Joe Bonamassa Talks Fender Strats and His New Album, 'Different Shades of Blue'

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“We had 10,000 people,” he says. “That’s what I call ‘proof of life.’ There’s always talk about the blues dying out, but it won’t. You just have to make it a little different. That’s where the Black Keys and Jack White have succeeded and I’ve failed. They’ve actually convinced college kids that they’re listening to hip music—but it’s just blues twisted a new way—while I’m playing for the college kid’s parents.”

That’s not entirely true. Bonamassa’s broadsword tone, conflagrant licks, dusted-soul singing and cinematic songs have sliced through the striations of demography with an efficiency unseen by any roots-based guitar slinger since Stevie Ray Vaughan. He’s a social-media darling who sells out auditoriums and amphitheaters in a flash. And despite putting out his own albums and DVDs, he’s hit Number One on the

There’s even an overture, signaling that something special is afoot, to set up the 10 original tunes. It’s an instrumental excerpt of Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)” that does justice to the original’s sharp-tooted Strat tones. Bonamassa keeps moving like a single-coil shark into “Oh Beautiful,” tastefully coloring his howling expressionist solo with a patina of phase shifter.

–era high-wattage humbucker clangor as it takes Bonamassa back to his beloved Les Pauls. By the time the 37-year-old guitar slinger steps up to solo in that tune, his tone has shifted to a sophisticated-but-brass-knuckled distillation of British blues blasters, ranging from Jimmy Page to David Gilmour, yet his phrasing is the unique blend of elongated melody and textural grit that has become Bonamassa’s own trademark. As

“Most blues guitar players don’t concentrate on singing and melodies. And forget about the bridge—the bridge doesn’t exist. They go straight for the solo. This was all about writing great songs and then playing solos that I believe in and that really speak for the songs, and putting it all on analog tape, which is great for warm lower and upper-midrange guitar tones and still has the right brightness and articulation.”

And Bonamassa’s guitars have never been more articulate, speaking throughout the tunes in big, clear, warm, perfectly burnished tones that covey the menu of joy, loss and hope in their lyrics. In part, that’s because he varied his usual Marshall, Dumble and Van Wheeldon Twinkleland amp diet for the sessions, adding new Dumbles—ultimately employing four Overdrive Specials—and, more important, a juicy main course of vintage Fenders including a 1965 Twin Reverb, a 1962 Vibroverb, a 1962 Deluxe, a 1958 Twin and a 1962 Reverb.

“Plus, every few years I feel like I need to throw a firecracker into my life, musically and otherwise,” he adds. “In the last year a lot has happened in my personal life, too. A relationship I was in for four years broke up, I moved house… I fear being complacent. If I feel like things are getting into a routine, I want them to be different. I need to keep improving and keep moving forward.”

was the increased presence of Stratocasters—a 1956 blonde Strat, a 1963 sunburst and a 1965 in Lake Placid Blue. “I know people associate me with the Les Paul, and I am a Les Paul guy to the bone,” Bonamassa says. “I love my vintage Les Pauls, I love my signature models with Gibson, and I think Gibson is making some of the best guitars they’ve ever made right now. But I also love the sound of a great Strat. To me, that classic Les Paul tone and that classic Strat sound cover pretty much everything I could ever want to play.”

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