“Joe was great at making me comfortable – he’s such a nice guy”: When Matteo Mancuso jammed with Joe Bonamassa

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2024 Year in Review: The Sicilian guitar great joined the blues maestro for one of the year’s fieriest fretboard face-offs

Matteo Mancuso (left) and Joe Bonamassa: the Sicilian virtuoso wears a red hoodie and plays his Yamaha Revstar; Bonamassa wears his blue suit and hits a sore note on a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard.
(Image credit: Scott Dudelson/Getty Images; Gary Miller/Getty Images)

2024 Year in Review: Sicilian virtuoso Matteo Mancuso made an appearance with Joe Bonamassa and his band in April, guesting on Breaking Up Somebody’s Home to a delighted crowd in Berlin.

JoBo laughingly shrugged at the notion of trying to keep up with the whiz kid on stage with him and had been kind enough to give him a pep talk before the performance.

“Joe was great at making me comfortable – he’s such a nice guy,” Mancuso told us a few months after, while also giving us the background on his latest track, Paul Position.

Joe Bonamassa & Matteo Mancuso - Breaking Up Somebody's Home - Berlin am 18.04.2024 - YouTube Joe Bonamassa & Matteo Mancuso - Breaking Up Somebody's Home - Berlin am 18.04.2024 - YouTube
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The new song had originally been composed as a demo for the Bacci baritone Mancuso had been using and ended up loosely serving as a tribute to Mr. Big/Racer X shred master Paul Gilbert, hence the name.

The guitarist was also quick to point out that his endorsement deal with Yamaha remains very much intact, and the Bacci partnership is exclusively for baritone models – which Yamaha no longer make.

Matteo Mancuso - Paul Position (Original) - YouTube Matteo Mancuso - Paul Position (Original) - YouTube
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Amit Sharma
Amit Sharma

Amit has been writing for titles like Total Guitar, MusicRadar and Guitar World for over a decade and counts Richie Kotzen, Guthrie Govan and Jeff Beck among his primary influences as a guitar player. He's worked for magazines like Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Prog, Record Collector, Planet Rock, Rhythm and Bass Player, as well as newspapers like Metro and The Independent, interviewing everyone from Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy to Slash and Jimmy Page, and once even traded solos with a member of Slayer on a track released internationally. As a session guitarist, he's played alongside members of Judas Priest and Uriah Heep in London ensemble Metalworks, as well as handled lead guitars for legends like Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols, The Faces) and Stu Hamm (Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, G3).

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