europe and the United States thrilled to the guitarist's scorching fretwork and dynamic performances.

It's hard to believe all that Bonamassa has accomplished during his career until one considers that the guitarist has been burning up the fretboard for some 20 years now. One of three talented teenage guitar wunderkinds - the others being Jonny Lang and Kenny Wayne Shepherd - to emerge from the long shadow of the legendary Stevie Ray Vaughan during the 1990s, Bonamassa didn't release his solo debut album until the year 2000. Since that time, Bonamassa has been more prolific than his peers, and has showed an ambition to improve his craft in every area. With the release of Black Rock, Bonamassa has taken another step towards cementing his growing legacy as one of the blues greatest young talents.
Bonamassa on Black Rock

Taking the album's name from the studio it was created in, Bonamassa recorded Black Rock in Santorini, Greece with a talented bunch of Greek musicians. "Originally our goal was to write and record half the record," says Bonamassa of his trip to Greece. "But we had such a nice stream of creativity over there that we ended up with the whole record. The whole thing for me was really great." Black Rock may be heavier than anything that Bonamassa has recorded previously, incorporating new ideas and lyrical themes without departing radically from the guitarist's trademark sound.

"It's more of a rock record than a blues record," says Bonamassa. "We're happy with the way that it came out. It has a raw, more youthful approach...I think that 'youthful' is the term that I'd use to describe it. We could have milked the John Henry thing forever, but for me, I wanted to make a statement, we weren't just resting on our laurels, that we were doing something that we're proud of, something new."
A Curious Choice of Cover Songs

Aside from Bonamassa's usual well-written original material, Black Rock includes a number of curious, and nicely performed cover songs. One of the biggest surprises is Bonamassa's take on Leonard Cohen's folk-rock classic "Bird On A Wire" (covered previously by everybody from Joe Cocker to Willie Nelson). "That was a song that I'd heard only three times, and said 'that's a good lyric, something I could really do something with,' so I kind of re-wrote it for me and my voice and I'm really happy with the way that it came out."

Another choice cover is that of John Hiatt's "I Know A Place." Says Bonamassa, "It's all about a good lyric...a good lyric saves all. John is a great lyricist and told a great story. I thought I could put my bits on there and give it a go..." While the guitarist's choice of Blind Boy Fuller's "Baby You Gotta Change Your Mind" may be at the opposite end of the blues spectrum that Bonamassa usually explores, he does a great job on Black Rock of re-creating Fuller's Piedmont blues guitar style.

"That was the last song that we recorded for the whole album," he says of the Fuller song. "We had maybe too much fun...we had a bunch of wine, a big bar-b-que cookout, recorded it as a campfire song." As for his unlikely choice of a Piedmont blues song, Bonamassa says "I'm like the Line 6 POD of guitar players...I could play anything if I had to. That was a fun track."
B.B. King's Night Life

One of the high points of Black Rock is the collaboration between Bonamassa and B.B. King on the classic Willie Nelson song "Night Life." King originally recorded the song for his 1967 album Blues Is King, and the two men revisit the tune here, swapping vocals and guitar licks in recreating the song. Blues guitar great King, Bonamassa's friend and mentor, eagerly agreed to perform on the album.

"I asked if he wanted to do a track with me and he graciously said 'yes' so we did it," says Bonamassa. "I've known him for 20 years, and he's the reason that we're having this conversation at the moment." Bonamassa first performed with King at the age of twelve, and found a champion in the unassuming blues legend. "It was very intimidating, it's always intimidating being around an icon of that stature," says Bonamassa of King. "He is such a nice guy, one of my favorite people in the world, and I have nothing but the highest respect for that man. He's one of my heroes. He defines the genre."
Continued Creative Growth

Black Rock not only displays a heavier rock sound, but also spotlights Bonamassa's continued creative growth as a singer, songwriter, and guitarist. "We have eleven albums out, so you do your best not to repeat yourself over and over again," he says. "The more albums you do, the more experience you get, and hopefully you grow. Some artists flourish; some artists, their best work is their first album. I like the fact that our later records have been getting better...for me, that's good sign. I really like making albums now, where before I kind of dreaded them."

When he's not recording or performing, what kind of music does Joe like to listen to during his "down time"? "Depends on the mood that I'm in," he says. "I could just as easily put on Son House as Iron Maiden, Freddie King or Black Sabbath...that kind of stuff." Is there any single musician that he would like to play with that he hasn't yet during his lengthy career? "If Jeff Beck asked me to sing blues songs with him, I probably wouldn't say 'no.' I checked a few people off my list last year...I got Steve Winwood, and Eric Clapton, that was a big thrill."
Black Country

Bonamassa has another trick up his sleeve for 2010 – the formation of a blues-rock supergroup! Bonamassa will provide guitar and vocals for the new band, and will be joined by bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple), drummer Jason Bonham (Led Zeppelin), and keyboardist Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater), all three talented solo performers with strong blues and rock backgrounds. They were going to call themselves Black Country, taking the name from the industrial area in England from which Bonham and Hughes both hail, until they found out that another band owns the name.

"I've known Glenn Hughes for about four years," says Bonamassa, "and we just wanted to do something fun so we decided to start a band. The whole reason for the band was so that we didn't make this cheesy, Bonahughes or Hughsamassa quick weekend blues records." The unnamed band has been in the studio with Bonamassa's long-time producer Kevin Shirley, who has also worked with the Black Crowes and Aerosmith, recording tracks for an album to be released in late-2010 or early 2011. The resulting album is going to be a rock record, "Very British in sound and inception, but just a straight rock record." (phone interview conducted on March 10, 2010)