Triple Whammy
It’s a feast for guitar lovers, as Joe Bonamassa, Slash and Paul Gilbert all have new solo records out this month
New guitar records are tumbling all around us like Autumn leaves, as three of the world’s top players release their new albums in September. First up, and out now, is Paul Gilbert’s new solo record, Stone Pushing Uphill Man. The Mr Big guitarist’s 12th solo offering is a mix of inspiring covers and originals; the album is all-instrumental, save for the gospelflavoured title track, and is as diverse as it is packed with lead-guitar thrills. Talking about his cover of Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, for example, Gilbert told MusicRadar: “I really felt that, for my purposes, the song needed some kind of guitar solo. I wrote a part that’s sort of a Van Halen-y version at the end of Bold As Love by Hendrix, and I just played as angrily as I could over it while still navigating through the chord changes.”
Meanwhile, Slash is back on 15 September with his second solo album featuring Myles Kennedy And The Conspirators. World On Fire finds the Cat In The Hat on blistering form, and he told Guitarist: “The creative flow of making the record was nothing short of remarkable. We focused for the entire recording and it was almost effortless.” See issue 259 of Total Guitar for a full interview about the making of the record.
Finally, Joe Bonamassa’s latest, Different Shades Of Blue (out 23 September) is packed with edge-ofthe-seat blues playing, and even features Strat sounds among Joe’s usual retinue of to-die-for Gibsons – the recording session even featured four Dumbles! He told Guitarist magazine: “I’ve always been that maverick guy who’s got a very liberal view of what blues is… And that’s the way I’ve always played, writing some stuff that’s in the genre, some stuff that’s not in the genre, and some stuff in-between.”