THE MAKING OF A GUITAR HERO

FIVE THINGS WE LEARNED ABOUT JOE BONAMASSA FROM THE NEW DOCUMENTARY GUITARMAN

1 HECOMESFROM A LONG LINE OF MUSICIANS

As he’s told us in the past, Joe was involved with guitars from a very young age thanks to his guitar shop owner father, Len Bonamassa, who gave Joe his first guitar at four years old. “We got him a Chiquita guitar – which is a shortened, scaled-down solid-body electric actually designed for airplane use,” Len explains in the documentary. “By the time he was five, he was playing chords and he never looked back.” But before that, his great grandfather Buddha was a respected trumpet player as was his grandfather Leonard Sr. – so it would be fair to say music was always in the blood.

2 IN EARLY GROUP BLOODLINE, HE FELT LIKE“ANOLDMAN

IN A KID’S BODY”

After opening for many a blues legend, it was time for Joe to make a career out of music – which is how he banded together with the sons of Miles Davis, Robby Krieger of The Doors and Berry Oakley from The Allman Bothers in Bloodline. It was, however, not meant to be. Joe’s strict work ethic wasn’t shared by the rest of the group, which is what led to their break-up after releasing only one album. “During that process there were a lot of fundamental differences between Joe, who was the guitar prodigy, and the ‘sons of’,” explains co-manager Roy Weisman. “All Joe wanted to do was play guitar and make music. The kids were a few years older, they wanted to have fun and didn’t want to work that hard.” 3 PRODUCER KEVIN SHIRLEY ENCOURAGED HIM TO INCORPORATE WORLD INFLUENCES Where do you go once you’ve headlined the Royal Albert Hall and cemented your stature as the king of modern blues? For Joe, it was now time to take the genre to new places. It was in fact Kevin Shirley who suggested recording 2010’s Black Rock on the Greek island of Santorini – where local musicians playing more exotic-sounding, lesser-known instruments were hired. The recordings led to his invitation to headline the renowned Montreux Jazz Festival.

4 IMPROVISATION IS KEY The only way to stay razor-sharp as a player is to continually throw yourself into the unexpected. As Kevin Shirley explains, a player as schooled as Joe sometimes needs to forget the homework and play straight from the heart. This is something they achieved by throwing solos at the guitar ace with no clue as to what mode or key to play in. “I’ll say, ‘Here we go Joe, it’s coming in two bars’, and he’s in!” laughs the producer. “I get him not thinking too much, he has to be reactive.”

5 EVEN SMOKIN’ JOE HAS HIS OFF-DAYS

By his own admission, the bluesman left a nine-week tour with supergroup Black Country Communion “with a high dose of burnout”. He didn’t even want to look at a guitar, – but sessions had been booked to complete Dust Bowl at The Village in Santa Monica. “I was blowing solos I could normally play in my sleep. That was the universe telling me I had taken on too much,” he admits.