Joe Bonamassa owns a collection of electric guitars with long, unusual histories. Among them is Terry Reid’s heavily modified 1952 Fender Telecaster, an instrument whose discovery he called “one of the greatest guitar safaris of my life.”

Reid was a British singer, guitarist and songwriter who emerged in the 1960s U.K. rock scene. Widely respected by his peers, he was Jimmy Page’s first choice to sing in Led Zeppelin before he declined and recommended Robert Plant for the job.

He went on to build a solo career that included acclaimed albums such as Seed of Memory and River, the latter of which featured guitarist David Lindley. Reid remained a cult figure in British rock up to his death on August 4, 2025, at the age of 75, from complications related to cancer.

As Bonamassa explains, Reid purchased the Telecaster in Chicago, circa 1968, while he was the support act for Cream’s final U.S. tour. When the neck pickup died during that tour, he had it replaced with a humbucker at Manny’s on New York City’s 48th Street Music Row.

The opportunity to buy his hero’s guitar arose in the summer of 2014 when Bonamassa received a call from a guitar dealer he knows, who asked if he had any interest in buying Reid’s guitar.

“I told him that of course I would love to own it,” Bonamassa said, “but even more so, if nothing else, just to meet the guy who gave a young David Lindley one of his first professional gigs.”

They agreed on a price, but when calls to Reid went unanswered for several days, Bonamassa figured the opportunity had passed.

Coincidentally, that same evening he received a message from a friend on Facebook asking if he was interested in Reid’s guitar.

“I replied, ‘Yes, but he can’t be reached so I guess it’s not available,’” Bonamassa recalled. “Long story short, my friend responded with Terry’s cell phone number and, lo and behold, I was speaking to him within minutes. We set a time the next day for me to drive way out into the desert to meet him and check out the guitar.”

“The following day I set out in my car from Los Angeles to Palm Desert. When I left my house the temperature was 82 degrees — mind you, it is August. As I approached the freeway exit in Palm Desert, it was a balmy 112!”

“I find Terry’s house, knock on the door, and there he is — one of my musical heroes and a super nice guy. I say, ‘Is it always this hot?’ He replies, ‘Nah... it’s kind of cool today.’”

Over the next two hours, Reid shared stories of the road and photos of Jimi Hendrix. Bonamassa described it as “a glimpse into a time that I wish I had lived in: London in the late ’60s.”

Bonamassa noted that Reid was invited not only to join Led Zeppelin but also Deep Purple, “but he chose to follow his own musical path, something I respect a great deal.”

As the visit came to an end, Bonamassa said he began to question whether he should proceed with the purchase.

“As it came time to leave I realized just how attached he was to the guitar,” he explained. “So I told him that it will forever be at his disposal and it will always be his — I will just look after it for a while. I gave him a big hug and said goodbye. I’m honored to have it and even more honored to call him my friend.”

Bonamassa has since taken the guitar out on the road and often uses it to play the song “Slow Train,” as seen in this clip from his 2017 show at Red Rocks.

While Norman’s Rare Guitars has built its reputation as one of the world’s premier vintage guitar shops, Norman Harris’ influence extends far beyond buying and selling old instruments. For decades, he’s also used the store’s considerable reach to help young musicians find an audience.

That side of Harris’ legacy is highlighted in the recent documentary Norman’s Rare Guitars, which explores not only the store’s celebrity clientele and vintage electric and acoustic guitar treasures but also the musicians who’ve found exposure through its popular “Guitar of the Day” videos.

“The way he helps struggling artists that come through the store, like, ‘Hey, come play a song, we’ll put it on our YouTube channel,’” Joe Bonamassa says in the film.

“And you can sit on that sofa, and you can play, and they’ll put it out,” adds Malcolm McDowell. “It’s such an important place for a young musician to go and get a little exposure. He nurtures.”

A quick scroll through the store’s YouTube channel reveals countless young players showcasing everything from blues and country to rock and fingerstyle guitar. For many, the videos provided exposure they might not have found elsewhere.

“He’s finding musicians and bands that he thinks are worth breaking, sets them up in here, and makes them play,” actor Kiefer Sutherland says. “He’s actually making a difference.”

One musician who benefited directly from that exposure is slide guitarist ace Sarah Rogo, who later became a regular presenter on the channel.

“Norm’s platform definitely helped elevate my platform a lot,” she says. “With the YouTube algorithm, someone will punch in the name of a unique guitar, and Norman’s Rare Guitars is the first place that pops up, and they’ll see me playing the guitar. Billy Gibbons called the store one day and said, ‘Who’s that girl playing the resonator guitars?’”

But perhaps the most notable success story to emerge from the channel is Marcus King.

Mark Agnesi, who managed the store before joining Gibson, remembers filming a young King during a visit to the shop.

“I remember when he came into the store,” Agnesi recalls. “We start rolling the video, he starts playing, and then he opens his mouth and starts singing. It stopped you dead in your tracks; it was like, ‘Oh my god, I am watching the real deal right now, this kid is gonna have a serious career.’”

Agnesi’s prediction proved accurate. Since then, King has released seven albums, earned a Grammy nomination, and landed signature gear deals with Gibson and Orange.

“That video launched a career,” King says.

The clip eventually surpassed two million views, and Bonamassa was among those who took notice. According to Agnesi, Bonamassa’s reaction was simple: it wasn’t a question of whether King would make it, but when — and that time was already arriving.

As Harris puts it in the film, “giving back is very important.” Through Norman’s Rare Guitars, he’s done far more than connect players with vintage instruments; he’s helped connect promising musicians with the audiences they needed to reach.

Joe Bonamassa is counting on his fans' support as he issues a plea to help recover a score of instruments stolen from LA session musician Mason Stoops.

The guitarist, whose recent work includes recording gigs with Miley Cyrus, the American indie-pop singer-songwriter Sombr, and tours with Jackson Browne, is seeking to recover an extensive list of gear stolen from the back of a pickup truck in LA.

Posting on Instagram Stories on April 13), Stoops listed the missing gear, which includes two of his most prized picks: his “favorite” 1965 Fender Jazzmaster, which bears the Serial Number 110229, with neck stamp 40CT64Ba, and a 1961 Gretsch Corvette, which Stoops says is “mega rare and all original” save for one key change.

The ‘65 Jazzmaster also sports a custom shellac Snake-Fly Green finish, features a broken off-rhythm switch, and “a cute lil apple sticker” on the headstock. He says he used the guitar, which also has two P-90 pickups, “on nearly every record I've ever been part of over the last five plus years.”

The Corvette, meanwhile, was used exclusively on a recent tour with Mumford & Sons, and he’s detailed that there is a ‘Mason’ sticker located near the control knob. It also has an updated Fink Instruments bridge. It has the serial number 42736.

Neither the sticker nor the bridge features in the shared images. Thankfully, Fink has come up clutch with a photo of the modded bridge, shown below.

A 1970s Guyatone wah-fuzz pedal and a Highland Dynamics Delta 4-7 Mini Preamp were also stolen.

“Pretty please keep an eye out for these stolen guitars,” Stoops writes. “Last seen in Highland Park neighborhood, Los Angeles. Please contact me, Mason, if you see them anywhere. Thank you so much.”

Having seen his shoutout, Joe Bonamassa has been quick to call on his one million Instagram followers for help.

“Los Angeles! Let's help our friend Mason Stoops get his two beloved guitars back,” he says, his words a clarion call.

Readers with any information should contact Mason Stoops via Instagram.

The news comes two years after Paul Gilbert had four guitars stolen while on tour in Frankfurt. Sadly, none of those instruments were ever recovered.

Meanwhile, former Rolling Stone Mick Taylor has been left mystified after a 1959 Gibson Les Paul, stolen from him in 1972, re-emerged at auction last year, and former Wings sound engineer Ian Horne has recalled the moment he told Paul McCartney his historic Höfner bass had been stolen, as well as his surprising reaction.

Michael J. Fox also has a theory as to what happened to the Back to the Future guitar, and it's not pretty. The guitar hasn’t been seen since the film's shooting wrapped 40 years ago. Gibson has now hired the people responsible for reuniting McCartney with his beloved bass to help track down the ES-345.

It’s no secret that Joe Bonamassa has assembled one of the most formidable electric guitar collections in modern blues.

Over the years, the guitarist has acquired some remarkable pieces: Tommy Bolin’s Les Paul, Lowell George’s once-lost Dumble Super Overdrive, a “museum-grade” Martin acoustic and a small army of vintage Gibson Les Paul ’Bursts.

But when it comes to the purchase that means the most to him, Bonamassa doesn’t hesitate.

Speaking recently on the No Cover Charge podcast, the bluesman revealed that his favorite acquisition isn’t the rarest or most valuable guitar in his vault — it’s the one he dreamed about as a kid.

“My favorite purchase was the one that meant the most to me,” he says. “The Howard Reed Strat. That was the one that meant the most because I had that guitar on my wall when I was 10 years old.

“Some people had Farrah Fawcett — I had the Howard Reed Strat.”

Reed isn’t exactly a household name. The guitarist briefly played with Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps in the 1950s. But his Stratocaster occupies a unique place in Fender lore.

Finished in custom black by Fender, it stands apart from the standard Brown Sunburst Stratocasters offered at the time.

“I will definitely say it’s the first one with a factory black custom color finish,” Bonamassa told Guitar Player in our January 2024 issue. Reed ordered the guitar from McCord Music Company in Dallas in 1955. “There are three definitive pictures from the late ’50s of Howard Reed playing the guitar.”

Bonamassa finally acquired the instrument in 2011 — on a day he remembers vividly.

“I [bought it] the day that I played the Ryman for the first time,” he says, referring to Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium. “I couldn’t believe I was in the same room as it. I had a reasonable expectation of what a Strat weighs.”

What he discovered was unexpected.

The Reed Strat tips the scales at 10 pounds — roughly three pounds heavier than a typical Stratocaster. Decades of heavy use have also left their mark, including significant wear on the back where the finish has been rubbed away through years of playing.

“It’s heavy,” Bonamassa admits, “but it ultimately represents my journey in the music business more than any of the guitars I can pull out.”

The guitar’s significance goes back to Bonamassa’s childhood.

“It was a Guitar World centerfold and I still have the original poster,” he says. “I had it tacked on my wall, and I thought it was the coolest Strat on the planet. I never thought that [25] years later I’d be picking it up.”

Today the instrument has come full circle. Bonamassa has loaned the guitar to the museum at the Ryman, where it’s displayed as part of the venue’s tribute to Nashville’s musical legacy.

And while the Reed Strat may be the most meaningful guitar he owns, Bonamassa has recently been reflecting on his gear collection more broadly — sharing advice on the best way to mic a guitar amp and revealing how the Los Angeles wildfires prompted him to rethink his gear-hoarding habits.

Ironically, though, the guitarist who most shaped Bonamassa’s playing wasn’t known for a Strat at all. His biggest inspiration built his reputation with a Telecaster.

Considering he owns more amps than most players have lost guitar picks down the back of their couch, Joe Bonamassa is quite rightly something of an authority on amplifiers. And he believes too many players get one major thing wrong.

He knows the highs and lows of his tube-amp obsession all too well. Recently, he was left with acute hearing loss after an incident on the road, and says he has been forced to rethink the sheer scale of his vintage gear collection in the wake of the L.A. wildfire.

But then there’s the joy of tracking down Lowell George’s famed Dumble Super Overdrive after 15 years of searching, and the thrill of gigging with “the world’s most expensive three-channel amp.”

What all that amounts to is experience — and with it, the besuited bluesman has begun questioning why so many players take the same approach when it comes to mic’ing amplifiers.

“I have this thing — and here comes the clickbait — called the Full Sail flashlight,” he says during a recent appearance on the No Cover Charge podcast, referencing Full Sail University. “Tell me you went to Full Sail without telling me you went to Full Sail.

“Every time I see the flashlight coming out when someone's mic’ing the cab, I go [shakes head],” he continues. “Because whoever said that the best sound coming out of any speaker is dead center?”

Instead of a cut-and-paste formula, he believes players should break with tradition and trust their ears to “season to taste.”

“If the amp’s dark, you move it more inside,” he says. “But to start dead center is rough.”

As ever, Bonamassa’s analytical brain whirs away. He sees the value in understanding speaker cabinets on a practical, nuts-and-bolts level.

“All the high end’s coming out of there,” he says, referring to the center of the speaker cone. “So none of the bass response is coming out of the cone. You're not really hearing what this cabinet [itself] is doing, because that’s part of the bottom end.

“It’s about finding where the amp and the mic meet and represent the sound in your head. Putting a mic dead center of the cone is like plugging one ear and putting that ear to the middle of the cone.”

“There are so many links in the chain,” he adds as he winds toward his conclusion. “It starts with the guitar and the amp, and you get a good sound. But there are a lot of ways for that sound to go south if you don’t understand these little details. It shouldn’t be an accident. It should be a well-executed plan.”

Elsewhere, Bonamassa has reflected on the overlooked aspect of B.B. King’s playing, arguing that the blues legend was a true virtuoso, as he promotes his tribute album to the late great.

He has also spoken about the blues giant who made him the guitarist he is today, and says players should learn to read the room when it comes to standing out at jam sessions.

Is Joe Bonamassa finally winding down his guitar-collecting ways?

The guitarist has an enviable collection that includes hundreds of axes and amps. Among them are numerous original Gibson Les Paul ’bursts, rare Fender Strats in original custom colors and a mint 1958 Gibson Korina Flying V he purchased for more than $400,000.

There’s also his legendary "Skinnerburst" 1959 Les Paul, and Tommy Bolin’s 1960 "Bolin Burst" Les Paul. He reportedly has more than 1,000 instruments in Nerdville, his home/museum, including over 600 guitars.

But Bonamassa says he’s putting the brakes on his collection.

“As far as acquiring stuff, I’ve really slowed down, because there’s a saturation point,” he tells the No Cover Charge podcast. “I’d like to get to the stuff that I own and discover the sounds that I can get out of those pieces, before it just starts piling up and piling up and piling up.”

He says the turning point came in January 2025, when the Los Angeles wildfires threatened Nerdville. He was out having dinner when he learned the winds were driving the fires in the direction of his home, leading to an evacuation order that prompted him to grab his most valuable pieces.

Fortunately, his home wasn’t harmed, and the wildfires helped him gain perspective on what it means to own so many rare instruments.

“You never want to go into a situation … where you’re pulling out cases and have no recollection of when, where, or how you acquired it,” he says. “And it’s probably starting to get to that point”

“Obviously, you can’t evacuate everything, so you have to prioritize. And I thought about it for years. I said, ‘Well, if we gotta go, here’s what’s going.’ This being one of them, you know.

“Mr. Skinner [Bonamassa’s “Skinnerburst” Les Paul] has to come along.”

The guitarist also reveals that he often buys several pieces of gear at a time, which is why he tends to own so many similar and matching pairs of amps.

“Like, you notice there’s two [Marshall] JTM45s,” he says. “There’s three in here, and one in Nashville. So I’m usually ‘a pair and a spare.’ And if you look at the back wall, there’s a bunch of Blackface Fender amps, and Selmers behind you, and [Fender] Tweeds and everything.”

Bonamassa adds that maintaining a good poker face is a key part of his dealing. “I never telegraph anything,” he says. “You won’t know I’m interested until I’d be like, ‘I’ll take it,’ or, ‘I’ll cut you a check.’”

Of course he’ll be saying that a lot less now.

In related news, Bonamassa recently spoke about the most influential guitarists in his life and shared a key piece of soloing advice he got from electric guitar legend Leslie West.

Joe Bonamassa has little patience for the idea that B.B. King wasn’t a guitar virtuoso, and he’s making that clear at every opportunity.

The contemporary blues heavyweight is currently promoting Blues Summit 100, his new all-star tribute album to the architect of modern electric blues. One track pairs Bonamassa with Eric Clapton, and the choice was deliberate. In Bonamassa’s view, the song required not just technical skill but historical weight — and few carry more than Clapton when it comes to King’s legacy.

The project has also reignited a familiar debate guitar virtuosity. Bonamassa recently bristled at a journalist’s claim that King didn’t qualify — a puzzling assertion, given that the blues giant’s influence stretches from Clapton and Jimi Hendrix to more recent guitarists like Lenny Kravitz and even Grace Bowers.

That irritation surfaced again in a new interview with Classic Rock .

“When people say, ‘Oh, B.B. King doesn’t play much on guitar,’ I just can’t believe it,” Bonamassa said. “He’s one of the only guitarists you can identify with one note. And if you really listen, there’s a lot of jazz in his playing — Wes Montgomery, Charlie Christian, and of course T-Bone Walker.”

Bonamassa’s defense of King pushes back against a flashier, post-’70s notion of virtuosity. Wolfgang Van Halen once joked that his father “kind of ruined” the ’80s by raising the technical bar so high. After Van Halen’s success, speed became the currency of credibility, and the decade filled up with Eddie Van Halen acolytes attempting to set new speed records on the electric guitar.

King operated in a different universe. His brilliance lay in restraint: the placement of a single note, the curve of a phrase, and his unmistakable vibrato. For Bonamassa — who once took Leslie West’s advice to heart and learned to say more by playing less — that economy is exactly what defines true mastery.

“By the ’60s, his phrasing was completely his own,” Bonamassa said. “But the real thing was his time.— where he put the notes. He was never in a hurry. And every solo he played told a story.”

Bonamassa has recently pushed back against caricatures of his own playing, too, rejecting the notion that he’s confined to slow tempos. In a Guitar World column, he pointed out that he can unleash “blazing licks” when required. The difference, he suggests, is knowing when not to.

And that lesson, he says, came straight from King.

“Everything I do — and everything everybody does — tips its hat to B.B.,” Bonamassa said. “I opened for him hundreds of times. Our band would come out and be cooking for 20 minutes. Then he’d walk out with an ES-355, hit one vibrato, and instantly, you knew it was him.”

Bonamassa has since admitted that adopting King’s fondness for punishing stage volume proved costly, after he suffered hearing loss during a show late last year. Even so, the influence remains indelible.

As Paul Rodgers recently put it, reflecting on his friendship with Bonamassa, his guitar playing flows like “blinding liquid” — a modern expression of the guitar language B.B. King helped to create.

Few 21st century guitarists live and breathe the blues quite like Joe Bonamassa, but he says a rockabilly icon played a crucial role in shaping him into a more rounded musician.

By his own admission, Bonamassa’s musical worldview was singular when he first stepped out onto stages at 11 years of age. He was the blues to the bone. But when Danny Gatton took him under his wing, his world changed for the better, setting the pre-teen Bonamassa on the path he still treads today.

“I met him at the Silver Lake, New York Blues Festival. I was asked to play half a set with the first band, and I was just about to turn 12,” he tells Circle Country. “I was playing with the Cold Shot Blues Band, and I noticed a guy wearing a John Deere hat and some overalls watching me play. just thought it was somebody who worked at the sound company.”

It was Gatton, and he was impressed by what he saw and heard. After the show, he approached the young guitarist.

“He said, ‘Hey, kid, where'd you learn how to play?’ I said, ‘Well, my dad taught me.’ And he goes, ‘You want to see a cool Telecaster?’” Bonamassa recalls. “I was a guitar geek from birth, and he pulls out this ‘53 Tele. I had never seen anything like that.”

It was the start of a heartwarming friendship that showed Bonamassa musical worlds outside the gravitational pull of the blues. It started that day when young Joe watched Gatton’s set at Silver Lake.

“He starts playing, and my mind is blown from the first notes,” he recalls. “I've never heard anyone play American styles that seamlessly, and with real intent. Like, he learned everything. You're hearing Les Paul, and you're hearing Hank Garland. It was really a life-changing moment.

“And he mentored me,” he continues. “I just knew him as ‘Danny with the cool guitar’ who would call the house, and we would do these shows. We would play Johnny D’s in Boston, or the Cat Club in New York, and we would go out on the weekends or in the summer.

“He really set me off on a musical path that makes me the artist who I am today because I love all types of music, not just the blues. At the time I met him, I was just into the blues. That was it. And then after I met Danny, I was like, ‘Oh…’”

Gatton, known for his use of a Gibson ES-295 — alongside his beloved Teles, of course — was often regarded as one of the world's best under-the-radar players. He could even solo with a beer bottle and a towel. The teachings of the Humbler, as he was known, proved invaluable to Bonamassa — as did the rather cutting words of Leslie West when the pair met in the studio while Joe was in his early 20s.

Elsewhere, Bonamassa has revealed the unlikely circumstance that saw Eric Clapton play on his new B.B. King tribute album and hit back at a journalist who claimed that King wasn’t a virtuoso.

Over a 56-year recording career, Paul Rodgers has collected guitar players like a connoisseur collecting fine wines. They’re pulled in by the soulful power of his voice, and he embraces what the combination, and combustion, of that with their playing can do to a song.

Consider the company English-born Rodgers — a solid rhythm guitarist himself, as well as a pianist — has kept, starting with the late Paul Kossoff in Free between 1969 and 1973, the band that put both men on the rock and roll map.

After that he joined forces with Mott the Hoople’s Mick Ralphs in the recently minted Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group Bad Company, for six albums defined by brawny, muscular but still sophisticated hard rock that had few peers for success during the ’70s. (The new Can't Get Enough: A Tribute to Bad Company demonstrates the group's continuing influence, with Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke joining on tracks like "Shooting Star" and "Feel Like Makin' Love" with Halestorm, Blackberry Smoke and Def Leppard's Joe Elliott and Phil Collen.)

Then for his next trick? No less than Jimmy Page in the short-lived band the Firm, delivering a pair of powerhouse albums and Billboard Mainstream Rock chart toppers such as “Radioactive” and “All the King’s Horses.”

Rodgers went on to join forces with drummer Kenney Jones in the Law, then spent five years alongside Brian May in Queen + Paul Rodgers, another supergroup collaboration that brought May and drummer Roger Taylor back on the road and also yielded two live albums and 2008’s The Cosmos Rocks, the first Queen-related studio album since 1995’s Made In Heaven.

Rodgers maintained his impressive six-string relationships outside of his band affiliations, too, and through his seven solo albums — Jeff Beck, Joe Bonamassa, Steve Cropper and Slash among them.

“I don't really know the secret of how guitarists create their own unique sounds,” he tells us, “but I know a good guitar sound when I hear it.”

Here he shares some reflections about some of the best he’s worked with.

Paul Kossoff (Free)

“Koss was my friend and guitar player extraordinaire from before the formation of the band Free. We had met at a jam session. He came up onstage at a blues club in London, the Fickle Pickle, and blew me away with his powerful sound and his fluid electric guitar work. We played like we had been playing together for a long time, There was an instant rapport between us.

“His Gibson Les Paul was, as we used to say, ‘the bees’ knees.’ At the time, Eric Clapton was doing the Les Paul–Marshall stack thing and was playing at the Marquee just across town on Wardour Street in the West End.

The London music scene was referred to as experiencing a blues boom. The blues was the music we all listened to, the likes of B.B. King, Albert King, John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters.

“Paul was one of those instantly recognizable players. You could identify him from just a few notes or chords, as in the opening chords of ‘All Right Now.’ Such a full spectrum of sound — all the high tones and all the low, with just a hint of crunch. I think the uniqueness is in the fingers, but you have to have the right gear too, and Koss had one hell of a great sound, even to this day. He was my soulmate guitarist, and we were in sync musically. Sad we lost him when he was just 25. Such a tragedy.”

Mick Ralphs (Bad Company)

“We were ‘label buddies.’ Both our groups, Free and Mott the Hoople, signed to Chris Blackwell's Island Records. I would see Mick in the office on Bodine St., Notting Hill Gate. Then Mott the Hoople and my next band, Peace, toured the U.K. together. I got to know Mick and liked him as a person — always friendly and so funny.

“We started writing songs together, and songs being the lifeblood of any band, the songwriting turned into a band, Bad Company. He had ‘Can’t Get Enough;’ Mott's Ian Hunter did not feel it suited the band's style, so when Mick played it for me I told Mick that the song was a hit and that I would love to sing it — and we were off to the races on our first album.

“Mick was often, described as a nuts-and-bolts guitar player, but to me he was always so much more than that. Being both a brilliant songwriter and guitarist. One of the great things about his sound was that he was multi-dimensional.

“Take ‘Rock Steady’ or ‘Burning Sky’ or ‘Silver, Blue and Gold,’ and of course the unstoppable ‘Can’t Get Enough’ or ‘Movin’ On.’ If you picture each song or track and focus on the guitar, not just the part he chose to play but the actual sound, each song is a a one-off — never been done before or since. Although there have been lots of copycat attempts — which is the highest praise, I’m told.

“In each song his sound perfectly matched and enhanced the mood and atmosphere of the lyrics — dark, moody and mysterious ‘Electricland’ or the blatantly rock and roll ‘Preacher.’ To me he was, and will forever and always be extremely inspirational. I believe that Mick made Bad Company what it is with his unique and varied guitar sounds.

“I can’t say how he got the variety of sounds he did. They broke the mold when they made him. I’m so happy we learned about our Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction while he was still alive. He was very happy when he heard the news.”

Jimmy Page (The Firm)

“We kind of fell together after I had built a studio in my London home, with the help of a designer, Steve Hoyland, and made a solo album Cut Loose — coincidently the same name as the smash hit American movie at that time.

“But Jimmy and I got together in that studio and began to create music. It was a very mind-expanding, creative and exhilarating time for me. Jimmy would bring along music for me to write lyrics to; the first serious song was ‘Midnight Moonlight Lady,’ and his guitar layering on that is superb — a beautiful, introspective sensitive and deeply personal piece of music.

“I would bring songs along that I had written, like ‘Radioactive’ and ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed,’ and it was pure magic watching him add his signature touches. We weren’t together long — as agreed, two years — but we left our mark on the tapestry of the story that is rock and roll.”

Brian May (Queen)

“I always admired Queen from afar. They had such a good sound. Every word from Freddie and every note from the band was crystal clear.

“When I heard ‘I Want to Break Free,’ the guitar solo was mouth-watering — so good. When we played that song together live, I would always turn around from the end of our 30-foot thrust in the center of huge arenas and watch and listen. Every time it just blew me away.

“‘The Show Must Go On’ is another great song. The passion and commitment is breathtaking, and Brian’s guitar totally matched the incredible moments in that song. His sound burns and pierces the very heart of things. He played ‘All Right Now’, with his massive chord sound, banks of Vox AC30s hooked up together. He uses a six-pence, which is an old silver U.K. coin, for a plectrum, which gave the strings a metallic overtone. After a show the stage was littered with them.”

Jeff Beck

“Now, Jeff Beck took no prisoners. He was outstanding amongst outstanding guitar players, in a league of his very own out in the stratosphere.

“Don't believe me? Listen to ‘Shapes of Things’ with Rod Stewart. The solo on that recording can't fail to blow your gaskets. He was a towering monster on guitar. There's also a track he did in the same time period, the B-side of ‘Tallyman.’ Just listen and you will know what I'm talking about. Actual words fail me, he was just so gut wrenchingly awesome.

“In 2002, Jeff invited me to perform a couple songs with him in London at the Royal Festival Hall. Sharing the stage with him was an exhilarating experience and one that I will never forget. I remember touring with Jeff, Ann Wilson and Deborah Bonham in 2018. Jeff and I would, flip-flop: One night he would close the show, the next night I would close with my solo band. It was so surreal on the nights when he was closing to stand at the side of the stage with my wife, Cynthia and listen to Jeff. It was absolutely breathtaking.”

Steve Cropper

“Steve Cropper was a staple in my listening and learning curve. He followed the emotion of the song and was the gold standard by which I viewed every guitar player. His playing really moved me.

“Steve was a sensitive yet powerful member of Otis Redding’s band on the Otis Blue album, the first vinyl album I ever bought with my own hard-earned cash, and my first love in terms of music. I still have that album. Steve Cropper, Duck Dunne, Al Jackson and Booker T Jones — the core band on ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ — build it incredibly to a climax that moved me to tears, the band working with Otis to tear your heart out.

“And Steve is such a big part of that emotional climb, hitting just the right notes in just the right place — sometimes chordal, sometimes playing lead. He was very, very restrained, nothing flashy or extraordinary until required, as in ‘Rock Me Baby,’ which has such an incredible groove.

“And when he lets it loose on the solo — every note counts with Steve. I was blessed to work with him a few times, most recently in 2021 on his last solo album, Fire It Up. We cowrote a song together: ‘She's So Fine.’ He’s sadly missed, but his contribution to music will always be remembered and appreciated.”

Slash

“Slash played on ‘The Hunter,’ a Steve Cropper/Albert King song on my Tribute to Muddy Waters blues album in 1993, and gave the recording his own inimitable interpretation of the blues with a fiery solo and some outstanding rhythm guitar playing. I think Slash is influenced by all the right people, old-school and blues, with his powerful Les Paul and his Marshall stack. He has great stage presence, witnessed when he joined me and performed at Woodstock in 1994. He was ripping it up in the rain and sounding good with Andy Fraser on bass and Jason Bonham on drums.

“I invited him up for a jam when Queen and I played in Los Angeles at the Hollywood Bowl in 2005. The crowd loved it and so did I. Most recently we performed together as a tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd's Gary Rossington on the CMT Awards show. That same year I also sang on his latest album, Orgy of the Damned, on which Slash's guitar playing once again shines a light on the blues with his excellent sound and unique style, pure gold, raw and bluesy.”

Joe Bonamassa

“When I first met Joe, he told me that he was a huge Free fan, which impressed me, because most people in America are aware of Bad Company, not Free, other than ‘All Right Now.’ He had taken a deep dive into Free’s catalog, and the songs that he preferred weren’t the commercial songs, which intrigued me — songs like ‘Walk in my Shadow’ and ‘Fire and Water.’

“So when he asked me to join him at New York's Beacon Theatre in 2011 to record a live DVD, I accepted. And which songs did we decide to play? ‘Walk in My Shadow’ and ‘Fire and Water.’ Joe and his band were tight and nailed both songs. I really like his tone and sound and his phrasing is blinding liquid.

In 2024 Joe organized a tribute album to B.B. King, B.B. King's Blues Summit 100 [out February 6, 2026]. He asked me to record a track and I chose ‘The Night Life.’ I have always liked that track; the sentiment spoke to me. The next generation of guitar greats has arrived, and Joe is leading the way.”

For blues fans, Joe Bonamassa’s all-star tribute to the late, great B.B. King is one of the year’s most anticipated releases. But Bonamassa says his guitar hero — the one and only Eric Clapton — only came onboard after another guest artist insisted on his presence.

And as Bonamassa says, Clapton was one of the few guitarists he felt was capable of taking on the King's biggest hit.

Bonamassa has spearheaded the creation of B.B. King’s Blues Summit 100, with Buddy Guy, Susan Tedeschi, George Benson, Slash, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Gary Clarke Jr., and Warren Haynes all involved. It's a stunning cast list, and one fit for a king.

“Not many musicians represent the genre in which they succeed in quite like B.B. King,” Bonamassa says in a promo video for the album, which was announced on what would have been his 100th birthday. “No one else was doing a tribute record to him, [so this album] was a labor of love.”

A slew of singles have dropped so far, bringing together the old guard and those carrying the torch of the blues for a new generation. He tackles “Sweet Little Angel” with Buddy Guy, “Heartbreaker” with Trombone Shorty and Eric Gales, and “Don't You Want a Man Like Me” with Larkin Poe.

But the most exciting collaboration on the record won't be unleashed until the album's release on February 6. And it has an interesting backstory.

“We approached Chaka Khan about singing on the album, and she said, ‘I'll only sing on it if somebody like Eric Clapton plays the guitar,’” he recalls to Q104.3 New York. “I said, I think I can help you. Hold my beer.’”

Bonamassa has consistently cited Slowhand as his hero and had the “insane” honor of sharing a stage with him at the Royal Albert Hall. While he most likely had him on his wish list before his conversation with the “Ain't Nobody” singer, her request sealed the deal. He had to ask.

“We were lucky enough to get Eric to play the duet,” JoBo says.

For that matter, he believes the task of playing "The Thrill Is Gone" was one only a guitarist of great stature could execute.

“It's so iconic that anyone who dares to do it will be compared to B.B. and the original version, which is untouchable.

“You either need to have icons themselves do it, or you need to find an unsuspecting young artist that wants to do it, and you make them the sacrificial lamb. I don't want to do that! So we were very lucky that this all played out.”

It's unfathomable to think that the weight of JoBo's reputation didn't make the gig any more enticing for Clapton, and in doing so, it's a serious vote of confidence for the hard-working bluesman.

“He's my hero and the reason I play the way I play,” he writes on his website. “[He was] just one of those guys who plugs the guitar straight into an amp and it sounds like him.”

Suffice to say, them playing Clapton's take of Bobby Bland's “Further Up the Road” together in 2009 was a dream come true for the guitarist.

“I always apologize to Eric like, ‘Dude, you have no idea how much I've ripped from you,’” he joked with Rick Beato last year.

And in his Guitar World column discussing his Gibson years, before he turned to the Fender Strat, he wrote, “The hallmarks of Eric’s playing from this era are his exquisite finger vibrato and how perfectly in-tune his string bends are. The playing is fiery; the lines are emotionally powerful, and the melodic ideas and phrasing are perfect.”

That makes him the ideal man to cover “The Thrill Is Gone” and survive to tell the tale.

In related news, he recently challenged a journalist's definition of virtuoso when he didn't put B.B. King in that bracket. He has been forced to rethink his love of loud tube amps, having been diagnosed with hearing trauma after a show in Austin.

Modern blues icon Joe Bonamassa was forced to pull the plug on a recent live show after sustaining a hearing injury.

Thankfully, the guitarist’s November 23 show at the Shreveport Municipal Memorial Auditorium in Louisiana was the only date of his current run affected. The gig is set to be rescheduled.

Doctors diagnosed Bonamassa with Acute Acoustic Trauma and advised against the performance.

“Last night during the latter half of the Austin show, my right ear pretty much lost 80 percent of its high end,” the guitarist wrote in an Instagram post. He also emphasized that the injury was not the fault of the venue or crew.

“For audio folks, it approximately ranges from 600Hz to about 12k-ish,” he continues. “The advice the doctors, both local to Shreveport and my trusted/ legendary ENT Dr. Joseph Sugarman in Los Angeles, gave me was not to be around any loud noises until cleared to do so again.”

Discussing his current gig rig with Guitarist earlier this year, the bluesman expounded on his love of loud, which is likely the culprit for this minor, and probably humbling, setback.

“Everything is set as loud as it can go without collapsing,” he stated. “I am not subtle at all, and I do not subscribe to the ‘low volume sounds bigger’ method. I’ve got to move air.

“All my heroes played loud: Clapton played loud, Jimi Hendrix played loud. Everybody played loudly at one point. There’s a symbiotic relationship between volume and the guitar.”

However, Bonamassa didn’t use the opportunity to sit in a quiet room and let time, the great healer, do its thing. Instead, he hung out with the Telecaster Master.

“The silver lining was being able to spend a few low-volume, non-amplified, limited ‘right side hearing’ hours with a lifelong inspiration, friend and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Mr. James Burton, and his family in Shreveport this afternoon,” JoBo added, “He’s a national treasure and a world-class human being.”

Acute Acoustic Trauma, or ATT, is caused by noises typically exceeding 140 dB, which can damage the eardrum.

Eardrums, for the uninitiated, protect the middle and inner ear, while also transmitting signals to the brain via small vibrations. As was the case here, when damage occurs, hearing loss is a common side effect.

However, come November 26, Bonamassa was back on stage with his ludicrously expensive three-channel rig, and earplugs, in St. Louis, Missouri.

Before the show, he took to Instagram once more to say he “was 90% back to where I was before the 11th song in Austin,” adding a message for himself: “Turn your damn guitar amps down, Joseph! For years, I stubbornly refused to. Now, I'm a changed man.”

The rest of the tour is going ahead as planned.

Elsewhere, JoBo has said he was totally unprepared when he delivered his soon-to-be-viral Les Paul guitar lesson and recently challenged a journalist about the definition of what a virtuoso is, highlighting why B.B. King is a legend despite his lack of shredding.

Jeff Beck’s formative years were defined, predominantly, by his use of a Gibson Les Paul. But as he went from fresh-faced Yardbird to solo artist phenomenon, the Fender Stratocaster became his weapon of choice.

A recently resurfaced clip of him showcasing the Fender flagship axe’s versatility shows why he made the switch, and it has stark parallels with one of Joe Bonamassa’s viral guitar lessons.

The Yardburst LP, given a Custom Shop reissue in 2024, is a highly storied electric guitar. It was his go-to instrument during his Yardbird days, including his brief tandem with Jimmy Page, and has since been played by Lenny Kravitz's guitarist Craig Ross and Marcus King following the record-breaking auction of Beck’s gear last year.

When Beck teamed up with Beatles super producer George Martin for Blow by Blow, it was a peculiar and “cobbled together” Oxblood Les Paul that he coaxed his magic out of. But soon after that, he turned his back on Les Paul’s altogether.

After slamming Fenders as being “cheap in feel” during a Guitar Player interview in 1973, he countered it with, “You pick up a Les Paul and it's heavy and it really means something.” But, in his own words, Blow by Blow was the end of his Les Paul “fling.”

Speaking to Malcolm Gerrie on Sky Arts' "Jeff Beck Talks Music" in 2013, the avant-garde virtuoso preluded his glowing review of the Strat by addressing his lineage.

“I did play Les Pauls because, to be honest, I loved the way Eric [Clapton] sounded with [Cream],” he says. “You need the richness, and the Strat was too thin-sounding; the Tele was definitely too thin. The fatness of the Les Paul low-end was amazing.

“Then Jimmy [Page] came along and he almost had his fatter sound as Eric with the Strats, I thought ‘That's it.’”

Gerrie then asks him the eternal question: “What is it about the Fender Strat that you love so much?”

“Because it's endless color,” he replies, before mutating the guitar's voice in a myriad of ways, from snarling, overdriven bite to gentle, rolled off cleans, all achieved through manipulating its Tone and Volume controls.

“It's the same guitar,” he adds after showcasing the first two wildly different sounds before continuing the unfurl a range of different tones.

While the clip has its similarities with JoBo’s viral lesson, where he showcased the range of sounds one can get out of a Les Paul’s on-board controls, there are also similarities with the bluesman’s claim that the Strat is the “Swiss army knife of guitars.”

“You can do anything with a Stratocaster,” he explains to Guitarist. “I‘ve seen Strats perform all kinds of guitar music and flourish in that environment because of the third pickup.”

Beck, though late on the uptake, was prone to agree. He made the instrument sing like no one else.

Since his passing, Beck's Custom Shop Strat has ended up in the hands of John Mayer for a one-off performance, and Ritchie Blackmore has recently reflected on his genius, revealing that he wasn't always as positive-minded about his craftsmanship as his peers.

Meanwhile, Mick Rogers claims to own Beck's last-ever recording, but says there's one matter keeping it from being released.

In 2014, Joe Bonamassa was well-established, with 11 albums and one Grammy nomination under his belt. But his reputation as a gear connoisseur and teacher supreme wasn't quite on par until a viral lesson on the versatility of Les Pauls changed the narrative.

Reflecting on that video, which has 2.5 million views at the time of writing, 11 years later, the bluesman has revealed he was wholly unprepared for it. In fact, all he wanted was a martini and the chance to put his feet up after a grueling day.

“What stood between me and a martini was this 30-minute lesson,” he tells Tyler Larson and Jared James Nichols on the No Cover Charge podcast.

He was in at John Henry's, the famed gear hire warehouse in London, England, busy on the press trail for his Different Shades of Blue album. The record's release had been bolstered by his collaborative record with Beth Hart, Seesaw, scoring him his first of four Grammy nominations he’d had to this day.

His itinerary for the trip was exhausting. A chat with Guitarist magazine was the last task to check off. Or so he thought.

“We had a long day,” Bonamassa sighs. “I was there with my tour manager, Clay, and we're at John Henry's, and they're [Guitarist] like, ‘Okay, now that we're done with all this, we were promised a half-hour guitar lesson on camera.’ I'm like, ‘Nobody told me that.’”

That martini would have to wait a little while longer. Bonamassa opted to play ball.

“I go, ‘I could teach you everything I know in, like, 15 minutes, okay? I just can't teach you how to apply it. That's it's a personal thing,’” he continues. “But you know the feeling, of course, when you've checked out.

“So I quickly came up with something. I completely blagged the whole fucking thing. And then it was one of the first videos of mine that went viral.”

Having had a Dickey Betts Les Paul reissue plonked in his hands, and with an amp “way back” out of the way, he focused on the guitar he was holding. More specifically, he wanted to show viewers how to re-characterize the electric guitar’s voice by using its onboard controls. Or, as he charmingly calls it, the lesson was “the affirmation of how you don't know your own fucking instrument.”

“I said, ‘You realize that all of the sounds in your head can come out of this little thing right here.’ Forget these [strings/humbuckers] — it's how you tweak the knobs and how what you hear in here is being channelled through the guitar.

“What you have here is a plethora of sounds without having to plug into one pedal,” he says in the well-watched three-minute clip. “How? Well, you have your volumes, pickup selector, and the forgotten tone knob.”

He very quickly unfurls Eric Clapton's famous woman tone, followed by a mean Wes Montgomery impression, a “bright, clean sound,” and Johnny Winter/Freddie King–style guitar solo tones.

There's something about the pace with which he cranks through the gears here, clearly thinking about clocking off, that really accentuates his mastery of the Gibson singlecut. It also, as the lesson intends to, shows how diverse-sounding the instrument can be without looking to external sources for answers.

Yet, despite playing Les Pauls more often than any other model of guitar, he has recently hailed the Fender Stratocaster as the Swiss Army knife of guitars, outstripping the LP’s versatility.

He’s also given the backstory of one of his most obscure Les Pauls, Royal Albert, which he saved from 50 years of collecting dust under its previous owner’s staircase. The profit made on a guitar bought for £50 in 1967 is also outrageous.

But it wasn’t the Les Paul he placed above all others when picking which guitars to move away from his Nerdville home as the L.A. Wildfires closed in.

His lesson-giving days are far from over, either, as he tells Gibson, the days of mindless shredding are long gone, but adds that this one trick will always be a crowd pleaser.

Joe Bonamassa has urged his fellow guitar players to “read the room” when jamming with others, and how, in those moments, “a guitarist’s greatest asset” shouldn’t be ignored.

The guitarist has collaborated with Epiphone for the 13th time, recreating his “extremely rare” 1959 Les Paul Custom. Very few left its Kalamazoo factory that year with a Bigsby vibrato and twin humbuckers, and his, sourced from a little old lady in Pennsylvania, is one of them.

“The family didn't realize it was a very special, rare variant,” he says. “There's maybe 20 or less in existence.”

Speaking to Gibson Gear Guide’s Dinesh Lekhraj in a video to promote the sub-$1K electric guitar, Bonamassa was in highly quotable form, offering sage advice while simultaneously rallying against outdated rock-star attitudes.

“As a player, you’ve got to read the room,” he begins. “If you're getting called up [onstage] for a jam, or called up for one song, there shouldn't be a technical team in tow with a pedalboard the size of a Fiat. You don’t need an F1 pit crew for a three-minute jam.

“Just plug straight in, man,” he adds. “We're not making our careers here. Just use the volume and tone controls, and figure it out.”

Lekhraj responds by recalling Bonamassa’s attitude for these Epiphone promo shoots. He says Bonamassa plugs straight into an amp already in the room — in this case, a Mesa/Boogie combo — and quickly dials in a tone. He doesn’t get hung up on minor details.

“I think we get caught up in, ‘Is the tone right? Is the volume right?’” Lekhraj offers.

“Exactly,” Bonamassa concurs. “And if you want a Tube Screamer or something like that, great. Stick it on the amp and go.

“I’ve been onstage with five or more guitarists many times, and do you know what your greatest asset is? The volume control. When somebody's soloing and there are five guitar players, it shouldn't be on.

“Leave some space,” he continues, pausing for emphasis. “And then when they point to you, go for it. You wanna make music for music's sake and not your sake. The days of those Ralph Macchio and Steve Vai duels are long gone. It is so unappealing to watch that go down.

As ever, though, he has an exception to the rule.

“The only time I'll do it is when I get onstage with Eric Gales,” he confesses. “I'll do it, and it's fun because I love the man and we have such a mutual respect for one another. We both know we're going to get a black eye and a bloody nose. We're going for it, and the crowd loves it.

“But it serves a purpose because it’s a spectacle, it’s P.T. Barnum juggling a polar bear on a unicycle. But in other situations, you want to be respectful to your fellow players.”

Elsewhere, Bonamassa has revealed the unlikely origin story of one of his most prized Les Pauls, how he still lives by the advice he got from Leslie West in his younger days, and has recalled the pinch-me moment when Ozzy Osbourne asked to collaborate with him.

The new Epiphone Joe Bonamassa 1959 Les Paul Custom is available now for $999, and follows last year's hugely popular Copper Iridescent Les Paul Standard.

Greeny, the iconic 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard, has been owned by blues giants Peter Green and Gary Moore. Given its history, would it be any surprise if the guitar had landed in the storied guitar collection of another blues giant like Joe Bonamassa?

It could have happened. But as Bonamassa explains in a new interview with Guitar Interactive Magazine’s Jonathan Graham, he has no regrets things went the way they did.

Peter Green’s 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard is an icon among rock’s star-studded electric guitar universe. It's famed for its honky, out-of-phase tone on its middle pickup switch setting, the result of the neck pickup having been accidentally flipped during a repair, reversing the polarity of its magnets. The guitar featured in Green’s work with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers through to his years in Fleetwood Mac, where it was used on cuts like “Black Magic Woman” and “The Green Manalishi.”

He then sold it to Irish blues-rocker Gary Moore, a devoted follower of Green, who used the guitar throughout his career with Thin Lizzy and on his solo efforts, including his 1995 Green tribute, Blues for Greeny. The guitar took a beating during its time with Moore and suffered a headstock break in an automobile accident, which was subsequently repaired.

Although Moore loved the guitar, when financial troubles struck, he was forced to sell Greeny. Guitar dealer Phil Winfield purchased it and sold it, after which it changed hands before landing with Melvyn Franks, who consigned its sale to guitar dealer Richard Henry.

It was at this point Bonamassa had an opportunity to own Greeny. He had possession of it briefly when he used it to perform “Midnight Blues” at London’s Royal Albert Hall in March 2013. As he revealed in a 2023 social media post, he had a chance to buy the guitar that same year, but turned it down.

"Greeny wasn't for me,” he explains to Guitar Interactive. “Guitars let you know when they're for you. And — truth be told — I think that guitar ended up — one thousand percent without a doubt — with the person who loves it the most. That means more than anything else.

“Now, you're not going to find a bigger Peter Green fan than me, and you're not going to find a bigger Gary Moore fan than me. But at the time, how it was being presented to me was not the way I would want to remember that.”

Bonamassa doesn’t elaborate on how the guitar was being sold, and unfortunately he’s not pressed to provide more details. According to various rumors, he either didn’t like the headstock repair, the asking price was too high (some claim it was $6 million) or he was unhappy with the guitar’s sound. Joe confirms to Graham that the latter was not the issue.

“It sounded fine,” he says. “It was a Les Paul — and it quacked in the middle,” he says with a grin, referring to its out-of-phase pickup setting. “But, you know, give me five minutes and a screwdriver, I can make any Les Paul quack. You just flip the magnet. It's quacking.

“But that's the one, you know?”

As Joe makes clear, he has nothing but good vibes for Greeny’s owner, Kirk Hammett. As he wrote in the previously mentioned 2013 post, “It found its right home since then. Collecting is about what you love and what you are gonna do with it. PG's Les Paul gets played every night. I'm very happy for its current owner. And he is a friend and a hellava player.”

As Hammett has previously revealed, he was in London in 2014 when Richard Henry offered him a chance to add Greeny to his growing guitar collection. He played the guitar through a vintage Marshall Bluesbreaker combo and was wowed by what he heard.

“After about 30 seconds,” he says, “I thought to myself, ‘Wow, this is not your standard Les Paul…’ and I went to the middle position, because, you know, that’s the revered sound, and I started ripping out, and I thought to myself, ‘Holy shit, this is a total contradiction.’

“It sounded like an incredible Les Paul in the bridge position and in the neck position, but when you put it in the middle position it kind of sounded like a Strat through a 100-watt Marshall stack!”

Hammett, of course, became Greeny's third famous owner and has continued to give the iconic Les Paul workouts both onstage and in the studio. Bonamassa, meanwhile, has no regrets about taking a pass on it. Which only underscores what’s been said many times about guitar collecting: What you choose to own is as personal as how you play.

In the 1960s, John Mayall’s Bluebreakers became known as the crucible from which great guitar careers were born. In just four years’ time, Mayall’s group became the launchpad for Eric Colton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor, each of whom would, to varying degrees, leave their mark on rock in the years following their departure.

As a fellow blues guitarist, Joe Bonamassa appreciates Mayall’s importance to guitar’s pantheon of great players. And in an interview with CBS News 24/7, Bonamassa says he believes Ozzy Osbourne created a similar breeding ground for metal guitarists when he went solo in 1979.

“His selection of guitar players was kind of like the heavy metal version of what John Mayall was doing in the late ’60s with his band — finding Eric Clapton or hiring Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor,” he said

“When you talk about the great guitar players that played with Ozzy Osbourne — I mean Tony Iommi, obviously, in Black Sabbath, [but also] Brad Gillis, Jake E. Lee, Zakk Wylde, Randy Rhoads.

“So he always required someone on the guitar that was forward-thinking and hungry."

Bonamassa notes that, like Mayall, Ozzy was very aware of the guitar scene and what he needed to be able to compete in the current scene.

“I read a quote from Ozzy himself [where he said] he wanted someone who wanted to kick Eddie Van Halen's butt on guitar,” he says. “And that was a thing for him. And his music really required a very specialized guitarist because it was very simple music, but people like Zakk Wylde, they put their own stamp on it."

“People like Jake E. Lee and Randy Rhoads, you hear those songs and it would sound a lot different with somebody else playing the guitar. And that was him being a band leader and someone that really embraced the electric guitar as part of their composition.”

Bonamassa noted that his and Ozzy’s paths crossed in 2005 when he performed a cover of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” for Ozzy’s 2005 Prince of Darkness solo boxset. (It was subsequently released later that year on Osbourne’s album Under Cover.)

"it's always been one of the honors of my career to have played on an Ozzy Osbourne record. His legacy will live on. And the music that he made was so profound.

"And one of the things people, I think, overlook is he was a great singer. When you hear people try to cover his music, great singers trying to cover him, you realize how high a voice he had, how rich a voice he had, and he maintained that voice up until the very end. I mean, his last gig [at the Back to the Beginning], he sounded great a couple of weeks ago.”

Osbourne died July 22 just weeks after he and his former Black Sabbath bandmates performed their final show. In the days after, tributes were offered from across rock music’s spectrum, with words offered from his past guitarists.

Jake E. Lee shared the final text he received from Ozzy following the show, expressing his apologies for not having the tie to talk. He said he hoped they could catch up the next time Ozzy was in Los Angeles.

Similarly, Wylde said his final message from Ozzy was to say he was sorry for missing him at the show and sending him his love.

“He goes, ‘Thanks for everything.’ It was just us talking, saying, ‘I love you, buddy.’

“That was it.”

Before he even put out a single album, Joe Bonamassa received a key piece of soloing advice from blues-rock legend Leslie West.

But by his own admission, it took 30 years for him to put the tip into action. Now that he has, he says it’s elevated his live performances.

The guitarist recalls that he met West when the former Mountain guitarist made a guest appearance on a cover of Kenny Neal's "If Heartaches Were Nickels" on his 2000 debut studio album, A New Day Yesterday.

“He came to the studio in Ithaca, New York, when I was a kid working with [producer] Tom Dowd on what would be my first solo album,” Bonamassa says, setting the scene with Premier Guitar. “This was pre-production, and he guested on a track.

“And he, in that voice, goes: ‘You know, Joe, you’d be my favorite guitar player if you’d just divide by two.’ I’m like, ‘You mean half as many notes?’ He goes, ‘Right. Keep doing what you’re doing and divide by two.’”

It turns out he only half listened. He did indeed carry on what he was doing, but he wasn’t quite as eager to minimize his note count. Recently, though, he’s realized that West was onto something.

“I’ve noticed a change in my playing,” he extends. “Especially when I’m touring and we’re playing big venues over here, I’ve been using ‘divide by two.’ Every once in a while, you break through a frontier you didn’t even know you were gonna break through or didn’t even know existed.”

It's a nugget of wisdom he's also passed onto Jared James Nichols, albeit in a slightly more blunt manner. West was in a wheelchair at the time, around a year before his death, and Nichols was due to support his show at B.B. King's in New York.

“Leslie wheeled over and strapped on his guitar. We started jamming — it was really cool,” he recalls. “Finally, he stopped playing and looked at me, and serious as can be he said, ‘Slow the fuck down!’ He meant it.”

Another recent breakthrough, he says, has come from a renewed focus on the acoustic guitar. He tells Premier Guitar that, “for years, I would just say I’m an electric guitar player.” That, too, is starting to change.

It started when he bought a “museum-grade” 1941 Martin 000-45, which has since been reissued in what Bonamassa calls “the honor of a lifetime.” That sent him down a slippery slope.

“Right after that, I got a 1942 000-18 from my friend Jim Hauer in Dayton, Ohio, at Hauer Music. And once I had the neck set and it came back, I was like, ‘You know what? I get it now. I get the acoustic,” he continues. “I’ve played a bunch of herringbones and stuff, but I was so focused on electric that acoustics would all sound the same to me.

“And I’ve found that my accuracy on the electric has improved by embracing the acoustic. Especially in the studio, if I’m producing a record and I’m playing on it, my chordal accuracy is a lot better.”

His interview precedes the release of his 17th solo album, “Breakthrough” (July 18), which may or may not showcase his newfound note-dividing abilities, but it will certainly be different from its kin in other ways. And it’s put his songwriting under the microscope.

“I approached this album from the point of view that the world does not need another Joe Bonamassa record,” he professes. “That’s why we ended up with 20 songs, 10 of which we were like, ‘Yeah, I’ve heard that before.’ We tried to concentrate on things that I haven’t done before, but when you have 50 albums out, including the live stuff, before you even get to the side projects, it’s hard.

“I’m trying not to repeat myself, but not abandon ship,” he adds. “The only thing I’ve abandoned is the notion that anything I’ll do will be pop music. I’m a niche guy. I’m not looking to get invited to the Met Gala.

“You’ve got to come in with some sort of idea. A title is great because you can write something about that. A riff is like, ‘Okay, then what are we going to say?’ Then you’ve just got to have a conversation. You try to find a broader concept and try to make it something that’s personal to you that will also be personal to your audience.”

Elsewhere, Bonamassa has explained the unlikely story of his "Royal Albert" Les Paul that was locked under a staircase for 50 years and cost him $190,0000, and has praised the versatility of Stratocasters, likening them to Swiss army knives.

He's also offered players his best guitar-buying advice and rebuffed claims that picking the right amp for a gig has cost a fortune.

Sometimes Joe Bonamassa’s gear purchases make headlines. Remember his successful 15-year mission to track down and buy Lowell George's Dumble Overdrive Special? How about the time he held a séance with the late Tommy Bolin seeking permission to take ownership of his Les Paul?

Here's a much lower-profile purchase of his that you may not know about: his mint-condition Royal Albert Gibson Les Paul. The guitar came under Bonamassa's care after it spent half a century collecting dust beneath a staircase. Discovered by Mike Long at ATB Guitars, the axe has become one of Bonamassa's most cherished and intriguing buys.

And as you might expect; he's been playing the hell out of it.

“The story was that the [original owner] saw Cream in 1967, and wanted a Les Paul,” Bonamassa explains. “He found one for sale in the classified section of Melody Maker and bought it for about £50.”

It stayed with its owner for the rest of his life and upon his death went to his family. As it happened, they inherited quite the heirloom.

“Hs family brought it to Mike thinking it could be worth as much as £5,000 [about $6,800]. He was the one to tell them that, ‘No, it’s actually worth more than that.’

“It’s an early 1960, what they call a double-O because it still has the fat neck and the long neck tenon, like a ’59,” Bonamassa explains. “But they were made in 1960, and, generally, in that era, you see double whites and zebras [pickup bobbins]." Gibson had run out of black plastic in 1959, resulting in some guitars with two white bobbins and others with a mix of black and white, or "zebra.”

"So it makes sense,” Bonamassa says.

A 1960 Les Paul in such a pristine state meant the owner’s family was sitting on a goldmine.

But what really makes it rare is a modification that — unlike most — has increased its value.

As Bonamassa explains, the mod — an additional switch that's now disconnected — left him scratching his head.

“It was probably a phase switch, because they ran the wires through the pickup ring into the channel route and then to a volume pot,” he guesses, believing it could have been employed to channel the tonal quirks of Peter Green.

“I don’t think they knew what [a coil-tap] was back then,” he says with a laugh. “But it’s the original pickguard, and that switch has been on there for a long time. You can tell that.”

Astute readers may be left questioning the timeline at play here. If it was bought in 1967 and left neglected for 50 years after, the owner likely didn’t get much time to strum this six-string. Bonamassa reveals that Mike Long had come across it in 2022, some 55 years after its owner purchased it.

There are conflicting reports, it must be added, that the electric guitar faced a 25-year exile — half the figure bandied about by Bonamassa — which makes for a more convincing timeline.

But the essence of the story remains the same, and even if it had been hidden away for just five years, it’s a rare, exciting find.

When the guitar was brought to Long in 2022, he quickly met up with Bonamassa backstage at London’s Royal Albert Hall, where he played two nights in early May. After casting his gaze upon the quirky guitar, he snapped it up for a reported $190,000. Since then, it has, quite understandably, become one of JoBo’s most-prized and most-played Les Pauls.

It has, however, gone under the scalpel. The Bigsby was replaced with a more traditional TOM-style bridge, no doubt strung "the Jimmy Page" way, and he’s opted for some period-sensitive zebra humbuckers for good measure.

Yet, right now, Les Pauls are likely to be one of the last guitars on Bonamassa's mind. He’s currently in Ireland on the eve of three Rory Gallagher tribute shows in the late guitar hero’s hometown of Cork.

He may have called the shows “the biggest challenge of my musical life,” but he’s managed to sneak in some sightseeing – and gear buying – along the way. He’s visited the store where Rory Gallagher bought his $1.16 million Strat in 1963. He walked out with a sunburst Strat of his own, and he may yet play it while honoring Gallagher’s superlative talents. Time will tell.

More than 60 years after Rory Gallagher bought his infamous 1961 Fender Stratocaster from Crowley’s Music Store in Cork, Ireland, Joe Bonamassa has followed in his footsteps.

On the eve of three Rory Gallagher tribute shows in the city, he’s retraced his hero’s vital early steps and walked out of the store with a sunburst Strat of his own.

Gallagher's guitar was the first of its kind to arrive on Irish shores when he bought it. The instrument had been destined for another owner, but it was sold to Crowley’s after it came with a sunburst finish, rather than red finish the customer preferred. Gallagher bought the guitar on a finance deal in 1963 for £100.

The Strat quickly proved to be a workhorse electric guitar and bore the brunt of its toils. Its finish wore away through constant playing and Rory’s acidic sweat. Over the years he owned it, the guitar rarely left his side and has become an enigmatic symbol of his legacy.

Bonamassa paid a visit to Crowley’s in order to repeat Gallagher’s feat. Casual observers may question the purchase: Bonamassa said the Dumble amp he recently bought — his ninth since 2020 — would be his last big purchase as he looks to nip his GAS in the bud.

But this is a very different scenario.

Speaking about Gallagher's impact on his life with Guitarist ahead of the auction of his gear last year, Bonamassa said his world changed when his father presented him with the Rory's 1972 solo album, Live in Europe.

“Here's this guy,” he said, “with long hair, a flannel shirt, and he looked like he just came out of an auto factory playing some of the most gutbucket blues and rock you've ever heard.”

Bonamassa will play his three shows in honor of Gallagher at the Marquee in Cork, on July 1, 2, and 3. He’s called it “the biggest challenge of my musical life.” Consequently, he’s been getting a taste of the lands Gallagher called home in preparation.

Posting a photo of him standing alongside Crowley’s staff, Bonamassa says, “I've always wanted to buy a sunburst Fender Stratocaster from Crowley's Music Centre in Cork. Today I did.”

Included in the photo is Sheena Crowley, the daughter of the man who sold Rory Gallagher his legendary Strat all those years ago. Sheena had launched a GoFundMe campaign to keep the guitar in the city upon learning it was to be sold at auction.

Bonamassa opened his wallet to support the campaign, and although the guitar sold for $1.16 million and was consequently donated to the National Museum of Ireland, the €75,000 (approx $86,400) raised wasn’t wasted.

As confirmed in her recent interview with the Cork Independent, the funds were spent on acquiring other pieces of Gallagher’s musical history. They are now being displayed at a new permanent exhibition in Collins Barracks in Cork.

The tribute shows were the idea of Dónal, Rory’s younger brother and manager, but he says there will be caveats.

“When they reached out, I said, ‘You had me at hello,’” he tells Classic Rock. “Then I thought about it and went, Shit, what did I just sign up for?”

“We’ve put together a great band featuring [bass guitarist] Aongus Ralston, [keyboardist] Lachy Doley, and [drummer] Jeremy Stacey [whose credits include King Crimson and Sheryl Crow],” he adds.

“Before starting rehearsal, I told Dónal: ‘I’m not Rory; I don’t want to be a tribute act that replicates all the little glitches and mistakes. I’m going to be myself.’ And they said that’s exactly what they want. Having heard that, I could relax.”

Only two shows were originally slated, but a third date has been added due to overwhelming demand. As the above video shows, Bonamassa has given fans a glimpse into the Strats being used for the shows, and there are some heavy relics among the bunch.

Meanwhile, Bonamassa has offered his best amp-buying advice, believing “you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get a great sound.” Buying the right guitar, however, is a personal matter.

Before speaking with D.K. Harrell, we asked Joe Bonamassa if he had any thoughts he’d like to share on the fast-rising blues star. And indeed, he did. Via email, Bonamassa wrote:

"When I first heard D.K. Harrell, it brought me back to the best of those Alligator, Black Top and Bullseye 1980s blues labels," Bonamassa tells Guitar Player. "The likes of Lonnie Brooks, Albert Collins, Z.Z. Hill — all those great '80s blues artists who had a powerful combination of modern production, great songs, a great voice and great guitar playing. It's nice to see a young man embracing that era of blues.

“Our generation, even as we grew up on the blues of the '40s, '50s and '60s, saw the '80s as a really important chapter," the blues virtuoso continues. "People like Chris Kane, and the stuff B.B. King and Earl King were doing – so many great artists. D.K. Harrell is right up there with some of the greats, and I love that he's embracing that '80s blues influence, which is such a forgotten era of great music in the genre."

All of which left Harrell more or less verklempt.

“I'm shocked,” he says after taking a few seconds to absorb Bonamassa’s praise. “Honest, I'm very shocked, because for one, I didn't know Mr. Bonamassa even heard about me. He’s such a pillar of a musician and guitarist, when it comes to blues itself, and he’s such a great entertainer. I’m lost for words.”

He laughs, then says, “Hearing all that makes me even more nervous now to go on the blues cruise next year. I thank him kindly, and I'll make sure to thank him personally for the kind words.”

No doubt the two guitarists will have much to talk about, and B.B King is bound to be among the topics they’ll discuss. One doesn’t have to be a forensic scientist to spot King’s influence on Harrell: It’s there in his emotive vibrato and his economical phrasing (those single-note bends can last for days). It’s even there in his cool, classy stage presence — the Gibson ES-355 and the tasteful choice of suits call to mind a youthful B.B.

Harrell takes on the matter directly. “I am heavy, and yes, I’m heavily influenced by B.B. King,” he says. He recalls his one and only time meeting the blues legend during a concert. “I was 15 or 16, and I went up to the stage and screamed, ‘Mr. King! Mr. King!’ he says. “My hair was in a pompadour at the time, and I said, ‘I have my hair just like you in 1955! I want to be just like you when I grow up!’

“B.B. just laughed and said, ‘The old man has made some mistakes, but maybe I've done some things right. I want you to be the best you can be, and if you're going to be like me, that's okay. Always remember to be yourself while doing so.’ I said, ‘Okay.’”

Harrell’s debut album, 2023’s The Right Man, signaled the emergence of a promising young blues talent, and his upcoming follow-up, Talkin’ Heavy (his first for Alligator Records), is a major step forward. Containing all self-penned cuts such as the stomping lead single “Grown Now,” it’s the joyous sound of a one-man revival. Harrell’s vocals are smooth yet forceful, and his authoritative guitar work — stinging and soulful leads that serve as memorable songs within songs — hits the sweet spot every time.

“I want to grab people and make them feel good,” he says. “I think I’m growing as a lyricist, too. Blues songs don’t have to be sad to resonate.”

You’re okay with being called a traditionalist?

Sure, or a purist. I did a show this past weekend and a good friend of mine said, “D.K., the difference between you and several other contemporary blues artists is that you're a blues purist.” He said, “You care about that old sound that nobody's doing anymore unless they cover a song.”

I think that’s true. In my opinion, Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ and Bobby Rush and Buddy Guy are probably the only four I can name who are purists in the same way.

Have you encountered people who have called you a B.B. King clone?

Oh, of course. Here’s how I see it: Sam Cooke influenced two popular singers of color — Lou Rawls and Johnny Taylor. Then you have Mike Tyson, who looked up to Ali. We all have someone who influenced us. It’s not about wanting to be exactly like the person, but we want to be able to deliver what that person delivered in life. I’ve been called a B.B. King clone, a B.B. King copycat. I’m very proud of it.

You do wear it right on your sleeve.

I’m proud of it, yes.

And then there’s the matter of the kind of guitar you play…

It's a Gibson ES-355 TDSV, with the Varitone switch, so it’s not exactly the same guitar as Lucille.

In way ways did B.B.’s vibrato and his economy of style rub off on you?

Oh, it helps you cheat. You work smarter, not harder. And it’s been a big help. I can play a little bit of rhythm guitar. And I can’t lie: Because I’d had my nerve issue, my muscle memory has been affected a great deal.

Can you talk a bit about the nerve issue?

On February 28 of 2022, I woke up with pins and needles in my left hand. I went to work and thought it would go away, but it didn’t. I went to a clinic and they told me I was having a heart attack. Another doctor told me I was having a stroke, and then the third doctor did an X-ray and told me I had cervical radiculopathy, which is a pinched nerve in the neck.

Usually it can be decompressed through physical therapy, or you can have surgery. I didn’t want surgery, so I tried acupuncture. Didn't like that. I went to a chiropractor for months in 2022, but because of my slow performance at work, they put me on disability for a while. I couldn’t pay my bills and resigned from that job. I struggled to find another job and wound up homeless. I lived in my car. I've slept on floors of family members until they kicked me out. It’s been hard.

All I’m saying is, this style of playing has made it easier for me. On the outside, I might look like everything is okay — I’m playing the single-note phrases or doing vibrato — but I do have to struggle sometimes. I have days when it feels like all the blood has rushed to my fingers. If feels like they’re puffy and swollen, but they’re not. It’s a weird feeling that I have problems describing to people.

You seem so natural when you play. Was the guitar always a struggle?

It was a struggle when I was a teenager in that I got cocky. You start thinking that you know everything and like that. I'll be honest with you: I didn't learn how to tune a guitar until I was 16. I left the guitar alone for a couple of years because I kept popping strings and breaking them. I didn’t know anything about tuning.

When I turned 16, I decided to give it one more shot. I took the time to learn, and I learned how to tune. Then I continued to study videos of B.B. King. I watched everything I could find of him from 1968 to 2014. I liked his approach. I think playing chords is cool and nice — they come in handy when needed.

At the same time, it takes a collection of single notes to make up a chord, so if I play one note of that chord or one note that's in that chord progression, I'm still playing the chord. I'm just doing it as one note.

A few years ago, you did an interview in which you said that modern blues was being “overpowered by distortion and gain.” Do you still feel that way?

To an extent, yes. I’m not downing people who play rock or blues rock, but I wish the people would show their appreciation by going back to the blues. I know Joe Bonamassa may have distortion on his guitar, but he'll play songs like “Born Under a Bad Sign” or “Crosscut Saw” or “Killing Floor,” which I feel pays homage to traditional blues or the blues purists.

If you're just shredding onstage for 15 minutes, it makes me go, Well, I get you. I understand you're talented and you can play a million things, but right now we're not even having a conversation. I can't feel what you're saying because you're not coming up for air.

Of course, Hendrix was rooted in the blues, which he took into the cosmos with distortion and feedback.

If you listen to some of those old bootleg recordings of Hendrix live, he’s really playing the blues. It’s him going back home to where he started and what pleased his ear. In a sense, he was paying homage to the ones who came before him. That recording of Hendrix and B.B. at the Generation Club in New York? That alone is proof. Everybody knows Hendrix setting his guitar on fire, but the way I want to know him is when he played acoustic in that white room. He’s just playing the blues.

What are your thoughts on Stevie Ray Vaughan?

It’s funny that you brought up the B.B. King clone thing, because there are so many young white guitarists who dress like Stevie Ray. They try to play like Stevie Ray, they try to sing like Stevie Ray, and nobody says a word. But I come out and do one B.B. King song, and it’s like, “Oh, he’s a copycat.”

I’ve thought about this, and I think it’s envy. I can’t lie — a B.B. style is difficult because it’s about timing. It’s feeling and phrasing. There’s a lot going on mentally: “Should I play here? No, no, no, I shouldn’t play anything.” Or maybe it’s “I’m going to say something, but I’m going to think about it first.”

People love living life fast, but you know what they say: “Fast money ain’t always good money.” When you take your time and work at something, then you appreciate it.

In addition to Joe Bonamassa, what other blues contemporaries do you admire?

Gary Clark Jr. In my opinion, he’s taken the style of timing and incorporated it into his own music. When he did “This Land,” he’s not doing much, but it’s a great song. He’s not doing much on “Bright Lights,” either, but it’s a great song. I enjoy Gary a lot.

Even though she’s not a guitar player, Shemekia Copeland is great — great messages, great songs. And, of course, Tedeschi Trucks — love them. I’m good friends with them. I’ve shared a stage with Susan twice, and each time she was fine just playing rhythm.

I commend those artists because they know what it’s about. They know it’s not about flash. It’s about getting your point across and telling your story.

Okay, lightning round: What’s the best gig you ever played?

That’s easy: the Bilbao Blues Festival. I got to meet one of my idols, Martha High, who was a backup singer for James Brown. She was watching my show from the wings, and I was like, “I gotta bring Martha up.” Just for that reason, it was maybe the best show.

All right, now the flipside: What’s the worst gig you ever played?

We did a show at blues concert series in West Memphis, Arkansas, and it influenced one of my new songs, “Praise the Blues.” West Memphis is a predominantly Black town, and we were on after a lady doing cover songs — things like “Car Wash” and all these Top 40 R&B hits from the ‘70s and ‘80s.

The Black people were enjoying it, so I got onstage and I could tell everybody was kind of looking at me. I said, “I understand you guys don't know me, but I'm D.K. Harrell, and I’m going to play you some blues.”

People left in the middle of the set. After the show, we went to get something to eat, and I told my manager, “People are always saying there's no new music, no new artists, but here I am. I’m doing justice to the blues. I put my heart and soul into it, and the people didn’t like it.” That gig broke my heart.

AI hoaxes are growing more daring as scammers use the new technology to fool fans with fake photos, videos and audio files of celebrities.

Guitarists may recall when last February someone created a bogus website for Wylde Audio, Zakk Wylde’s gear brand, where readers could check out the "new" Blood Skull Berzerker electric guitar and other axes. It didn’t take a particularly close look to realize the guitars had implausible shapes and designs, or that the numerous Marshall amps populating the photos had misplaced logos and other anomalies.

Now, unfortunately, it’s Joe Bonamassa’s turn. As the blues guitar king revealed on his Instagram on June 1, he’s become the victim of a deepfake video that purports to show him creating a video on his phone for a female fan.

In fact, the video is taken from a clip Bonamassa posted in 2021 while he was performing in Bay City, Michigan. The doctored clip uses an AI-generated voice modeled on his own, although it sounds stilted and stiff, as if he’s tense and reading off a script.

The AI-generated video depicts the guitarist telling “Lizzie” he wants “to speak from my soul…to open the door to the heart that’s been aching to be seen by you.” He goes on to tell her an inspiring story about a gig he played early in his career in Buffalo, New York, before he found fame, and ends by declaring, “Lizzie, I love you so damn much.”

Bonamassa posted the video on Instagram with a message clarifying it is indeed a fake.

“This is so fucked up,” he wrote, “AI generated, designed to mislead and scam people. Please be aware.

“Thank you to my friend Jimmy Vivino @jimmyvmusic for alerting me. His friend reached out and sent him this.

"2025 is a scary time my friends.”

Bonamassa — who will release his latest album, Breakthrough, on July 18 — also posted the original video from 2021.

Alex Skolnick may have summed the sad state of affairs best in his response to the deepfake video: “And the way Silicon Valley overlords have behaved lately, why should we worry?? (Yikes)”

While AI-generated videos on YouTube of groups like the Beatles are easy to spot — and the posters usually give the game away in the video's title or description — deepfakes like the Bonamassa clip demonstrate the potential for confusing and even scamming fans with doctored videos.

It adds up to one more AI-generated headache for musicians, many of whom have spoken out against the use of their music for AI training. Last March, Brian May joined other musicians blasting a new U.K. law that will make it easier for AI to use artists’ music. He had been among the earliest musicians to voice his concerns about the technology, telling Guitar Player with eerie accuracy in 2023, “I think by this time next year the landscape will be completely different. We won’t know which way is up. We won’t know what’s been created by AI and what’s been created by humans.

“Everything is going to get very blurred and very confusing, and I think we might look back on 2023 as the last year when humans really dominated the music scene. I really think it could be that serious, and that doesn’t fill me with joy. It makes me feel apprehensive, and I’m preparing to feel sad about this.”

Meanwhile, in the U.S., Paul McCartney recently added his name to a letter signed by 400 artists standing up to proposed changes to U.S. copyright laws that will benefit artificial intelligence firms over creative talents.

Not all musicians seem to be taking the AI threat seriously. In March, Pete Townshend jokingly threatened to use the technology himself to create new songs in the Who’s classic style for fans who keep asking him to play his old hits at his solo shows.

Earlier still, in November 2024, Elvis Costello declared he wasn’t worried about being cheated by AI, as “nobody wants to be me anyway, so I don’t see them conceiving of an algorithm that’s specifically trying to track me down.

“I live in a different universe to AI,” he said. “So they can get on with that whole fantasy — get on your rocket ship and don’t fucking come back!”

By his own admission, Joe Bonamassa’s live rig — a.k.a. the “amp shanty” — is “the world's most expensive three-channel amp.” It features ultra-rare amplifiers and others with great historical significance, including a 1987 Marshall Silver Jubilee head and a 50-watt Dumble Overdrive Special. It's the Holy Grail of tone.

Naturally, not every player has Bonamassa's nearly limitless budget, nor the contacts to acquire such prestigious gear.

Thankfully, he’s given his best amp-buying tips, and he reckons getting hold of the right gear needn’t be expensive or complex.

Indeed, when his astronomically pricey rig isn’t on hand, Bonamassa tells Guitarist that he isn’t too fussy about what takes its place. Decision-making should be situational.

“If I’m just sitting in, I just prefer to play through whatever’s there. The only thing that will make me bring my own amp is if they go, ‘Yeah, we’ve got a Princeton Reverb’ and it’s a live band,” he explains. “Well, you can’t really move the needle there; it’s not loud enough. You’re just peaked.

“In any situation, you just want to bring something that’s appropriate. You don’t bring a high-powered '[Fender] Tweed Twin to a small blues gig. It’s just too loud. You want something that is power appropriate but when you solo it has enough headroom to where you feel it.”

Knowing how much power is enough, and how much will blow an audience away in the wrong manner takes a little tact. Granted, transporting two 4x12 cabs and a 200-watt tube amp to jam night at your local bar will always be overkill while taking a five-watt mini amp to an arena will never cut it.

But Bonamassa says the venue isn’t the only consideration.

“It really is dependent on the drummer,” he continues. “The drummer and the rhythm section eats up a lot of the bandwidth on guitar, so if you have a loud drummer, in a small place, you need to balance the band. You need to have the power equivalent.”

In those cases, he adds that players should proceed with their power-up with caution. Think practically: If it’s a tricky-to-navigate venue with tight stairs and narrow corridors, lugging a weighty tube amp around might not be the best idea.

“You know, the older I get, the more I prioritize my general condition and the condition of my back,” he says, deep in thought. “If I'm in L.A., I have a lot of stairs. So, what goes down must come up.

“I just scale accordingly,” he advises. “It’s only one guitar, a gig bag, a protector case, and a cable. No pedalboard, no nothing.”

A more budget-friendly option here would be an amp with a switchable output, such as Boss’s Katana range, a Laney Lionheart, or a Marshall DSL 40-watt amp which can swap between 40- and 20-watts at the flick of a switch.

Bonamassa’s pick is a Fuchs ODS-50 because “it saves bringing these crazy valuable Dumble things around. And it does a really, really wonderful approximation of a Dumble,” he expands. “It's not a specific one. It's just it does that thing.

“You don’t have to spend a lot of money to get a great sound, and it doesn’t have to be overly complex,” he echoes.

“My rig is large. It’s not complex. It’s just bigger stages require more headroom. In this room, a [Fender] Tweed Champ would sound super-loud. All we have to go is 100 feet from here and you will barely hear it.”

Bonamassa has recently discussed his worst-ever gig where “not even the bartender was watching,” and how he turned a Spinal Tap moment into a driver to kickstart his solo career.

He's also named the 10 albums that changed his life, which left him ruminating on how many Les Pauls one game-changing albums on record helped sell.

Does the wood choice of a fretboard really impact a guitar’s tone? Ask big-name players like Joe Bonamassa and Joe Satriani and they’ll give you passionate reasons for why they lean on either side of the long-raging debate.

Ask Jimmie Vaughan and he’ll tell you it doesn’t make one iota of difference either way. And he’ll point to his late brother for proof.

Today, as manufacturer’s look for alternatives to dwindling supplies, fingerboards can be made out of a huge variety of woods. Pau ferro, laurel and wenge have since come to the fore, alongside Richlite, an ebony-like material made from paper and found on builds from Aristides and GOC.

Regardless of the growing options, fingerboard woods can fall quite naturally into light and dark categories. For many, a rosewood fretboard offers comfort and warmth, while a maple neck supposedly offers greater note clarity.

Joe Satriani veers away from maple, believing it isn't a consistent wood, and opts for rosewood in his Ibanez signature guitars.

“Say you bring eight guitars on tour, getting all the maple-neck guitars,” he said last year. “It is just a piece of wood. It grows out of the ground and Mother Nature decides what's it gonna sound like.

“I owned a '54 Strat, and I loved it. It had a maple neck, and I thought it was the greatest guitar, but I did not have a job then where I had to play melodies and solos nonstop for two and a half hours. And so, this job of being a solo artist has changed my needs as a guitar player.”

Joe Bonamassa, meanwhile, is firmly in the maple camp. Writing in his Guitar World column in 2023, he said “one can argue that a rosewood ’board results in more of a Stevie Ray Vaughan-type sound,” but added, “I always refer to maple-neck Strats as the 'Buddy Holly' guitar, and great players such as Eric Johnson, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix are also well known for playing maple-neck Strats.

“To my ears, the notes jump off it in a different way, as compared to a rosewood ’board.”

Although Bonamassa believes rosewood ‘boards are responsible for SRV-type tones, the Vaughan family seemingly aren’t as quick to make that connection.

Discussing all things gear and tonewoods with Guitar World in a new interview, Jimmie Vaughan spotlighted his prized 1963 Fender Stratocaster. It had a maple neck with a rosewood fretboard, but he swapped it out for a maple neck and didn't notice a difference between the two.

“The body is from a ’63 Strat, but the neck is one [Austin blues guitarist] Bill [Campbell,] gave to me, so I guess it’s kind of a ‘parts’ guitar,” he says of its Frankenstein nature. “It was really put together by Charley’s Guitar Shop in Dallas and René Martinez, who was a fantastic guitar tech.”

And it turns out his reasons for swapping the neck out weren’t tonal.

“I’d wanted a white Strat for years; it felt like it was unobtainable when I was a kid,” he sighs. “I remember seeing Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps in an old movie, and they all had white Strats with the maple neck. I just thought it looked better than the dark rosewood, so I replaced it.

“I know there are people who think it makes a big difference to the sound, but I really don’t think it does,” he adds. “I know Stevie always sounded the same whether it was a rosewood or maple neck.”

The debate extends beyond the realms of the Strat too, with Jason Isbell, the current owner of Ed King's legendary “Red Eye” Les Paul, believing rosewood is “more forgiving,” when it comes to Telecasters and that they “soften things up a little.”

If you've ever thought the world of electric guitar is due for a P90 renaissance, you’re probably not alone.

In the past few months, diehard humbucker players like Joe Bonamassa and Warren Haynes have leaned into P90s. Last October brought the arrival of Bonamassa’s Epiphone 1955 Les Paul Standard, the first guitar in his Artist Series to feature P90 pickups.

Then, in mid March came word that Haynes’ new signature Gibson Les Paul Standard will also feature P90s.

Now we’ve learned that Bon Jovi guitarist Phil X is working with Gibson on a signature SG equipped with P90s.

It's quite an about-face for the humble P90.

The single-coil pickup has been made by Gibson since 1946. But with the arrival of the humbucker in 1957, the P90 took a backseat to its double-coil sibling.

But as many guitarists have discovered, P90s have a lot going for them. Crank ‘em up for rock and roll, dial ‘em back for country, or a little further for some glassy Tele tones. Available in soapbar and dog-ear formats, they are the same pickup in either mounting configuration, though some guitarists are certain they hear a difference. (And as you'll see, Joe has his own theory about this.)

As for that tone, it's more beloved than you might think.

Bonamassa himself declared, "Most people who are dyed-in-the-wool Gibson people, they'll say behind closed doors — when the internet's not watching — that their favorite pickup is a P90."

As Haynes told us, he chose P90s for a few reasons. In addition to giving him tones that are different from his go-to sounds, they allow him to change up his vibe without relying on pedals.

“I’m not depending on pedals for the majority of the sounds that I use,” Warren says. “I like to change the volume knob on the guitar to get a lot of different sounds that way, and P90s are definitely great for that."

Having spoken to Warren, we thought we'd ask Joe and Phil to weigh in on the subject. Here’s what they told us.

Joe Bonamassa

Although he’s admittedly a “humbucker guy,” that didn’t stop Joe Bonamassa from releasing a P90-equipped Epiphone Les Paul at the end of 2024 in a spectacular, vintage-inspired Copper Iridescent finish.

“I was using the Epiphone onstage the other night for a song or two,” Bonamassa tells Guitar Player. “I really liked the way it sounded. It sounded really great.

"But," he cautions, "you are subject to the same noise issues that a single-coil will produce — though that’s also part of the charm.”

That charm, which dates to the 1950s and 1960s when P90s were often found in Les Paul Jr. and SG models, has captivated the minds of some guitarists and left just as many dumbfounded. As for Bonamassa, a collector of such seductive relics, he says, “They all tend to sound pretty good.

“But my favorite P90 guitar is a 1961 SG Special in Polaris White," he adds. "It’s the Pete Townshend spec. That thing just roars!”

That said, Bonamassa generally reverts to his humbucking ways, though he admits to the versatility of a P90. “You can play anything on them,” he says.

At the same, he notes, “I can take a [DiMarzio] Super Distortion or a [Mighty Mite] Motherbucker and play straight jazz if I had to!"

He laughs at the idea of it all.

"They’re all versatile," he contends. "It’s the player. It’s not rocket science. Look, Les Paul himself didn’t play rock or blues, you know?”

Ultimately, while Bonamassa respects P90s enough to put them on a signature guitar, he’s not about to ditch humbuckers anytime soon.

“Oh, no,” he says. “If that was gonna happen, I would have done that years ago. I’m getting set in my ways. But like I said, it depends on the song, and the application.”

Your recent signature Epiphone Les Paul has P90s on it, which is a bit of a departure for you. What's the appeal?

Well, all my signature stuff is based on old guitars that I won, so the brown P90 Les Paul that we did last year is based on two original ones that I own from the ‘50s. We’d never done a P90 guitar, and they have that thing. They clean up really well; they roar. Juniors and Specials, sometimes they roar. They hit harder.

What tonal possibilities do P90s open for you that humbuckers or Stratocaster-style single-coils don’t?

They’re their own thing. With P90s, you’re generally talking about pairing them with an all-mahogany body, like a Junior, a Special or a Les Paul Standard. You usually have a maple top, which adds a little brightness, and a mahogany back. P90s tend to read in the high sevens and low eights [ohms], so they’re a very specific thing.

A lot of people even set their rigs to P90s and set their gain structure to the P90. I guess I have to break that code because my rig is set for humbucking pickups, so the gain structures are different.

If you were to alter your rig to accommodate a P90, how would you do it?

Generally, if I’m using a P90 guitar, I’m playing rhythm. I love a P90 through a Fender Deluxe, a Vox, or even a JCM45 Marshall, you know? That’s like instant Who Live at Leeds. The P90s are great for power chords. You hear all the notes in-between, and they’re very articulate.

What’s the trick to intermingling P90s with effects pedals?

I find that P90s take boost pretty well, though sometimes you don’t really need to boost at all. They have plenty of gain. Plus, I don’t use a lot of gain to begin with.

There’s an argument to be made that P90s are more versatile than humbuckers since they run the tonal gamut from rock to blues to country.

It depends on the wood [of the guitar]. I’ve seen P90s jammed into Telecasters, and I’ve seen a bunch in a Les Paul context, but they are pretty versatile. Everybody tends to trade up to a PAF, but that’s a different animal altogether.

So P90s are very versatile, but they’re not like Fender pickups, which tend to be more scooped in the midrange. P90s tend to have more midrange and a little more output.

Some guitarists are certain dog-ear and soapbar P90s sound different. Have you ever found anything to back that up?

It’s just the cover. I can’t hear the difference between plastic, you know? It’s the same pickup under the soapbar and the dog-ear. [laughs]

And yet some players swear by dog-ears over soapbars, and vice versa.

Those people are full of shit. [laughs] I’m sorry, but tell me you don’t know anything about guitars without telling me you don’t know anything about guitars. [laughs] It’s the same fucking square magnet; it’s the same pickup! [laughs] It’s like going, “I prefer the sound of Bakelite versus polystyrene versus plastic.” If you can hear those nuances, my hat’s off to you.

What do you think they’re actually hearing?

Here’s the thing: Generally, the dog-ear is put in a Les Paul Junior, and a Junior is different than a Les Paul Standard. There’s no maple cap, and it’s all just mahogany, so the wood is going to change the nature of the guitar with the pickup in it. If you put a maple cap on a Les Paul and stick the same pickup in there, it’s going to sound different because of the maple.

You’ve got a signature Epiphone Les Paul with P90s, Warren Haynes has a signature Les Paul Standard with P90s, and Phil X is working on a signature SG with P90s. Are we experiencing a P90s renaissance?

I don’t know. I mean, Warren historically has been a humbucking pickup guy for his whole career since I’ve known him, for 30 years. I was surprised to see that he went with the P90s. But everybody’s tastes change, and everybody has different needs and applications.

Phil X

Seeing as Phil X is the lead guitarist for Bon Jovi, one of the more iconic glam rock bands of all time, you might assume he's into hot-rodded Strat-style guitars. Unless you've seen him play live, you might now that he's hooked on old-school P90 pickups.

According to Phil, P90s give him all the tonal options and versatility he needs to tackle Bon Jovi’s iconic catalog, as well as his music with his solo band, the Drills.

He tells Guitar Player, “What I like about the P90 is, if I have the volume on 10, it’s angry rock and roll, full of angst and spit.

“Then, If I turn it down to seven, I get Telecaster country sounds. And when I turn it down to three or four, I get beautiful, glassy cleans. It doesn’t get muddy or murky; it’s nice and bright and in your face.”

Phil loves his P90s so much that he’s working on a signature SG equipped with them. Currently in the advanced prototype stage, the guitar features a thicker body and neck. Phil calls it "my favorite."

“I love how it feels when I’m wearing it or sitting with it. I just did three shows in Texas, and I played that guitar every night. I was like, ‘Man, this is the one.’ I’m really excited for it to be released by Gibson in the next year or so.”

Phil’s love for the P90 pickup is clear, although he admits that, due to its hum-laden and perceived uncontrollable nature, not everyone agrees.

“A lot of people are listening with their eyes instead of their ears,” he says. "They’re like, ‘Oh, no, that’s a P90, it’s gonna sound like that.’ I’m like, ‘No, wait until you hear it.’ "

He recalls a studio incident when he was playing a 1966 Gibson ES-330.

"It has nickel-covered P90s,” he says. “When I plugged into a Marshall and hit an A chord, everyone ran in and said, 'What’s that guitar?'

"That guitar was magical, but it was the P90 that took the magic and made it undeniable.”

What first turned you on to P90s to where you developed a signature unit with Arcane?

I just find them super dynamic. I really got accustomed to the P90 that I did with Arcane, which was called the PX-90. We tried different gauges of wire, different winds, and stuff like that. We settled on this one magic recipe, and it was amazing.

Does your attack change when you’re playing with P90s?

It all comes back to how dynamic they are. If you pick close to the bridge, they’re going to be really bright. And if you pick closer to the fretboard, then it’s going to be darker. Every pickup does that, but it’s more articulated with a P90.

Do P90s alter your amp choices?

It’s funny you asked that because my approach does change with the amp. If I use an old [Marshall] Plexi, I know I can’t hit the guitar as hard because it’ll fart. [laughs]

Are your amp settings much different from when you’re playing with humbuckers or Strat-style single-coils?

I don’t know if there’s much of a difference. I know when I plug into an amp, if I’m not familiar with it, I start with everything at 12 o’clock and then flavor to taste. And I find that the P90 has enough bite, so I don’t have as much presence up on the amp, but it’s never a bass thing.

A bass thing?

No matter what guitar I use, I feel like I have to have the bass to where it’s not thumpy — but I want it to be violent, like unchained, you know? I'm talking about that low thing, where you hit it a little too hard and it goes sharp, and then you back off and it’s in pitch, and it’s got a violent sound to it. For me, the P90 does that way more accurately than, say, a humbucker.

Do you find that P90s are effective for Bon Jovi’s music, given that many of those songs were recorded with Strat-stye guitars back in the day?

If I have a P90 in an SG or Les Paul Jr. guitar, and I’m playing “Raise Your Hands," then I’ve got the guitar on 10. But if Jon wants to go into “Lost Highway,” which is a country song, without me changing guitars, I’ll pick a P90, because I can just change the volume to get what I need. I'll put it on 10 for “Raise Your Hands,” and drop it to seven for a more country sound on “Lost Highway.”

So the P90s offer you more tonal options and versatility than a humbucker or a Strat-style single-coil.

I think so. If I only have a guitar with one P90 in it, which is usually when I play with my band, the Drills, that’s all I need. And when I want to get that woman tone, I just roll off the tone knob, and it gives me a beautiful woman tone. It’s clearer than a humbucker when you roll the tone off.

See, with me, no matter what pickup it is, it’s always about clarity.

What are your observations on how P90s interact with effects pedals?

It depends. If you use overdrives, you’ve got to watch how much overdrive you put on a P90 because it hums, you know. You get that single-coil hum, though I’ve always been able to control it by facing Mecca or something similar.

Are P90s ever so uncontrollable that you can’t use them?

It’s not uncommon to be in an old stadium in Europe, and you show up at soundcheck and your tech is like, “We can’t use any P90s or any single-coils today because there’s a broadcast station right next door, and the hum is ridiculous.” [laughs] So there’s that!

Having said that, is the dreaded P90 hum as outrageously bad as it’s made out to be?

Well, I’m used to it. You just adjust and acclimate. For instance, if I’m in a room that’s kind of buzzy and I’ve got to play something like [AC/DC’s] “Back in Black,” I’ll literally be rolling down the volume knob in between chords. [laughs]

But at the same time, there’s always a place that you can face where it’s not as bad. And I don’t use a lot of gain, so I can get away with it. But a lot of people say, “Hey, how do you get rid of the hum when using a high-gain amp or with all my overdrives on?” I’m like, “Yeah… that’s not gonna work.” [laughs]

You’re working on a signature P90-equipped SG with Gibson. What’s the story there?

It’s just everything that I’ve been saying. Every time I picked up a Junior or anything with a P90 in it, I was always like, “Oh, man, this is what I like! This is what I really dig. I can do anything with it.” And also, every time you play in front of a bunch of guitar players, it’s like research.

So I’d have two guitars, one with a P90 and one with a humbucker, and I’d be using the P90 guitar all night. And I’d have five or 10 guys come up to me and go, “Man, I thought the P90 guitar was gonna be your spare, but you used it all night — and you got every tone out of it.” I’d respond by saying, “Yeah, that’s what it does; it does everything.”

Why is your signature SG your favorite above other P90-equipped guitars you have?

Well, I’m a bigger guy, so the SG feels like a smaller guitar sometimes, depending on my mood. But with the prototype that I’ve been playing lately, Gibson made the body an eighth of an inch thicker, which is amazing for weight and balance. So we made the neck even bigger. I’ve got a ’57 Goldtop neck profile on it.

Do you think the thicker body impacts the tone of the guitar?

I don’t think so. I love punch and clarity, and to me, the punch and clarity of that guitar are way more apparent with the P90. But the thickness and the weight of the guitar didn’t change that all that much. It’s more of a feel thing.

You’re primarily a rock player, but do you feel P90s, like the ones in your upcoming signature SG, are also well-suited for players within other genres?

I think it could be used by anybody. I mean, the neck pickup also sounds fantastic for jazz or blues. And then, the treble [bridge] pickup is just everything. You can get twang by turning it down, and you can get a punch in the face by turning it up.

You’ve got a signature SG with P90s on the way, Warren Haynes just released a Les Paul Standard with P90s, and Joe Bonamassa recently dropped an Epiphone Les Paul with P90s. Are we seeing a P90 renaissance?

I think you’re onto something! [laughs] I personally think it’s amazing that it’s resurfacing like that. I’m seeing more P90s all over the place, but it’s not the heavier rock players that are doing it; it’s mainly the guys that play blue and more classic rock.

I always tell people, “Man, it’s gonna sound great. Let me plug in and listen to what it sounds like before you make your decision.” Once I start playing, their eyes get wide, and it’s like, “Man, that sounds amazing!”

Last year saw “the largest seizure of fake musical instruments in history,” as U.S. Border Protection officers seized $18 million worth of fake Gibson guitars. The seizure highlights the costly issues that fraudulent electric guitars present to both manufacturers and consumers.

The interception of over 3,000 wannabe Gibsons came after U.S. Customs collaborated with Gibson, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations. and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The number of agencies involved demonstrates how intricate the operation was.

Recognizing that the everyday player may need a little help spotting a fake, YouTuber Robert Baker has enlisted all-star help for a useful video. With the assistance of Gibson’s Tom Murphy and Joe Bonamassa at the fore, the team of guitar aficionados have examined a fake Les Paul to pinpoint the giveaway signs that players should be on the lookout for.

It seems Baker has personal experience on the line here. The fake guitar in question is from his own collection.

“A lot of us have friends who have, unfortunately, purchased some of these thinking they were real,” Baker says. “It’s just heartbreaking to see someone spend so much money on something fake.”

However, he says there are “subtle things that are wrong with these,” that, if identified, can spare other guitarists similar levels of heartache.

Bonamassa and Murphy are joined by a number of other specialists who identify faults over the length of the 44-minute video.

The guitar's headstock quickly comes under scrutiny, with Bonamassa calling it “Way off.” Gibson has been notoriously possessive of its headstock shape and sued Ibanez over the headstock shape on its budget Les Paul builds in 1977.

The headstock in question here relates to its shape, the fact that the logo on the headstock is a decal rather than a silkscreen. The body, meanwhile, sports a striking white binding that stands out. In this case, for the wrong reasons.

“I don’t know of any Gibson guitars that possess that,” says Murphy of that latter feature.

Other facets of the guitar to come under fire include its finish, the quality of its veneer, its truss-rod cover, cavity, tuner machine spacing, uncharacteristically small side dots, and beyond that, the shape of the pickguard, height and angle of the nut, and the position and shape of its control knobs. All these, the eagle-eyed team agrees, betray its imposter status. Clearly, they needed a harder challenge.

Great lengths are undertaken later in the video, including slicing a chunk of the body off with a razor blade. In previous cases, the depth of the veneer has served as an indicator of a guitar's status as a real or imposter.

It’s an extreme measure, granted, and one no sane person would take if there was even the faintest belief that the guitar could be genuine, but the task force weren’t in the mood for half measures, it would seem.

Of course, the power of hindsight is a mighty thing, but even a glance at the below image published by US Customs and Border Control showcasing a portion of its haul, show that razor blades aren't always necessary. The guitar on the far left with the cream finish and bright edging in particular, feels like an instant give away based solely on the strangeness of its colorway.

Sure, Gibson has been guilty of finishing some of its LPs with rather questionable paint jobs, but this one seems a bridge too far. The Zakk Wylde Bullseye imposter, meanwhile, is let down by its lack of gold hardware — legitimate models feature a gold bridge and tailpiece.

However, not everyone is as well versed these details, and amateurs — including parents shopping for birthday presents — are sitting ducks without proper guidance. To that end, Gibson has promised to “caution customers about fraudulent products sold on e-commerce platforms and other sources” in the wake of last year's multi-million-dollar seizure.

“I’ve done a lot of shows,” Joe Bonamassa attests. “If you take the last 25 years with an average of 100 shows a year, that’s 2,500 shows right there. Between 1990 and 2000, I probably did 1,000 shows, so we could be looking at over 3,500 gigs in all, and thankfully, more of them were good than bad.”

From city venues to the open seas, Bonamassa is always onstage somewhere, usually with a Gibson Les Paul in his hands. We asked him to tell us his best and worst gigs in his 25-plus years onstage. Here's what he told us.

The Best

“The obvious one would be the Royal Albert Hall in 2009 with Eric Clapton. That one was good — it was my bar mitzvah.

“But the absolute best performance I ever gave, in my humble opinion, was the first time we played Red Rocks in 2014. The weather was perfect — it was 80 degrees, and no wind. It was a golden era and a perfect storm. And luckily, we filmed it.

“Going back to the Albert Hall, I learned something very important during that first show in 2009: You’ve got to play the venue; you can’t let it play you. The first time I did the Albert Hall, it played me. I’ve now performed there 13 times, and I play it.

“So I walked into Red Rocks with a bit of bravado. You can’t walk out all flat-footed, like, ‘Oh, shucks, oh, my... ’ You’ve got to own the place. You’ve got to be like, ‘I belong here.’ We had done some great warm-up shows, so we went in with the wind at our backs.

“We did the soundcheck, and already there were a lot of people there. Fans had come for the meet and greet. Next thing I knew, it was 7:30 – time to get the suit on and there we go. Red Rocks holds just under 10,000 people, and it was packed.

“What’s interesting is, when you go onstage, the sun hasn’t set, so it’s still light out. The way the venue is designed, the stage is maybe eight inches off the ground, and the first few rows of people are almost at the same level as the stage. It goes higher and higher the further you go. For the first few songs, before it gets dark, you can still see everybody in front of you. It’s very intimate for the size and scope of it.

“Those natural sidewalls sounded so good, and the whole thing just flew by. My left hand flowed. The inertia carried me along.

“It was one of those gigs that you want to bottle. Everything just worked – it was like an out-of-body experience. Of course, after a show like that, you usually follow it with some shit where you’re just clamming all night. But that Red Rocks show was my best gig and best performance, for sure. I’ve had such great times there. We’ve done 10 years in a row, and we’re going back this year.”

The Worst

“All musicians have bad shows. Your gear fails, your strings break. The audience doesn’t know the inside baseball of it all, because as long as there’s sound coming out at them, everything seems fine. But I’m going to introduce readers to the concept of the Golden Goose. It’s happened to quite a few people, and in 2000, it happened to me.

“My first solo record, A New Day Yesterday, came out, and right off the bat I got booked for my first tour as a replacement for Roger McGuinn on Jethro Tull’s summer tour. Of course, the album’s title song is a cover of a Tull song, and Ian Anderson and Martin Barre were so nice – they even wanted me to play the song live. I thought it was kind of tacky, but they were like, ‘No, we really want you to do it.’ Ian introduced us onstage every night, and everything went great. It was the most fun you could have.

“The tour ended, and then we had three weeks of shows booked on our own, which meant we went from playing full places to not-so-full places. We showed up at this place in Memphis called Beale Street Live — it’s not there anymore; now it’s a Coyote Ugly — and it was one of those door-deal situations. Usually door deals are for a percentage – 80/20, 60/40 – and then all the merch you can sell.

“For the Memphis show, the ticket price was $12, but we were getting 100 percent of the door, so it was a good deal. Our showtime was 8:30, no opening act. I was backstage and I said, ‘It’s kind of quiet out there.’ Time to go on came around, and I swear, there were five people in the club: me, the bass player, the drummer, the bartender and the guy driving the van. We grossed zero dollars. We got the Golden Goose.

“There’s nothing more deflating and Spinal Tap than going to one of the epicenters of the blues and drawing zero people. Not a single person paid, no one came in. The bartender said, ‘If you start playing, people might come in.’ But it was a rainy Tuesday night. I said, ‘There’s nobody out on the street. We’re done.’

“We ended up working on a couple of things arrangement-wise, so it was like a rehearsal. I think we worked up the ‘Starship Trooper’ ending to one of our songs because we were just fucking around. This went on for 45 minutes. Not even the bartender was watching us. It was ridiculous.

“So the Golden Goose Award for that day goes to Joe Bonamassa. If you looked at the settlement sheet for that gig, it was zero paid. I think I got a Diet Coke out of it, and that was it. It was the worst.

“I didn’t play Memphis for years. Nowadays, we play there to packed houses and it’s great, but I always tell the story about the Golden Goose.”

Joe Bonamassa was at a restaurant with a friend on January 8 when he received the wildfire evacuation alert for Laurel Canyon neighborhood where he lives and maintains the massive guitar collection in his Nerdville West Museum of Antiquities and Collectibles.

"We canceled the dinner order and flew up here in the dark," Bonamassa tells Guitar Player, nothing that the pair has to use inbound back routes rather than the main roads that were being roadblocked by the police. Evacuating all 350 guitars and 300 amplifiers would be impossible, but Bonamassa says that "I've had a plan for 10 years, since I lived here." Between his Range Rover and his friend's Chevrolet Tahoe, however, they were able to take about 40 guitars and two of the amps to a storage locker Bonamassa maintains in North Hollywood, and "hope for the best" for the rest of his collection, which did survive.

"You gotta have a plan, and don't be married to the outcome," Bonamassa explains. "What I don't subscribe to is it's just stuff. It's stuff, yeah, but this isn't just stuff. This is American history I've collected and I'm in charge of, so I take that very seriously." Value and significance, he adds, were the criteria for what guitars were taken out of the fire's path.

"Tommy Bolin's Les Paul had to go," Bonamassa says. "The first black Stratocaster ever made had to go, the Broadcaster, the 10 sunburst Les Pauls that were up there had to go. They're well-known guitars in the vintage guitar community; that would be a pretty major event if 10 sunburst Les Pauls burned up in a single evening, under my watch. So we got 'em in

"I knew this day was coming; you just never know when. Laurel's been '71 years without a major fire. But we're still here, we survived."

And, he's quick to add, "Don't feel bad for me. Forty people died, let's start there, in two days — some died with a garden hose in their hand, trying to protect their entire world. We were lucky." Bonamassa adds that he remains furious at the arsonists who set some of the blazes. Bonamassa posted about his situation that week, using a picture of the Nerdville West marquee with the message, "It's not in my hands anymore. A very hard place to be as a curator. It's my lifetime of work. I knew this day would come eventually but just not today..." and added "a major thanks to the firefighters and fire responders for giving it their all these past few days."

In the wake of the fire, and also expecting issues with his home insurer as well as Lloyd's of London, which handles the gear collection, Bonamassa is looking at a new storage scenario for the equipment. "Nerdville West...had a good run. Within the next three months we're building out a new storage locker for me in North Hollywood. Ninety percent of the guitars will be off-site. I'm gonna leave the amps 'cause I don't have space for them, then we'll reassess whether I sell some off or just take my chances.

"It is what it is," he adds. "It was an eye-opening experience for me to go, 'Okay, maybe this notion of having a museum with one of the biggest and most expansive guitar collections in the world in the Hollywood Hills, maybe that's not in my best interest or anybody else's best interest."

Bonamassa did pull one of the Les Pauls and an amp out of storage for the Grammy Awards' Premiere Ceremony, where he performed Bobby Bland's "Twenty-Four Hour Blues," which he recorded for his latest album, 2023's Blues Deluxe Vol. 2. "It was a great day," Bonamassa recalls. "I was very honored to do that. And the band was, like, Lee Sklar, Dean Parks. One of the coolest things was a lot of the string players and horn players were Hollywood Bowl alumni, so they played on the (2023) gig at the Hollywood Bowl; 'Yeah! You were at the Hollywood Bowl! Remember how I played too loud over there? That'll be the same tonight.'"

The euphoria over the performance, meanwhile, mitigated any disappointment over losing to Ruthie Foster for Best Contemporary Blues Album, making Bonamassa still Grammy-less after four nominations. "I'm agnostic about that," he says. "It's not gonna move the needle.

"The worst thing about not winning is you have to talk your friends off the ledge on your behalf; 'Oh, this is bullshit! You should've...' And I'm like, 'It doesn't matter. You know how many Grammys Led Zeppelin has? None. You know how many Grammys Sammy Davis Jr. has? None. Guns N' Roses? None. The list goes on and on and on and on. The only thing to do with Tom Petty that won a Grammy was the people who did the video for 'Last Dance With Mary Jane.' I really don't care. If they had not asked me to play, I probably wouldn't have gone."

Bonamassa — who recently dropped "Fortune Teller Blues," a single with Sammy Hagar — makes a guest appearance on Dave Mason's upcoming album A Shade of Blues, out March 21/ He begins a U.S. tour on Jan. 19 in Seattle, with U.K. and Irish dates during the summer as well as shows with the all-star Black Country Communion. Bonamassa says there will be more singles, too, before he releases his next album.

"We'll be dropping singles for the next probably seven, eight months, then a full-length probably at the end of the year," he says. "That's the new paradigm. I know how streaming works and the algorithms; if you release everything at once the album comes out of the gate strong and dies quick. If you keep the singles coming it reaches more people, and that's the goal for any music, to get it out to as many people as you possibly can. Do I like it? No. But do I have a choice? Absolutely not. So it's a means to an end."

Joe Bonamassa has a term for those albums that changed music’s landscape. He calls them “pre/post records.”

“Like Eric Johnson’s, or Van Halen’s — you know, one’s that make everybody play differently. It was the same thing when Albert King and Jimi Hendrix came along.”

Though Joe Bonamassa has been a linchpin of blues-rock for over two decades, he doesn’t consider himself a member of that club. “There hasn’t been something that came out where you go, ‘Oh, my God,’ ” he humbly tells Guitar Player. “I mean, in general there hasn’t been a pre/post record from anyone for a while.”

That said, Bonamassa knows he’s been influential to many guitarists today in the same way that players like B.B. King and Eric Clapton were to him. He gets his share of fans who tell him so — which only serves to remind him how long he’s been around.

“It’s odd to see 30-year-olds going, ‘I learned how to play guitar from your records.’ I’m like, ‘How old are you? Oh, shit… it’s happening to me.' " [laughs]

Like every guitarist, Bonamassa had to start somewhere — and his recognizable style, while rooted in the blues, is filled with touches of shred, classic rock and even folk. Don’t believe it? Check out these 10 record that changed his life to understand how and where his guitar journey began, and every point in between then and now.

Live at the Regal — B.B. King (1965)

“One of the first two albums I bought with my birthday or communion money, when I was seven or eight, was a copy of B.B. King’s Live at the Regal. I got it for eight dollars and bought it the same day I bought Steve Morse’s Introduction album. These were recommendations from my father, saying, ‘Okay, you like blues, but you also like to shred. Let’s get one of each.’ [laughs]

“As far as live albums are concerned, Live at the Regal… I love live albums that weren’t supposed to be live and just kind of happened, where somebody just happened to record it, and you catch the band right at the apex curve. This was the mid ’60s, when he really became B.B. King because the stuff in the ’50s was more influenced by T-Bone Walker and everything like that. Live at the Regal was like the archetype of the next 50 years of his career.

“You had the shuffle, the slow blues, and the way he would weave in and out of tunes and just hit a note. I did the deep dive, and the sound of Live at the Regal really felt like the vibe in the room was just amazing. It was apparently recorded with one or very few mics, and you can tell because, when he’d step up to the mic, the band would get lower, and when he’d pull away, the band would get louder. To me, this was just the perfect recording. It was just a life changer. To this day, it’s still my favorite B.B. King album. It denotes Chicago blues at its peak.”

The Introduction — Steve Morse (1984)

“And then there’s Steve Morse’s The Introduction… I’d never heard guitar playing that fast, and that accurate. It had that Dixie Dreggs swing on it, but it was his own stuff. The tone was just raw and ripping. This is just a really underrated record. It was released in ’84; to me, it’s just a cruise missile. The first two songs alone are worth the price of admission.

“You hear the first song, and it’s like, Oh, crap, this is burning. I really hold Steve Morse in such high regard, not only as a player but as a good, humble guy. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get named in the same sentences as a lot of other players of that era, like Eddie Van Halen, Allan Holdsworth and Bill Nelson. He’s the last to be named or not named at all.

“That guy, for someone like me who does not have a legato, he spoke all of my languages. I’m like, ‘Between him and Al Di Meola, I can just pick everything.’ So when I was eight years old, The Introduction and Live at the Regal were two diametrically opposed records in styles that really solidified what I wanted to do. I was like, ‘I want to play blues, but I want to play fast.’ I didn’t know I was breaking the rules. I still don’t know if I’m breaking the rules by playing fast over blues."

Truth — Jeff Beck (1968)

“Jeff Beck’s Truth was my introduction to British blues. I was like, ‘I don’t know what this is, but it’s like blues with swagger—and it’s raw.’ It seemed like they just didn’t give a shit but still had something to prove at the same time. I really liked that. Jeff was fresh out of the Yardbirds and found his singer in Rod Stewart, his bass player in Ronnie Wood, Mick Waller on drums, and Nicky Hopkins on keyboards. It was a session for London Records, and, I mean, what a band! That original Jeff Beck Group from the first two albums changed the game—and pre-dated Zeppelin.

“Jeff Beck was doing heavy blues before Jimmy Page got the New Yardbirds together, and, what a record! It’s got one of the best versions of ‘Morning Dew’ of all time and ‘Ain’t Superstitious’ too. And the funny thing was that years ago, I asked the engineer, Ken Scott, who was there at Abbey Road when they did it. ‘Hey, how’d you get that guitar sound on “Let Me Love You”?’ and he said, ‘The amp was in a closet.’ I’m like, ‘Of course.’” [laughs]

Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton — John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers (1966)

“In the ’80s, if you were a suburban white kid interested in the blues, it was Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Texas Flood or it was John Mayall’s Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton album. Those were the two records. The Beano [so named because Clapton is reading a Beano comic book in its cover photo] record was just a snapshot of a band that was right, had been playing a lot of gigs, and just went into the studio and cut the damn thing.

“And John, rest in peace, I interviewed him, and he goes, ‘Man, Peter Green was a sub for Eric when he would kind of disappear, and then he’d come back, and Peter Green had to take a backseat because Clapton would draw more people.’ John was just trying to keep the band together, but that record and that tone changed the game. It’s like, how many fucking Les Pauls do you think that record sold? [laughs] That was Gibson’s come to Jesus moment, you know?”

Irish Tour ’74 — Rory Gallagher (1974)

“It doesn’t get ‘blue-collar, meat-and-potatoes’ rock and roll and blues than this. I have the huge challenge this year of doing some Rory stuff in Cork [Ireland], and it’s going to be great, but it’s going to be the challenge of a lifetime. Rory was such an underrated singer, writer, and guitar player. He was just amazing.

“When you hear Irish Tour ’74, you hear rock coming out of the gate, and it’s just steaming. You’re like, ‘Who is that coming at me?’ There are just so many classics, but the thing about that record is when I got the group together to do the Rory tribute and we rehearsed, I figured we’d just figure it out as we went. But there are so many versions, and every single person in the band — including me — naturally defaulted to Irish Tour ’74. That was a sign right there.

“This year is the 30th anniversary since Rory passed away, and it’s tough. You go over to Ireland, and the reverence that Irish people have for him is still there. He was a folk hero more than a musician. He brought people together when the country was extremely divided in the ’70s. He played Belfast before curfew at 11 in the morning. He united people. There are so many stories of how he’d just drive somewhere, set up his gear, and people would show up.”

Texas Flood — Stevie Ray Vaughan (1983)

“I can’t do a top-1- album list without Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Texas Flood. This was a game changer. He came along in ’83 when everybody was writing the blues off, but every 10 years somebody comes along and just gives it a B12 shot, and Stevie gave the blues the biggest one. Next thing you know, everybody wants a Strat again, and everybody wants a [Fender] Vibroverb and a [Ibanez] Tube Screamer.

“In America, Stevie Ray Vaughan is probably the most copied guitar player of all time, even more than Hendrix, I think. Everybody defaults to those Stevie Ray Vaughan licks that they learned as a kid, you know? The tone, the vocals, the production and the songs… He bet everything on that. He left the Bowie gig and said, ‘I’m going to do my own thing.’ There were no guarantees. As far as something that shifted the tectonic plates, you absolutely go with Texas Flood.”

Ah Via Musicom — Eric Johnson (1990)

“Guitar Player magazine used to have these Flexidiscs in the middle of the magazine [EvaTone Soundsheets]. They were like vinyl things that you had to stack eight dimes on the needle of the record player to get maybe three plays out of. [laughs] One of those was Eric Johnson live at Austin City Limits, and I went, ‘What the actual fuck is this? What is this sound?’

“And then, when Ah Via Musicom came out, you had ‘Desert Rose,’ ‘Cliffs of Dover’ and ‘High Landrons.’ I mean… it was just wonderful playing, production and sound, you know? Everybody was like, ‘What’s he using?’ When that album came out, and it had that tone, it was when people still had those big racks. But Eric was just slinging old shit that he daisy-chained together.

“He had three separate rigs: a clean tone, a dirty rhythm and a violin solo tone. Back then, nobody was using vintage anything, but he had a ’54 Strat, a Marshall ‘Plexi,’ a Dumble, old Fuzz Faces, Tube Screamers and Echoplexes. He was very particular about his sound, and you can’t argue with the results. He’s one of my heroes and such a nice guy. I always apologize to him for everything I stole. [laughs]

“Every time I see him, I laugh, and he says, ‘We all get it from somewhere,’ and I’m like, ‘Well, some people get it more from others,’ you know? And he’s still chasing it and plays daily. He’s still chasing tone, coming up with different things. He’s just one of those amazing, once-in-a-generation kinds of guys.”

Still Got the Blues — Gary Moore (1990)

“Without this record, I wouldn’t have a career in Europe. I’m convinced of that. Gary Moore was the one who figured out that there was a big market for blues and blues-rock in Europe. He pivoted. He was a rock guy, tried and true with Thin Lizzy and his solo work in the ’80s. And then, he came out with this blues record, and it just floored everybody.

“I remember hearing it on the radio when it first came out in ’90, and I’m like, ‘Wow, what’s he using? A Les Paul and a Soldano?’ I was sold on that. I was like, ‘I want that.' [laughs] He was always super nice to me, and he was such a bull in a China shop. He had one speed: always on. He played so intensely, and so emotionally; there was no, ‘I’m gonna dial it back.’ There was no playing it safe for him. He just went for it, all the time.”

Déjà Vu — Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1970)

“This is an oddball one that changed my life. I showed very little interest in acoustic guitar before this, but my father played me this record, and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m but I’m doing electric guitar…’ Then I heard those sounds, and how the writing and vocal harmonies were all put together. And I read an article that said when this came out, people thought it was all fake studio magic. Songs like ‘Woodstock,’ ‘Teach Your Children’ and ‘Carry On’ are big songs. I just love that record. Those guys were the high-water mark for me.”

Led Zeppelin — Led Zeppelin (1969)

“The was a blues record with bad intentions, you know? When you listen to the last track, ‘How Many More Times,’ it feels like the studio must have been exploding. I still remember the first time I heard Zeppelin, and it’s definitely a game-changer. It changes your perspective on everything as far as rock and guitar, that’s for sure.

“And Jimmy Page — are you fucking kidding me? It’s like try to copy those parts. It’s impossible. People forget that Jimmy was a first-call session guy. People would not have called him if he was a ‘sloppy’ guitar player. Jimmy Page was as bad as he wanted to be. And what a producer, too!”

Joe Bonamassa gave Guitar Player an update on his preparations for future fire threats.

Joe Bonamassa’s rare vintage guitar collection has been moved out of harm's way as the L.A. Wildfires threaten the future of his home and museum, Nerdville.

The celebrated bluesman is a serial gear collector. Nerdville, which has been the subject of two Reverb documentaries, houses some incredibly rare finds, including numerous Gibson Les Paul "Bursts," Lowell George’s Dumble amp — which took Bonamassa 15 years to track down — a “museum-grade” 1941 Martin acoustic, a 1950 Fender Broadcaster, and much more.

Now, as a group of wildfires spread across the Los Angeles area, forcing more than 130,000 people to be evacuated and destroying thousands of acres and communities, he's relocated a truckload of his most prized possessions.

An image Bonamassa posted to Instagram shows him standing before a garage stacked with guitar cases as he looks to ensure the safety of countless instruments.

“It’s not in my hands anymore,” he writes. “[L.A. is] a very hard place to be as a curator. It’s my lifetime of work. I knew this day would come eventually but just not today. So far so good tonight but the situation is very fluid.

“A major thanks to the firefighters and first responders for giving it their all these past few days,” the post continues. “Stay safe Los Angeles. These are uncertain and unprecedented times.”

It's not known how much of Bonamassa's collection remains in the house, but his collection of electric guitars, tube amps and pedals includes rarities and oddities that are irreplaceable parts of guitar history.

Just 12 hours before his post, he’d shared an image of the skyline from Nerdville on his social channel, noting, “This is what it looks like when your city is burning. I am heartbroken for all the Angelenos who lost their homes overnight. Nerdville is holding for the moment but as we know all it takes is one spark or insidious act to create total catastrophe.”

The tide has seemingly changed in a short space of time. There is no confirmation where the guitars are now located for obvious reasons, but Bonamassa's fast action will hopefully prove pivotal.

The L.A. wildfires, which broke out on January 7, come after Nerdville nearly burned down while Bonamassa was on tour last year. Thankfully his neighbor and a firefighter fan helped save the day and stop a fire that could have wiped out his legendary haul.

Alex Skolnick, Keeley Electronics and Tomo Fujita are among those sending well wishes to Bonamassa at this time.

Joe Bonamassa is set to perform three special shows in Rory Gallagher's hometown next summer to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the blues great's passing. For Bonamassa, saying yes to the offer of celebrating the life of his “working class hero” was easy, but dealing with the pressure the occasion has put on him is proving less so.

“Here's this guy with long hair, a flannel shirt and he looked like he just came out of an auto factory playing some of the most gutbucket blues and rock you've ever heard,” Bonamassa had said of his first introduction to Gallagher while playing two of his most adored electric guitars earlier this year.

The chance to honor his legacy in Cork, Ireland, across three shows at the start of July is an exciting prospect, put in motion by the Gallagher family. It’s a move too that, in the wake of the sale of Rory’s iconic Stratocaster and a large portion of his other gear, shows that the family isn’t bequeathing its responsibility for keeping Rory’s flame burning any time soon. Bonamassa, one of the most celebrated and important bluesmen on the scene today, is the perfect man for the task.

“The idea came from the Gallagher family — Dónal [Rory’s younger brother and manager] and Daniel [his nephew and archivist] — and a gentleman from Ireland named Peter Aiken [promoter] who wanted to do something to celebrate next year’s 30th anniversary of Rory’s passing,” Bonamassa recently told Classic Rock. “When they reached out I said, ‘You had me at hello.’

“Then I thought about it and went, Shit, what did I just sign up for?”

When announcing the shows, Bonamassa had called the doubleheader — which has since been upgraded to three shows — “the biggest honor and challenge of my musical life.” He echoed that sentiment once more when speaking to CR.

“They will be,” he says. But there are caveats. “We’ve put together a great band featuring [bass guitarist] Aongus Ralston, [keyboardist] Lachy Doley, and [drummer] Jeremy Stacey [whose credits include King Crimson and Sheryl Crow]. Before starting rehearsal I told Dónal, Daniel, and Peter: ‘I’m not Rory; I don’t want to be a tribute act that replicates all the little glitches and mistakes. I’m going to be myself.’ And they said that’s exactly what they want. Having heard that, I could relax. It’s proven very popular, and from two shows it became three.”

Bonamassa recognizes that Gallagher’s stature isn’t as big in the States as on home soil. Still, via his father’s introduction, he quickly became one of his heroes and is basing his performances on the live album that got him hooked.

“I never thought I would be 47 years old — 48 by the time the shows happen — and doing a set of Rory based on [the legendary double live album] Irish Tour ’74, and doing it in Cork,” he muses. “But here we are. Let’s boogie.

“It won’t be perfect but it’ll be the best I can. You just have to go in there with conviction and show the fans how much the music means. But that’s me, I’ll never back down from a challenge.”

Bonamassa was 18 when Gallagher passed in 1995 meaning he never got the chance to meet his idol. Asked, then, what he’d say to him given the chance, he replied: “I would ask how he got so deeply into the blues. You can hear his Celtic influences, and there was a swing that he put into everything, but Rory really was the sum of his parts.

“He soaked up everything and put it all out in his own way,” he extends, before relaying a revelation he had while preparing for the shows. “The further we got into rehearsals, I began to realize that I was more deeply influenced by Rory even than [Eric] Clapton. I went: ‘Oh shit!’”

He admits that post-shows, “there’s every chance of a couple of Rory songs being Easter-egged into my live set,” but underscored that the show won’t be repeated verbatim.

Bonamassa was vocal about Gallagher’s legendary Strat remaining in Ireland beyond its sale, with Irish politicians and even the daughter of the man who sold Rory the instrument, for £100 in 1963, among the other voices wanting the same.

The campaign proved successful as the guitar was donated to the National Museum of Ireland after selling for $1.16 million in October.

The success of that campaign extends the likelihood of Bonamassa playing the Strat once more, after borrowing it for a soul-rendering take of Sloe Gin at London's Royal Albert Hall over a decade ago.

Whether the iconic instrument makes an appearance or not, it will be a special occasion for Bonamassa and the thousands that pack into Cork's Marquee, which has previously hosted Elton John, Bob Dylan, and Meat Loaf.

The auction of Rory Gallagher’s iconic, heavily relic’d Strat was a story that had the guitar world rapt this year. But while a campaign to keep what was the first Fender Strat to reach Irish shores in the country grabbed the headlines, a huge portion of Gallagher’s other amps, pedals, and guitars went under the hammer with little fanfare.

Rory’s brother and former manager, Dónal, had been charged with its safekeeping the guitarist's gear since his death in 1995. But before the collection left his family’s possession, Guitarist gave Joe Bonamassa the opportunity to play some of Rory's other prized electric guitars .

Lifelong Gallagher fan Bonamassa understands why the clamor around the auction was so laser-focused on that Strat — a 1961 model that Gallagher bought for £100 in 1963.

“A lot of the narrative is that Rory only used one guitar for his whole life," Bonamassa says. "He had a lot of guitars and a lot of amps. But he's most known for using the '61 Strat.”

Bonamassa's father introduced him to Gallagher's music through the guitarist's Live in Europe album. Joe recalled the impression the Irish rocker made on him.

“Here's this guy with long hair, a flannel shirt and he looked like he just came out of an auto factory playing some of the most gutbucket blues and rock you've ever heard.”

The beat-up Strat quickly became an extension of Gallagher, the “working class hero,” but, despite people’s affiliation between man and relic’d Strat, Bonamassa believes Gallagher saw his instruments as merely “tools…different instruments for different things.”

Another Strat, a ‘58 model with a maple fretboard, served as his go-to backup. Bonamassa explained what he believes is the very human reason Gallagher was drawn to the Fender model.

“The Strat is a desert island guitar," he says. "You can pretty much do anything with it. You can play the blues, rock, you can play anything." And of course Rory was inspired to play the Stratocaster because his hero Buddy Holly did. "We all buy our guitar heroes' guitars," Bonamassa says. "I'm no different, Rory was no different.

Bonamassa also commented on the guitar itself.

“I don't know where he got this,” he says. “They weren't growing on trees. He probably bought it on the road in America from a little music store for the low hundreds of dollars. They're $45,000 now.

“This one's pretty cool because the logo is still intact. On a lot of '58s the logo flaked off. They were changing the process a little bit.”

Quizzed on why Gallagher bounced between the two different models, Bonamassa pointed towards the maple fretboard of the '58.

“There's a considerable sound difference between an all-maple Strat like this, and '61 Strat which would have been a slab rosewood fingerboard, meaning that the back and is maple, and there's a large slab of Brazilian rosewood on the front. It gives it a warmer, more rock sound.

“The '58s tend to be more glassy. If you're a Strat connoisseur like Rory, you want a rosewood and a maple neck, depending on the song. I prefer a maple neck because of Buddy Guy.”

It seemed Rory preferred the ballsier sound of rosewood.

It's believed that the finish, pickups, knobs and pickup switch are original parts. Bonamassa theorizes that the one-ply pickguard would have been changed out in the '80s or '90s. Extensive wear on the rear of the guitar shows how much Gallagher gigged with it, while it also reveals that its tremolo has been blocked off. He was never known to use whammy bars.

Away from Strats, Gallagher also played his '59 Fender Esquire. Its body shows signs of heavy scarring made worse after it was crushed on an airport runway. That was one of the very few occasions the guitar ever left his side since he came to own it.

Esquires were a single-pickup sidekick to the Telecaster, but it was soon modded with an after-market neck pickup. He wasn't the only one to do so.

“If everyone in the '70s buying these for $100 knew these would be worth five figures, no one would modify them,” Bonamassa reflects. “These were tools, they weren't collectibles.”

The earliest photos of Gallagher playing the guitar date to 1971. The guitar’s neckplate features the crudely engraved legend “Property Of Buzz Harding, Greensburg Kansas," a hint to its pre-Gallagher origins.

Bonamassa notes that the guitar hasn't been touched since Gallagher died in 1995. “A guitar that sits for 30 years will need a bit of work," he offers. "It's up to the buyer whether they wanna keep Rory's strings on it — which have been on it an effing long time — and get it back up playing.

“I think the worst-case scenario is someone hangs it on their wall and brags to their rich buddies that they bought it. These things are tools and they should make music again.

“The action seems like it was set up for slide. Rory tended to like monster frets and these are really monster frets. It's a great, honest instrument.”

However, he says “the coolest thing” about the guitar is the strap that comes with it. “That's his DNA right there,” he smiles. “It's very cool to have the guitar strap and the tape he used [to hold it together].”

Reflecting on his time playing the two instruments, he says “it's clear these were tools to Rory,” and believes that “a good part of this collection will be back out there making music,” keeping the spirit of Rory Gallagher alive.

Rory’s ‘61 Strat sold for $1.16 million and has since been donated to the National Museum of Ireland. It came after a GoFundMe page — set up by the daughter of the man who sold Rory the guitar — and Irish politicians lobbied for it to stay in Ireland.

Les Pauls and humbuckers have been a winning formula for decades. But the pickups — specifically the Patent Applied For "PAF" humbuckers — weren't part of the model's spec until 1957, a good five years after its introduction.

Indeed, Les Paul himself had waited patiently for Gibson to invest in his solidbody electric guitar concept, having rejected an approach from Leo Fender in the interim. When his signature model finally entered production in 1952, it boasted a pair of single-coil P90 pickups.

Considering the number of players who have lifted the humbucking-equipped Les Paul to heaven, it's little surprise that P90 Les Pauls have become a rarity. Or, as Gibson Gear Guide host Dinesh Lekhraj calls them, “an underdog”.

Recently, three big-name players have come to the P90's defense, chief among them Joe Bonamassa.

“I'm known as a humbucking kind of player,” he admits, “but I own a lot of P90 Les Pauls and they're great. They clean up really well.

“Most people who are real dyed-in-the-wool Gibson people will say behind closed doors when the internet isn’t watching that their favorite pickup is a P90. They're cleaner. There's a sparkle on top that a humbucking pickup doesn't get.”

Certainly, in terms of tone, P90s are considered something of a halfway house between the rounded fullness of humbuckers and the bite of single-coils, making them a more attractive pickup for those who a broad range of tones.

Bonamassa has incorporated the pickups into his 12th Epiphone signature guitar, a 1955 Les Paul Standard with a gorgeous Copper Iridescent finish. He admits that players will have to “set up their gain stages” for P90s specifically to get the most out of them, but he’s pointed to three other players, Leslie West, Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr, and modern blues rocker Jared James Nichols as stars to have successfully flown the P90 flag.

For Starr, who installed a P90 into his signature Les Paul Junior, the pickups' malleable tone was a big part of the pull, especially when it comes to a single-pickup guitar.

Discussing his signature guitar with Lekhraj, he says they clean up even when playing through big amps, thanks to the dynamics of the volume knob. What's more, he found he can change the tone of the guitar just by moving the position of his picking hand. That sees it going from ballsy rock to twanging country the closer you get to the bridge.

“Not having a neck pickup,” he adds, “you can always use the tone knob, come down to about five, and move where you're picking the string really gives it a fatter sound.” In this way, he can easily emulate neck-pickup tones.

Jared James Nichols says his beloved “Dorothy” Les Paul was found in his friend’s front yard in the wake of a 2013 tornado, “without a neck and full of mud, with shards on asphalt in it." Nichols noticed that its bridge pickup had side screws in opposing corners.

“The first run of Les Pauls has those,” he said. “That's the only run that did those. So right away I was like, 'That's an early '52.' ”

The guitar's original owner was tracked down, but by that point, she'd already claimed the insurance for what had been her father's guitar. Nichols walked away with the instrument free of charge.

A careful restoration job followed, with Nichols wanting to “represent all the bumps and bruises.

“I only wanted it to be playable. I had no reservations if it was gonna sound good or not," he said. “I plugged it in — the electronics had never been touched — and it worked.”

He slowly started rolling the volume knob up to discover that the pickups still retained their full dynamic glory more than 60 years later.

So not only is there a case for their tonal quality and reactiveness to the guitar's controls, but they're tornado-proof too. That’s not too shabby for an underdog.

It’s been another bumper year for gear releases , but for Joe Bonamassa and Joe Perry, only two releases truly stand out.

In the retro corner, Gibson has reissued Jimmy Page's iconic EDS-1275 "Stairway to Heaven" double-neck and revived a forgotten '80s relic.

More forward-thinking releases have seen Fender offer trailblazing new designs for a number of its flagship electric guitars via the American Ultra II series. In addition, PRS has released its first-ever semihollow guitar, and John Mayer and Ernie Ball have teamed up for an unusual string set.

But for the two Joes, the latter camp holds the greater appeal.

Bonamassa says he’s kept returning to his Crazy Tube Circuits White Whale reverb pedal. In addition to emulating the spring reverb and tremolo effects of ‘60s Fender combo amps , the pedal re-creates the tube and output transformer saturation of those builds.

“It does a great job in front of any amp,” Bonamassa tells Guitar World. “It adds a killer authentic spring — there’s spring inside it — and a believable brown-amp circa ’62 Fender-style vibrato.”

The “hypnotic and mesmerizing” all-analog, real-spring reverb and tremolo pedal is actually a reprised version of a pedal the Greek pedal company first released several years beforehand. Key tweaks to its circuit have helped it shine second time around.

For Bonasmassa, it’s become a go-to pedal in the studio. “I’ve used it on many sessions and it has become a quiet MVP in the studio,” says Bonamassa.

Away from the studio, the bluesman has unveiled what he believes to be “the world’s most expensive three-channel live rig”. While it includes several of his recently purchased Dumble amps, he's left Lowell George’s Dumble Overdrive Special, which he bought back in the summer, at home.

Perry, meanwhile, has fallen in love with his Silktone Micronaut. The company, which started off producing guitar cables, is a relative newcomer to amp-building and introduced its eponymous debut model in 2019.

“They’re great amps to use with pedals," Perry says of his Micronaut, "meaning you can get them relatively clean to get the most out of your pedals. You can get it to crunch just by putting it to 10. I run mine at 2 o’clock."

Perry is so pleased he's recommending Silktone amps to other guitarists. “If you can get your hands on a Silktone, it’s a great piece for your arsenal," he says. "I did some recording with mine, and for what I was going for, it worked great.”

Perry, who is back in the studio after Aerosmith retired from touring, professes to be a stone-cold Gibson man but says the guitar that got away from him was a Fender Stratocaster, having revealed that much of Aerosmith's early recordings saw him playing Strats in the studio, preferring the variety it gave against Brad Whitford's Les Paul.

In the theme of lifting the lid on some of the band's best-kept recording secrets, he's also discussed the unusual technique that he used on 1980’s Let The Music Do The Talking, which essentially saw him concocting a make-shift seven-string guitar.

It’s currently unclear as to what guise Perry’s new recordings will take if/when they are released, but it's a safe bet another Bonamassa solo record is just around the corner. Either way, both guitarists have benefitted from giving new gear a chance – and it has paid them dividends.

Joe Bonamassa’s gear obsession is so strong that his home, Nerdville, is a museum. So it’s no surprise his current live rig features some rare and valuable gear.

In a new Rig Exploration With American Musical Supply, the same outlet that had Steve Morse covering Jeff Beck with their house band, he reveals what's in his “amp shanty.”

“What we have here can probably be described as the world's most expensive three-channel amp,” he says.

“I've got an 11-piece band, including me, so I have to fit in between them. This whole frontline will really eat into the mid-bandwidth.”

Channel A pairs two 1987 Silver Marshall Jubilee heads with two custom-made blackface Fender Twin combo amps for a “straightforward rock” sound. The combos are fairly recent additions, but one of the Jubilees has been part of his rig for decades.

“I bought it at the Buffalo, New York, Musician's Flea Market in 1994 for $400,” he explains. “This guy's walking around the convention hall with this amp asking for $600. My father, who was a guitar dealer at the time, said 'That's' too much, offer him $400.'

“He walks it around again, another lap, and these things are heavy. He says 'Would you do $500?' I said 'No, my dad will only let me go to 400 bucks.' He comes back around about 20 minutes later, drops the amp in front of me and says, 'Gimme the $400.' And I've been using it ever since.”

Channel B pairs his Jubilees with two 50-watt Dumble Overdrive Special combos. They’re set to their Overdrive channels “as loud as they’ll go,” which is just past midway.

The Dumbles are from 1984 and 2003 and are hooked up to a Mesa/Boogie Revolver 1x12 rotary speaker cabinet. “It’s kept on mostly for a chorus solo tone that just spreads it out a little bit,” Bonamassa says. A fairly simple Boss RV-5 reverb pedal sits on one of the amps.

Bonamassa had sold his entire Dumble collection in 2014, but has gone on to buy eight since, three of which are out on the road with him.

The last of his Dumble trio is a 100-watt Super Overdrive Special head, paired with an original TC Electronic Chorus pedal for channel C.

“It’s set to what I can best describe as a Larry Carlton thing: clean channel, but driven,” the bluesman explains. “It's the most articulate that I get, to the point that the nights I suck, you don't hear it.”

Bonamassa switches between the channels with a 25-year-old Lehle box, similar to the one found on Mark Tremonti’s current Creed rig, with each serving “three different stages of midrange depending on the song”.

All three feed into a curious cabinet that looks like a 4x12 but is in fact two 2x12s split vertically and comprising four Electro-Voice EV12L speakers.

Asked if he likes the EV12Ls for their headroom, he responds: “Whatever the internet tells me to do, I tend to do the exact opposite.”

But with a degree of seriousness, he adds, “With Marshalls, especially high-gain preamp Marshalls like the '87 Silver Jubilee, I like the E-Vs because there's no coloration like Celestions.”

His pedalboard is a fairly simple set-up littered with classics. There’s a Boss DD- 2 digital delay, 1981 Ibanez Tube Screamer, MXR Micro Flanger, EHX Micro POG, and Fuzz Face.

Lastly, there's his special Cry Baby Wah, painted Lake Placid Blue for him by Fender, and his newly released Deep State overdrive, described as an “extremely good” Klon copy with a brighter midrange, which sits alongside an original Klon Centaur.

“As if it wasn’t bougie enough!” the guitarist adds with a laugh.

Guitar Player hasn’t crunched the numbers, but Bonamassa’s claim to the world's most expensive three-channel rig seems safe.

Before his current tour dates, the guitarist worked with Martin to reissue a “museum-grade” 1941 acoustic and has recently revealed to GP the one guitar he can't live without. He describes its tone as “dark and chewy,” but, incredibly, it isn't a Les Paul.

Few guitarists are as passionate about vintage kit as Joe Bonamassa. He admits that he doesn't bother much with new gear and estimates he owns "maybe 10" new guitars.

But when it comes to vintage guitars, Joe's got everything from late-‘50s Gibson Les Paul Standards to quirky Fender Esquires, rarer-than-rare Flying Vs and more. Much more.

But what's cool about Joe is that he's not just a collector but a user of vintage electric guitars. At any given moment during a show, he might bust out a '59 Les Paul or a '55 Strat, such as his beloved “Bonnie Strat," which he calls “the best Strat" he owns.

To get to the hear of the matter, Joe Bonamassa dialed in with GP to talk about his beloved vintages curios, the Strats he favors Strats and more.

If you could have just one guitar, what would you choose?

Even though I'm a Les Paul guy, and I've made my reputation with that, I always say that if I had to do a gig with one guitar, I could pretty much get all the sounds I require out of a Fender Stratocaster.

I can get the really dark chewy sound out of the middle pickup and clean bright Tele stuff out of the bridge. And if you want the woman tone, it's all within the tone controls. The Strat will do everything if you just fiddle with the volume and the tones. You can get there with the different gain structures.

Generally, with a good maple-neck Fender Stratocaster, I can do my entire gig without switching guitars seven or eight times.

Is there a particular vintage Strat you can't live without?

My favorite Strat is one that I call the Bonnie Strat. I call it that because Bonnie Bramlett engraved her name on the back of the body in 2018 when she sang with us at our show. It's a 1955 Fender Strat, with a hardtail, and no trem.

She asked me to engrave my name onto her very famous guitar that everyone from Jerry Garcia to George Harrison. She brought the guitar with her into the studio in Nashville, and she's like, "Joe, I'd be honored if you'd carve your name into it with this knife." She whips out this blade, and I'm like, "You kidding me?"

First of all, it's hard to sign your name with a knife into an acoustic guitar; it's not as easy as it looks. I was honored by that. So when she came to our gig in St. Louis a few months later, I said, "Bonnie, I got a guitar for you to engrave your name in. I'd be just as honored, so bring your Dremel." She goes, "Oh, I'm there, honey."

I have videos of her with a Dremel, carving her name into the back of my '55 hardtail. It'll forever be known as the Bonnie Strat, and it's my best Strat. Every pickup position is just exactly how I hear a Stratocaster guitar sounding.

What's the one guitar you'll never play, and why?

I have a hard time with archtops, like Gibson Super 400s. There's nothing wrong with Super 400s or those big jazz guitars, but for a loud electric player like me, it's just a hard guitar to get under control. They're just big and unruly, but many players have used Super 400s. I mean, look at Steve Howe, a guy who could rock an ES-175 or Super 400 with Yes. That shit is loud and awesome.

What pedal is always on your pedalboard, and why?

I would say an [Ernie Ball] Cry Baby wah-wah pedal. I don't use the wah a lot, but it does something. Without it, it just feels wrong if it's not there. I'm kind of a straight in [the amp] kind of dude. If I'm sitting in with someone, I just like a high-powered Fender Twin. It does everything. It roars and cleans up well; all you need is a cable.

What's the one guitar you still long for, and why?

That's one I honestly don't have an answer for. I own everything. [laughs] I don't want to sound bourgeois, but I own everything I've always wanted.

What guitar did you long for the most before you found it?

Well, it's not a guitar. The longest journey from discovery to acquisition has to be the Lowell George Dumble Overdrive Special. That took 15 years. If you break down my favorite slide players, they're all essentially cut from the same cloth. Lowell had one Dumble amp, and I used to study that. But it doesn't take an Ancestry.com DNA test to know what this amp was built for. If you play that style, it gets there real quick.

Ten years ago, Joe Bonamassa did a surprising thing. His trio of Dumble guitar amps had been vital tools in sculpting his tone — along with Marshall and Van Weelden amplifiers — but he felt it was time to switch things up with his tube amps.

“Two years ago, I mothballed that whole cliché of the rig I’m most associated with,” he explained to Total Guitar in 2016. “The two Marshalls and the two Van Weeldens and the Dumbles and the effects board and everything.

“I sold all my Dumbles. I had three at one point and I sold them all. One I traded for a ’59 Les Paul, which I get way more joy from.”

Bonamassa filled the vacancies with a collection of Fender Tweeds, and that seemed to be the end of his lust for Dumbles.

Except for one.

For 15 years, Bonamassa had searched high and low for the Dumble Overdrive Special Reverb owned by Little Feat guitarist Lowell George. The amp hadn't been played since the night before George's death in June 1979, when he used it for a performance at Lisner Auditorium in Washington.

Bonamassa's search famously came to an end earlier this year when he found and purchased the coveted piece of gear, which he calls “the crown jewel” of his amp collection.

But as it turns out, the allure of Alexander Dumble’s creations had returned to him much sooner.

“I got into the Tweeds for a long time,” he tells The Zak Kuhn Show, “and I got tired of using too complicated of a rig to achieve the same result as plugging straight in.”

Bonamassa says he began buying Dumbles once again in 2020. “I repurchased a couple at that point,” he says. “I built this three-piece rig for when we were going to do those shows that could only have 25 percent of people.”

It didn’t long before he added more.

“I brought back the old amp shanty from years ago,” he continues, “and I plugged them all in — same wiring, same pedalboard, same everything. I said, ‘Man, I've been missing the boat.’ So they're back, and now I have eight of them.”

It’s a mystery why he ever sold them. After all, Bonamassa’s home, Nerdville, is so full of vintage gear that it can rightly be called a museum. It wouldn’t have been unusual for him to keep the Dumbles in his collection.

But as he explains, those amps represented “a lot of money sitting around.”

“It’s an expensive hobby,” the guitarist says, noting that the ’59 Les Paul he purchased with the funds from those Dumble sales more than justifies his decision.

And besides, he says with a sigh, “Collectors do weird things.”

Whatever the case, he has no regrets about his purchase of Lowell George’s amp head and matching cab. Watch for that “pretty special piece of rock and roll history” to be featured on his fall tour dates.

Bonamassa isn’t the only electric guitarist still stuck on Dumbles. Fellow blues guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd tells Total Guitar in its November 2024 issue he can’t live without the 11 amps Alexander Dumble custom-built for him.

“From the first amplifier to the last, they elevated my playing and creativity,” he says. “It freed up so much energy for me to express myself. I didn't realize how much energy I was using with my previous amplifiers to try and get them to do the things I wanted them to do.”

In related news, Joe Bonamassa has unveiled his 12th Epiphone signature guitar, with his latest Les Paul sporting a rare colorway and an unlikely pickup choice.

It was just before the pandemic hit in 2020 that I happened upon a YouTube video by an Italian funk-fusion trio named the Snips. The initial hook for me was the fact that they were playing The Chicken, the funky Pee Wee Ellis tune that Jaco Pastorius had adopted as a set opener for his Word of Mouth big band in the early 80s. As Jaco’s biographer, I was naturally curious about their version. 

These were three young guys, just 19 or 20 years old at the time they first posted this audacious video in 2017. Jacked on adrenaline and youthful enthusiasm, they burned through the funk vehicle at an absolutely blistering pace (that video to date has garnered an awesome 2.4 million views on YouTube). The rhythm tandem of bassist Riccardo Olivia and drummer Salvatore Lima was impeccably tight, but what really stood out for me was the guitarist, Matteo Mancuso, who executed the incendiary lines and mind-boggling solo that followed, sans pick, with a kind of nonchalance that was totally disarming. 

And while his fingerstyle approach immediately recalled such other players who eschewed the pick — Mick Goodrick, John Abercrombie, Lenny Breau, Phil deGruy, and of course the whole lineage of classical and flamenco players who historically have navigated imposing lines with a strictly fingerstyle approach — this was something else entirely. 

Other YouTube videos followed by this precocious trio, including uncannily exacting renditions of chops-busting vehicles like Allan Holdsworth’s Fred, Chick Corea’s Spain (915k views), Tribal Tech’s Face First and UZEB’s Penny Arcade, as well as Matteo’s at-home practice videos of him blazing through John Coltrane’s Giant Steps, Charlie Parker’s Donna Lee and the age-old jazz jamming vehicle Cherokee, each one containing more jaw-dropping feats of fretboard fantasia by the young prodigio.

The comments sections for those same YouTube videos were soon flooded with superlatives about this amazing new guitar discovery. And it wasn’t long before the pros began weighing in on Matteo’s abundant talent, with no less than Al Di Meola, Steve Vai and Joe Bonamassa welcoming Mancuso into that rich lineage of great Italian guitarists, from Eddie Lang (Salvatore Massaro), Joe Pass (Anthony Jacobi Passalacqua), Pat Martino (Pat Azzara) and Joe Diorio to Frank Zappa, Bucky and John Pizzarelli, Di Meola, Vai, Frank Gambale, Joe Satriani, John Frusciante, John Petrucci and Chris Impellitteri. 

“I wrote to him and said, ‘Matteo, what are you doing? You’re killing us!’” says Di Meola, who invited the young Palermo-born guitarist to sit in with him on Spain and Mediterranean Sundance at the 2022 Eddie Lang Jazz Festival in Monteroduni, Italy. 

“I mean, his improvisational ability is light years ahead. Like, it would take two, three lifetimes to catch up with him. It was almost like when Jaco came on the scene: How the hell did he get so good so fast?” 

Adds Steve Vai, “I was pretty stunned when I heard Matteo. The evolution of the guitar is firmly secure in the hands of people like him… It’s just a new level: the tone, the touch, the notes… Incredible!” 

And Joe Bonamassa was over the moon for Mancuso. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he raved. “It’s the most incredible thing I’ve seen since I first saw Stanley Jordan. He’s completely reinvented the instrument. He rips like Eric Johnson, then he’ll play over changes, then he’ll play Iron Maiden. It’s the most versatile thing I’ve ever seen.”

Finally, after six years of blowing minds on YouTube, Mancuso has released his first album, The Journey, on the Players Club/Mascot Label Group. And rather than just showcasing his prodigious and unprecedented chops on yet another string of well-chosen covers from the jazz and fusion canons, the 26-year-old has written all original material for this eagerly awaited debut, each already garnering hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. 

Playing a Yamaha Revstar Custom electric guitar with a Line 6 Helix pedalboard for all his solos while overdubbing rhythm guitar parts on another Yamaha guitar, as well as a Bacci baritone guitar, Matteo rips on rockers like Silkroad and Drop D, swings confidently on the jazzy 3/4 number Polifemo, conjures up a bit of Holdsworth and Eric Johnson on Falcon Flight and Samba Party, and a touch of Pat Metheny on the bright, uplifting melody of Open Fields. He then showcases his beautiful nylon-string acoustic playing on Time to Leave and the poignant title track, which closes The Journey on a hymn-like note of reflection.

Guitar Player caught up with Matteo in a Zoom chat from his home in Palermo.

It’s great to meet you, Matteo. I’ve been following you on YouTube since The Chicken. 

Yes. That was the first viral video, from 2017. That was my first trio, Snips. I was maybe 19 when it was starting. The bass player was Riccardo Olivia, who is also from Sicily, but now he lives in Milan. The drummer, Salvatore Lima, is also from here. We were playing a lot of very traditional fusion stuff back then, like Chick Corea’s Spain and Allan Holdsworth’s Fred, which I still play live. It’s one of my favorite tunes to play live. And then, in 2020, during the pandemic, I founded the Matteo Mancuso Trio, and it was a different trio from Snips. And that’s when I started composing original material and working on this album, The Journey. So there are nine pieces in total, all original compositions.  

The new core trio is Stefano India on bass and Giusseppe Bruno on drums. It’s a very flexible trio. 

They are very versatile musicians, able to play rock very aggressively and also swing, and sometimes within the same song. My goal was to have an album that wasn’t associated with only one style, and these guys really help me achieve that.

Let’s talk about your beginnings on the instrument. I read that your father, Vincenzo, was a guitarist and that you and he played Django Reinhardt together early on. 

My father is an electric/classical guitar player. He played everything from classical music to funk, so he’s a very versatile player. He was in an Italian rock band called Camaleonti in the mid-1960s, and he worked as a touring pop guitar player for other people here in Italy. Now he is more like a producer than a pure guitar player, so he’s worked with a lot of popular Italian musicians. He helped a lot with my album. 

He was like a listening guide for me, more than a teacher. I started playing guitar when I was around 10 years old, and I always saw my father playing guitar around the house. When I first started, I played with fingers because I thought that the instrument was meant to be played like that, because I always saw my father playing with fingers.

Your father never used a pick? 

Sometimes, but he mainly uses fingers. I started playing in a duo with him when I was around 17, though I had already played live at age 12 at the 2009 Castelbuono Jazz Festival in Sicily. I later studied jazz guitar at the conservatory here in Palermo, and because I wanted to study that repertoire, a guitar duo was perfect for me. That’s why I started playing live with my father. We mostly played standards and Joe Pass stuff.

And it was very natural for you to play with fingers from the beginning?

Yeah, it felt really natural from the start. I didn’t even know that you should use a pick for electric guitar. Basically, you have four picks when you play fingerstyle, so it allows you to have more possibilities for extended arpeggios. So I started off playing with bass technique, using two fingers. Later on, when I was around 14, I started studying to learn classical guitar, and that helped me a lot to develop my right- and left-hand technique. But I wasn’t really a good student of classical guitar. I consider myself an electric guitar player rather than a classical one, but I borrowed a lot of things from the classical world.

What about the flamenco world? 

Flamenco is slightly different. They use different guitars than the pure classical models, and the technique is different, of course. I have some similarities with the flamenco technique, speaking of the right hand. But I think my technique is closer to the bass rather than the pure flamenco technique. 

You mentioned bass technique. I’m sure you’re familiar with Mick Goodrick. He played with two fingers on his beautiful single-note lines. 

Yeah, yeah. I know him. 

And then we have someone like Lenny Breau, who played fingerstyle on a seven-string guitar with a high A. Were you hip to him at all? 

Yeah, I discovered him a few years ago, and I was shocked because of all the harmonics he was playing. I borrowed some stuff from him, speaking of chord melody. Yeah, he’s a phenomenal player. 

I’d like to talk about your instrument of choice. Like in those early videos, The Chicken and Fred, was that a different guitar than you’re playing now? 

No, it’s actually always been the Yamaha Revstar. It was a different model then, of course. Right now I mostly use my Custom model, which I’ve played since 2019. I use slightly different models for rhythm parts on the new record, but the main one is the Revstar Custom. I really like that the Revstar has a dark sound. It’s close to a Gibson SG, and I was chasing that for a while; that fat, humbucker sound is something that I really like. The Revstar is a little bit more versatile than the SG, so I can play jazz, funk and metal with it. And I have a five-way switch on my Custom, so I can also split the humbuckers to get a single-coil sound. Of course, I prefer a slightly wider string spacing, just because you have more room for your fingers. But once I got used to it, it wasn’t really a problem for me.

You mentioned the SG. I understand that one of your early rock influences was AC/DC. Angus Young plays a Gibson SG, and Holdsworth also played one in his earlier days.

Yeah, Angus Young was the reason I bought an SG [depicted on 2017 YouTube videos of him shredding on Guthrie Govan’s Fives, Eric Johnson’s Cliffs of Dover and UZEB’s Penny Arcade]. I was and still am a big AC/DC fan. That was the first band that I was listening to. So the SG was because of Angus Young. Later on I discovered Fender Stratocasters through Jimi Hendrix, who was another big influence on me. Some of the first tunes that I learned of his were Hey Joe, Purple Haze and All Along The Watchtower. But AC/DC was always a big influence. 

Holdsworth and all the fusion guys came later for me, when I was around 17. Allan is for sure one of my biggest influences, especially when it came down to phrasing and vocabulary. He was such a big influence, in fact, that I stopped listening to him for a while, because I started sounding too much like him. So I started listening to other players, like Scott Henderson, Frank Gambale, Robben Ford... All the jazz-rock guys. And I basically built my vocabulary through these players. So yeah, Allan is such a big influence that I had to stop listening to him too much. He changed the guitar forever, I think.

Comparing your early YouTube videos to your more recent stuff from The Journey, it seems that you’ve developed some incredible whammy-bar articulation, shaping the notes in that liquid fashion that reminds me of Holdsworth. When did that become part of your vocabulary?

It started when I first got the new Yamaha Pacifica, which is basically their Stratocaster. I started playing that when I was listening to Scott Henderson, who is a master of the whammy bar. So I started playing like that because of him. And actually, the first tune on the album, Silkroad, is dedicated to Scott, because the first theme was inspired by that diminished aspect of his playing. And then, of course, there is the Holdsworth influence on all the legato stuff. But that is also because Scott himself said that Holdsworth was a big influence for him. So I guess it’s also a tribute to Allan, you know? 

The second tune, Polifemo, opens like a swinging jazz tune in 6/8 that you play with a warm, clean tone. But you also inject some kind of crunch sound on your solo. You’re very adept at mixing influences, not strictly separating the tunes stylistically into rock and jazz camps. It’s all integrated very organically. Can you break that tune down?

Polifemo is a perfect mix of my jazz influence in a rock song, if you want. Because I feel that if it is hard to categorize, that means that you are on the way to making something new. So that was the goal with Polifemo. I wanted to do a jazz song, and I wanted to promote distortion but without sounding too much out of place. The first solo is with the piano, played by Giuseppe Vasapolli, and I came to the second solo with a distorted tone, but it’s not too aggressive. It’s more like a tone that Eric Johnson uses, for instance. More like an overdrive, rather than a pure distortion pedal.

And what device or pedal are you dialing for that?

I mainly used a digital amp modeler for the entire album. So all the sounds you hear on the album are digital, basically. And I mainly used the Line 6 Helix for modeling. The simulation of the amp was a Matchless DC-30, which is called the Matchstick Channel 2 on the Helix. And the Helix distortion I used for Polifemo is called a Tube Driver. It’s really close to the Klon Centaur distortion. The distortion sound on Silkroad was the same sound, but with a different guitar. 

Falcon Flight is an intense tune with a lot of harmonic movement and some open-string arpeggiating underneath. And you have a fairly clean sustain tone on the melody and your solo. Tell me about that one. 

First of all, I wrote that tune, like, two years ago. I wanted to write a bass drum ’n’ bass song because I was listening to a lot of Mark Lettieri back then. He’s a really funky guitar player with Snarky Puppy. I love Mark. So I was trying to write something similar, but I ended up doing something completely different. That’s how I write most of these songs:  I get inspired by one player or one particular song and I try to do something similar, but I end up doing something completely different. 

On Falcon Flight, the rhythm section is slightly different. Gianluca Pellerito plays drums on that track. He’s a pretty popular player in Italy. He is more like a chops kind of player, very American-sounding. There was a drum section that was really busy in that way, and I think Gianluca was the perfect choice for that piece.

Open Fields feels a little more relaxed. It opens with solo guitar that develops this kind of warm, inviting, almost Pat Metheny–esque kind of a melody. Very engaging and uplifting, like Metheny’s Phase Dance. To go from the burning intensity of Falcon Flight into the more intimate Open Fields is a nice contrast.

I actually wrote the song with classical guitar, but I wanted to do a trio version for the album, so it changed a little bit during the recording. It is dedicated to Sicily: The Italian name for Open Fields is Campagna Siciliana, which means ‘Sicilian countryside’. So it’s dedicated to the landscape we see every time we go to my home in Sicily. It’s really similar to what you see on the album cover of The Journey. And yes, it has a lot of Metheny vibes, because I was listening a lot to Pat when I wrote it.

Pat Martino told me that his people were from Palermo. Was he of interest to you when you were at the conservatory there studying jazz? 

Yeah, Martino was the starting point for my bebop vocabulary. I began working on it back when I was at the Conservatory of Palermo. Of course, I started with Charlie Parker and then I studied all the bebop guys, like Pat Martino and Joe Pass, of course. I learned a lot from them, especially Joe Pass, who was my starting point for my chord melody stuff, even though I don’t consider myself that kind of player. Joe also played with a pick a lot, but later on he played with just fingers.

There’s no mistaking the rock influence on Drop D, your first single. There’s some heavy power chording, and you’re just wailing on it. It sounds like a big production number with a lot of guitar overdubs. And you are just shredding on it with a ton of tapping on your solo.

Drop D is my kind of tribute to my first rock influences — AC/DC, Led Zeppelin. It’s also a tribute to all my rock-blues influences. This is the tune where I recorded lots of layers, guitars on guitars — backing guitars, even with the Bacci baritone guitar. I think it’s the most produced song on the album, because it’s more like traditional song sections rather than jazz elements.

Blues For John is a swinging tune with Giuseppe Vasapolli on organ. And I think I heard some Wes Montgomery kind of chord melody and octave playing in there. He must have been an influence on you at some point. 

Yeah, sure. Wes is one of my favorite jazz players. And Blues For John is one of my favorite tunes on the album, because on the solo section it tells through guitar my story to the blues, starting from the bebop clean stuff of Pat Martino, Wes Montgomery and George Benson, then moving into the more blues-rock players like Joe Bonamassa and Eric Johnson, with distortion tone. And this tune is actually dedicated to John McLaughlin, who is one of my favorite composers as well being a legendary guitar player. John McLaughlin is a perfect example of mixing technique with beautiful compositions. So it’s a blues dedicated to him, basically. 

Time to Leave sounds like you’re playing a nylon-string acoustic guitar.

It’s a classical guitar, though my kind of touch is not really like a classical player’s. I play in a more aggressive way than a classical player. Time to Leave started as a solo guitar piece, but then I changed my mind and started to work on an arrangement for the trio. That was actually one of the first things I composed for this album. I wrote it during the pandemic.

Samba Party features some incredible arpeggiating. And your fingerstyle technique allows you to very easily integrate tapping into your absolutely hellacious solo on this tune. Most players with a pick have to make a big overture to start tapping, but you do it so naturally.

I worked a lot on it, of course. I try to mix the tapping in a natural way. I don’t want it to be like a switch turning on: like, “Now I’m doing tapping, now I’m doing alternate picking, and now I’m doing legato.” So if I have to do a tapping section, it needs to be integrated into the solo really well. One of the guys that does this consistently is Greg Howe. He’s a really big influence, especially when it comes to the tapping sections, so he is one of my inspirations for Samba Party. I think it is maybe my favorite song from the album, because, personally speaking, I can’t categorize Samba Party. I don’t know if it’s fusion, jazz or rock. It’s a perfect mix of all of those influences. 

So yeah, my goal, as I said, is to find something that wasn’t associated with only one style, so Samba Party is a perfect example of that. 

I’ll tell you what it isn’t. It’s not a samba. 

Yeah, that’s for sure. 

You’re such a scholar and you have such a developed ear. You have obviously assimilated the music of Allan Holdsworth, Scott Henderson, Eric Johnson — and not just skimming off the top. It seems like you’ve very deeply absorbed these guys. You have a great ear and you integrated it all very organically into your own vocabulary. 

Thank you. Yeah, I’ve transcribed a lot of their solos and worked on the phrasing, so that’s why you hear those guys in my playing.

I imagine that The Journey, the very poignant melody played on acoustic guitar, expresses your own journey that you’ve been on. 

Yeah. That was the last tune I wrote for the album. Initially, there were only eight songs but I wanted to write a pure ballad. Open Fields was the closest to a ballad, but there is also the distortion ending. So I wanted a pure ballad, like a Pat Metheny kind of vibe. I started working on the melody with my father, and he ended up playing second guitar on that tune. My father was on the acoustic guitar and myself on the classical guitar. So it is a father-and-son duo.

That’s a beautiful way of coming full circle for you.

Thank you. I wanted to do something with my father as the last tune, because he was my listening guide for a lot of years. 

The Journey is out now on Players Club/Mascot and available to buy or stream.

Joe Bonamassa has put his name on his 12th guitar collaboration with Epiphone: the 1955 Les Paul Standard, a guitar inspired by both vintage and contemporary blues rock greats. The model is part of the guitarist's Artist Series, a partnership between Bonamassa and Epiphone that typically produces a new guitar each year.

This time, however, Bonamassa has thrown a couple of left curves into the mix.

Notably, the 1955 Les Paul Standard is the first guitar in the series to feature P90 pickups. It follows in the wake of a 1962 ES-335 reissue based on one of the guitarist's most cherished six-strings, and a 1963 SG Custom designed for those priced out of buying a vintage Gibson

Those previous creations have featured humbuckers — the SG Custom even had three. But Bonamassa says he was intrigued to pursue a P90 model and points to players like Leslie West, Blackberry Smoke's Charlie Starr and Jared James Nichols as examples of guitarists who have had success with the pickup.

“I'm known as a humbucking player, but I own a lot of P90 Les Pauls and they clean up really well, ” he says. “Most people who are real dyed-in-the-wool Gibson people will say behind closed doors that their favorite pickup is a P90. They're cleaner. There's a sparkle on top that a humbucking pickup doesn't get.”

In addition, the Epiphone 1955 Les Paul Standard features Gibson's rare Copper Iridescent finish — which makes sense when you learn that the guitar is modeled on two 1955 Copper Iridescent Les Pauls that Bonamassa owns (he notes in the video below that a third example was recently discovered).

Although the colorway is little known today, Gibson introduced it in 1955 and offered it as a standard finish option for some time. The color, which changes from brown to copper, depending on the light, is one of Bonamassa's favorites. He even has a ‘72 Les Paul in the same finish — evidence that it was no flash-in-the-pan trend. He laments “that there's just not many” examples and praises Epiphone for its work “tracking down the original paint color” for the new model.

In addition, the 1955 Les Paul Standard comes with the usual Epiphone Les Paul trimmings and a few choice amendments, including a mahogany body topped with bound maple, and a bound laurel fretboard with 22 medium jumbo frets and pearloid trapezoid inlays. Interestingly, the guitar features a ‘59-inspired rounded C-profile mahogany neck joined to the body with a long tenon neck joint.

As for those pickups, they're a pair of Epiphone P90 Pro Soapbars and are paired with Copper Iridescent speed knobs. Hardware includes Epiphone Deluxe tuners, a LockTone Tune-o-matic bridge and stopbar, and a '59 Les Paul no-bevel pickguard to match the soapbar pickups.

Bonamassa says he's “happy we’ve done a P90 guitar, because it was long overdue.” The guitar's price point — $849, including hardshell case — also fits with his desire to create an affordable instrument. “I wanted to go back to making guitars that were under $900 with a case," he says. "These are ready to rock, you can rule the world with 'em.”

Head to Epiphone to learn more.

Joe Bonamassa and Way Huge have teamed up for the “ultimate Klon clone,” available exclusively on the bluesman’s Reverb store.

The Deep State overdrive pedal is a limited-edition, modified version of the firm's Conspiracy Theory Overdrive, hailed as one of the best Klon clones.

Chief adjustments have been made by Way Huge's resident tonal scientist Jeorge Tripps and Bonamassa.

Only 550 units have been made, with each one numbered and hand-signed by Bonamassa on the inside.

The pedal finds its Klon-like character from the discovery of a diode that has “a truly magical-sounding voltage drop” – but what that diode is remains top secret.

“We’re talking electronic alchemy,” says Reverb. “The results were mind-blowing. Smooth, velvety clipping that responds to playing dynamics like you wouldn’t believe.”

It concludes that the stompbox “delivers all of the dreaminess of the original for a mere fraction of the price of a real Klon Centaur.”

In the video, Bonamassa puts the pedal through its paces in a shootout against a 1995 Klon Centaur.

However, there was a catch: The Deep State was paired with a budget rig comprising a 2021 Epiphone JB Lazarus Les Paul, which retailed at $899, and an early '90s Fender Reverb Sidekick 25 amp, which retailed between $100-200.

The Klon, meanwhile, is teamed with a '59 Les Paul Standard and a 1983 Dumble Overdrive Special, the total price of the trio comfortably into the six-figure mark.

It comes after Bonamassa and Reverb compared a $1,200 Hendrix-inspired rig with a rig closely resembling the late great’s own, costing around $60,000.

Bonamassa concludes that the pedals “sound virtually identical,” before fanning the flames of keyboard warriors by adding, “and I'm not just saying that!”

“I did a deal with Bill [Finnegan, Klon founder] at the Philly Guitar Show in 1994,” he says of how he came to own his first Klon. “He didn't have a booth or anything, he was walking around with a knapsack full of them. They were $125, which was a lot of money. I think I bought one for half price.

“About a year later, I got called into a session with John Leventhal, who is Rosanne Cash's husband, and I ended up giving him the pedal. It was serial number 12 or something like that!”

Bonamassa also believes, and he says Finnegan would agree with him, that the second-hand market for original Klons “has gotten out of hand,” which is why he's eager to bring an affordable alternative to the market.

“It's the toolkit,” he underscores. “We're sitting here with a Sidekick and a Dumble Overdrive Special and in a roundabout way we're achieving the exact same thing.

“We're trying to debunk this mystery of what it actually takes to get a good sound. You can gig with anything. It doesn't really matter. It's the intent and the player behind it all that you can't forget.”

That, however, didn’t stop Bonamassa from spending 15 years searching for Lowell George’s famed Dumble Special Overdrive amp – a quest he finally completed earlier this year.

The Deep State’s release follows Martin’s recent collaborative build with Reverb. Together, they produced the Reverb Select Martin Custom GP Blonde, a premium – and expensive – all-blonde non-cutaway Grand Performance acoustic guitar.

That guitar's $7,999 price tag doesn’t exactly make it accessible, but thankfully the Deep State comes in at a far less eye-watering $189 plus shipping.

Head to Reverb to discover more.

Some of the world's biggest and best guitar players have taken to social media to salute John Mayall after it was announced the blues legend had passed away at 90.

Though his work with the Bluesbreakers is perhaps best known for launching the career of a litany of household names, a surge of heartfelt tributes have instead remembered the man himself; his talent, and the legacy that he’s left behind, which extends far beyond shining the limelight on others.

Mayall produced more than 50 albums across a tireless 60-year career, with A Hard Road (1967), USA Union (1970), and Back To The Roots (1971) a trio of highlights.

His magnum opus, however, will always be 1966’s Eric Clapton-powered Blues Breakers: John Mayall with Eric Clapton (AKA The Beano Album).

Joe Bonamassa, a blues guitar luminary in his own right, reflected on the importance that album held for generations of guitarists in a poignant Instagram post.

“I loved this man. I loved this man's music,” he said. “Any suburban white kid at all interested in the blues from the 60s, 70's, 80's, or 90's learned to play guitar from the 'Beano' album.

“John's importance in music is as profound as the guitarists he hired. Yes, he employed Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Mick Fleetwood, Mickey Waller, Andy Fraser, Walter Trout, and countless other legends of the blues with The Bluesbreakers, but there is something more though than just his musical legacy.

“He was a wonderful guy that changed the game for all of us, made us all smile and appreciate the blues and the work ethic that is required to be a lifelong touring musician.”

A teary Eric Clapton took to Instagram to say a few words about his friend, John, who famously brought Clapton into the Bluesbreakers after he had left the Yardbirds and was on the brink of giving up on music.

“I want to say thank you, chiefly, for rescuing me from oblivion and god knows what when I was a young man when I decided I was going to quit music,” he says, the emotion wavering in his voice.

“He found me, and he took me into his home and asked me to join his band. I stayed with him and learned all I have to draw on today in terms of technique and desire to play the kind of music I love to play. I did all my research in his home, in his record collection.

“[Playing in his band] was a fantastic experience. He was my mentor and a surrogate father. He gave me the courage and enthusiasm to express myself without fear or limit.”

Walter Trout, who – as Bonamassa alludes to – featured in a later iteration of the Bluesbreakers, paid homage to a man who “will always be my musical mentor,” saying: “We just lost a giant. I loved him like a father, and I always will.”

Mick Jagger also paid his respects. Taking to X, the vocalist underlined the role Mayall’s Bluesbreakers played in the legacy of the Rolling Stones.

“He was a great pioneer of British blues and had a wonderful eye for talented young musicians,” he said, “including Mick Taylor – who he recommended to me after Brian Jones died – ushering in a new era for the Stones.”

His bandmate Ronnie Wood called Mayall “an important figure in the English blues scene” who “nurtured the talent of many great guitarists”. He concluded his tribute by saying that the Macclesfield-born musician was “a walking encyclopedia of American and English blues and a musical trailblazer for all of us.”

Progressive rock legend Steve Hackett called Mayall “a true champion of the blues,” in his tribute, saying that “he remains a huge inspiration to me and a legion of other musicians.”

Black Sabbath bass player, Geezer Butler, meanwhild echoed a sentiment that is as true for heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath as it is for numerous other bands.

“Sad to hear of John Mayall’s passing,” he says. “His album with Eric Clapton as the Bluesbreakers inspired tons of British bands.

“Safe to say without that album there probably wouldn’t be a Black Sabbath and definitely not a [pre-Sabbath iteration] Polka Talk Blues Band! RIP John Mayall, thanks for the inspiration.”

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – a pantheon of greats he will be inducted into later this year – called him, simply, the “godfather” of the blues.

On his new solo EP, Starry Nights & Campfire Lights, Foo Fighters’ Chris Shiflett has ditched tube amps for a Quad Cortex. But he had some very specific guitars in mind to help achieve his desired tones. 

That included a Gibson Murphy Lab ‘59 Les Paul reissue, an instrument he tried – and subsequently failed – to fool avid gear collector Joe Bonamassa into thinking it was the real deal. 

“It was a half-hearted effort,” he admits during a new Total Guitar interview. “I had no illusion there, I knew he would clock it, of course.”

The rouse was attempted while Bonamassa guested on his Shred With Shifty podcast. But Bonamassa – as the second Reverb documentary filmed at his home-turned-museum Nerdville details – knows his onions. 

The new EP features two covers: a country version of Thin Lizzy’s Cowboy Song, and an Americana reimagining of Hanoi Rocks’ Don’t You Ever Leave Me. For the former, Shiflett was eager to emulate Scott Gorham’s recording tricks. 

“Pretty much all the rhythm tracks were done on a Telecaster, and there’s some acoustic stuff,” he details. “That was the meat of it. I did one pass of the solo, all the way through, on my Tele, and then at the halfway point, I overdubbed a Les Paul on top, because I was copying what Scott Gorham did on the original.

“I felt like it needed that little extra something. On my last run of solo shows, I brought a Les Paul, Tele, and Strat. Between those three I could cover all the sounds I needed to. The Les Paul was brand new, I just got it a few months ago from Chicago Music Exchange. It’s a Murphy Lab pretend 1959.”

Of the Murphy Lab build, Shiflett told MusicRadar :“It's kind of a little bit of a darker burst – it's not the real pink ones. It's kind of dark, and it's really light. It's seven, or a little over seven pounds. So it's just light as a feather, and that thing just, wow. It sounds incredible and plays amazing.” 

The Les Paul isn’t seen by most as the best guitar for country music, but Shiflett says otherwise of his Murphy Lab model. He believes too that opting for a left-field guitar choice and breaking out of genre borders paid dividends on the final track.

“I love it for country,” he beams. “I went to go see Hank [Williams] Jr. a few months ago when he played in LA and [he was] playing an SG a lot of the time and [had] real crunchy tones. It was kind of inspiring in terms of guitar choices, amps, overdrives, and all that stuff.”

Shiflett’s new EP is a quickfire to his 2023 LP, Lost At Sea. Produced by Cadillac Three’s Jaron Johnston, in a wide-ranging Guitar Player interview, he said the pair got very experimental with the amps and pedals they used across the record.

Joe Bonamassa has just bought “the crown jewel” of his guitar amp collection, bringing Lowell Georges's Dumble Overdrive Special to Nerdville.

Taking to Instagram to celebrate his latest purchase and revel in the relief of ending a “15-year quest” to get his hands on the amp, the bluesman has given details of its interesting history. 

The amp, Bonamassa says, hasn't been played since June 28, 1979, at the Lisner Auditorium in Washington by Lowell George himself. 

The next night, the Little Feat guitarist tragically passed away aged just 34, meaning the amp has laid dormant for nearly 45 years. 

George, who Bonamassa paints as “one of the most talented and significant musicians in rock and roll,” left a formidable legacy of work with Little Feat and Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. 

But this is no mere vanity purchase, with Bonamassa saying the head and its matching cab “will be back on the road as early as this July but most likely fall.”

In 2024, tracking down any Dumble Overdrive Special amp, let alone George’s trusted workhorse, is far from a little feat – hence the 15-year wait.

“Well there's cool and there's this,” Bonamassa’s Instagram post reads. “The Lowell George Dumble Overdrive Special Reverb serial number 009 has finally made it to the Nerdville green shag after a 15-year quest.

“Little Feat is a hall of fame group and they belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – end of story,” he adds. 

Though the amp may look like a time-worn museum piece, it seems Bonamassa is keen to show the amp the love it has been bereft of for nearly half a century.

George and legendary amp-builder Howard Alexander Dumble had a strong and well-documented relationship. The revered slide guitar master played a number of his builds, with this a very early example of an original Dumble amp – the kind hordes of amp builders try to channel the magic of with their creations. 

During a 1977 interview with Guitar Player, George called the custom Dumble he was using at the time “the best amp I’ve ever played through,” adding that it was “like a Fender made right.”

It makes the fact the amp won’t be getting comfortable on Bonamassa’s famous green shag all the more exciting, with the guitarist calling the conclusion of his tireless quest a “once-in-a-lifetime event.”

“The opportunity to own one of your top guitar hero's amplifiers made by Alexander Dumble is a once-in-a-lifetime event. I feel very blessed to have it,” he says. “It is certainly the crown jewel of my amplifier collection.”

Readers wanting to hear Bonamassa dust the amp off and put it through its paces would be wise to keep an eye on his Instagram account – we’re sure it won’t be long until we get to hear it.

Bonamassa’s vast collection – minus this latest luxury purchase – was the subject of a recent Reverb documentary (the second of its kind), with tales of séances with Tommy Bolin and trash bag flying Vs amongst the film's stand-out stories.  

Joe Bonamassa’s love for and knowledge of vintage gear is vast. Recently, he sought to share the stories behind his own legendary guitar collection by inviting online gear retailer Reverb into his Nerdville museum for an ultra-nerdy mini-documentary.

Bonamassa first let Reverb’s camera peruse his gear collection in 2014. Suffice to say, in the intervening eight years, the bluesman has made multiple additions to his collection.

“I look back at the 2014 documentary and that room seems so empty,” Bonamassa reflects early on, “like, where is everything, did I get robbed?!”

The YouTube documentary therefore made for a comprehensive catch-up, which is packed to the rafters with anecdotes involving seances, trash bag guitars, and Korina kitchen cabinets.

Highlights from the near-40-minute film can be found below, but take note: this list is by no means exhaustive. Watch the full video on Reverb's YouTube channel.

The 'Trash Bag' Flying V 

Of Bonamassa's many new purchases, a $200,000 Flying V that was found in a trash bag stands out. As JoBo explains, the niece of a Bay Area gospel musician named Gino Landry didn’t know the treasure she had come across when she found the guitar wrapped up in a bin liner among her uncle’s belongings.

She estimated she could get a quick $500 out of it; Bonamassa knew otherwise. A 1958 Gibson Flying V, it is a notably rare example, as it hails from the firm’s original run of Korina Vs. Gibson later switched to mahogany bodies after disappointing initial sales.

Though it needed some work to get back up to speed, especially beneath Bonamassa's fingers, the guitar sold for 400x higher than Landy’s original valuation.

Tommy Bolin’s “cursed” Les Paul Standard 

That isn't the strangest way he’s accumulated gear, though. Bonamassa also owns a 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard, formerly belonging to Tommy Bolin, which he fears might be “cursed”.

The instrument was played extensively by Bolin, who wrote one album, Come Taste The Band, with Deep Purple before his passing in December ‘76 aged 25.

During a seance, the seller asked Tommy Bolin's spirit for permission to sell his guitar to the revered bluesman – and his spirit promptly approved of the deal. Soon after, however, the seller buried a duffle bag of cash he earned from the deal somewhere in the Utah desert, before dying unexpectedly in a car crash.

"If you're a treasure hunter," says a perpetually dry-humored Bonamassa, "I'd start in Moab."

Korina kitchen cabinets 

Bonamassa may be known for his ability to shred the blues, and his songwriting skills have earned him many accolades, but now he can add ‘interior designer’ to his résumé.

His newly re-modeled kitchen, for instance, includes a full set of Korina kitchen cabinets, which come complete with handles fashioned out of Stop Bar tailpieces plucked from Gibson electric guitars.

As Bonamassa explains, the inspiration came from a story he had heard about Elinor McCarty, the wife of Gibson president Ted McCarty, who oversaw the firm’s golden age of guitar building.

In the light of the poor sales figures of the ‘50s Flying Vs – one of which would end up in Bonamassa’s museum via a trash bag – Elinor took advantage of the left-over Korina.

“Allegedly,” Bonamassa says, “she took the extra Korina from the Gibson factory when they shut down the Vs and Explorers… and built kitchen cabinets.”

Prized possessions

Always on the hunt for new gear, as the above stories attest, Bonamassa has been focusing on re-homing family heirlooms in his quest to acquire more vintage accouterments, veering away from an arguably inflated second-hand market.

“That's the thing I'm into: finding uncirculated things,” he says while holding a Les Paul that had passed through several generations of one family. “There's less of it, but it's still out there.

“People want to know their family heirlooms are going to a place where they'll be appreciated, loved, and played; I tick those boxes.”

Joe Bonamassa has a new signature acoustic guitar with Martin on the way, and it's based on a pre-war “museum-grade” build that Bonamassa recently got his hands on. 

The guitar, a 1941 000-45, is in impressively good condition and had been a family heirloom before Bonamassa added it to his vast collection.

Taking the signature prototype out of its hard case in a video posted to his Instagram page, Bonamassa reacted candidly, saying, “Holy s**t… this is not a cheap guitar.” 

Such a reaction probably speaks volumes of the level of faith and care taken with the recreation, which has clearly left its mark on the bluesman. As such, Bonamassa has called the signature model, “The honor of a lifetime.”  

Bonamassa had sent the original guitar on a return journey to Martin's Nazareth, PA, headquarters, where the company has since been pouring over every detail of the impeccably clean build to create a signature model for the guitarist.

“The guitar has never left Southern California since it arrived from Nazareth, where the Martin factory is,” Bonamassa said of the original instrument during a conversation with Guitarist last year. “It was sold in LA County, East, and ended up in Costa Mesa, Orange County.

“It has the receipt and the original price tag which was $225 – a lot of money in 1941. It belonged to a lady whose husband had passed away and it was once his grandfather’s guitar, so she had inherited it. 

“She was about to lose her house, but the money she got from me via Guitar Center ultimately saved the situation. It’s got this beautiful flamed spruce and it’s a museum-grade example of a premium Martin that just happened to come into my life from out of nowhere.”

The full specs of the Martin Custom Shop model are expected to be revealed in the near future. In the meantime, side-by-side shots shared by Bonamassa on social media highlight just how meticulous the guitar's recreation is. 

For more information on the Custom Shop collaboration, keep an eye on Martin.

Epiphone’s latest limited-edition release focuses on a particular 1963 Gibson SG Custom that was special-ordered and obviously treasured by its original owner and is now part of Joe Bonamassa’s collection of prized vintage guitars. 

Finished in Dark Cherry Red to match the rare color worn by the original guitar, the JB 1963 SG Custom features a mahogany body and a glued-in neck that’s carved in a SlimTaper C profile that melds into a smoothly contoured heel unique to this guitar. 

As such, the playing feel is very comfortable and bending strings is glassy smooth, courtesy of an ebony fingerboard with 22 medium-jumbo frets that offer even crowns, a silky polish and nicely beveled tips. 

A white Graph Tech nut with rounded corners enhances it all and helps make the guitar inspiring to pick up and play. The SG Custom was a class act in 1963, and Epiphone’s version is every bit as appealing. 

The attention to detail is impressive, as evidenced by the flawless multi-ply binding and split-diamond mother-of-pearl inlay on the headstock, and by the single-ply binding around the fretboard, which has mother-of-pearl block inlays that are set without a trace of epoxy visible. 

Other details include a white three-ply pickguard and a plastic “Custom” badge between the neck pickup and the end of the fretboard. 

A plush-lined hardshell case and a booklet with a certificate of authenticity sporting Bonamassa’s signature are included. 

The gold-plated hardware consists of Kluson Waffleback tuners, a LockTone Tune-o-matic bridge with nylon saddles, and an engraved Maestro Vibrola tailpiece with an arm that rides in a nylon bushing and can fold out of the way when not being used.

The action of the unit is smooth and positive, and it didn’t knock the guitar excessively out of tune when used to its limits. The long tailpiece likely contributes to the SG Custom’s piano-like sustain too, and the guitar sounds lively and resonant when played acoustically. 

In the electronics department, Epiphone ProBucker 2 pickups with alnico poles are fitted in the neck and middle positions, along with a ProBucker 3 at the bridge. A three-way toggle switch selects neck, middle-plusbridge and bridge, and it’s noteworthy that the dual-pickup combination is wired in-phase, unlike most SG Customs and Black Beauty Les Pauls, according to Bonamassa. 

Far from sounding nasal, the tones are full and have a cool twanginess that’s very usable since you’re able to blend and EQ things to your heart’s content with the dual volume and tone controls. 

The neck and bridge pickups offer everything from rich, clean jazzy sounds to meaty rock tones when revved up with distortion from pedals or pushed straight into an amp for classic PAF-style grind that’s controllable from the guitar for clean and dirty tones. 

The CTS pots and Mallory caps used in the circuit certainly contribute to the guitar’s sound and the fact that it doesn’t lose crispness and definition when you turn down, or get muddy when you back off the tone knobs. 

Epiphone’s Joe Bonamassa 1963 SG Custom is a great guitar that plays and sounds wonderful and looks like a million bucks. An obvious choice for anyone who’s priced out of the market for a vintage Gibson, it nails all the points that made the top-shelf SG of the time such an amazing guitar, and it is well deserving of an Editors’ Pick Award.

Specifications

• NUT Graph Tech, 1.692” wide 
• NECK Mahogany, SlimTaper C profile 
• FRETBOARD Ebony, 24 3/4” scale, 12” radius 
• FRETS 22 medium jumbo 
• TUNERS Kluson Waffleback 
• BODY Mahogany 
• BRIDGE LockTone Tune-o-matic with nylon saddles, Maestro Vibrola tailpiece 
• PICKUPS Epiphone ProBucker 2 (neck and middle) ProBucker 3 (bridge) 
• CONTROLS Two volume, two tone, three-way pickup switch 
• EXTRAS CTS potentiometers, Mallory caps, Switchcraft pickup selector and output jack. Hard case with plush goldenrod interior and “Nerdville” graphics. Joe Bonamassa certificate of authenticity 
• FACTORY STRINGS Gibson, .010–.046 
• WEIGHT 7.94 lbs (as tested) 
• BUILT China

For more information visit Epiphone

In 2003, Joe Bonamassa was nowhere. The 26-year-old guitarist had enjoyed a fast start to his career. Hailed as a prodigy, he was mentored by the likes of Danny Gatton and had toured with B.B. King. Before he reached 18, he was part of a group called Bloodline that featured the sons of Miles Davis, Robby Krieger and Berry Oakley. Everybody said “Smokin’ Joe” Bonamassa was going places. 

By the mid ’90s, Bloodline was over and Bonamassa went solo. But after two critically hailed albums — 2000’s A New Day Yesterday and 2002’s So, It’s Like That — failed to click with record buyers, the guitarist took a grim assessment of where things stood. 

“Things were bad,” he says. “I was dropped by one label, and another label I signed to went out of business. My booking agent dropped me. I really didn’t know what to do.” 

He did the only thing he could. With a gift of free studio time (thanks to Bobby Nathan at New York’s Unique Recording), and his last $10,000, Bonamassa recorded covers of blues tunes by Elmore James, Buddy Guy, Freddie King, B.B. King and others, along with a few choice originals. 

“It was basically a live gig. We didn’t have to rehearse anything,” he says. “The weird thing was, it was the first time I was honest with myself. Instead of trying to be something I wasn’t and trying to do songs that would get on the radio, I said, ‘This is the music I love. I’m going to do what I really want.’” 

The whole thing was done in a week — mixed and mastered — and the guitarist called the album Blues Deluxe after a Jeff Beck Group song he covered. “It should have been called Blues Deluxe: Last Chance, Kiddo,” Bonamassa jokes. “That’s how things felt at the time.” 

As Hail Mary passes go, the rationale behind Blues Deluxe seemed plausible enough. “We thought, We’ll just make a real blues record so we can tour,” Bonamassa says. “Worst case scenario, we’ll sell them out of the back of a van — which we did.”

Little by little, though, things started to turn around. A deal was struck with an indie South Florida company to distribute the record, and thanks to strong reviews, copies began to move. The guitarist soon scored opening slots for B.B.King, Peter Frampton, Foreigner and Bad Company. 

“Things were beginning to break my way,” Bonamassa recalls. “We were only making a hundred dollars a night, so we sold CDs to stay out on the road. One minute, nobody wanted them; the next thing you know, we were selling 300 CDs a night. We couldn’t print ’em fast enough. I thought to myself, Okay, something is connecting.” 

Twenty years later, Joe Bonamassa is the most successful and popular blues guitarist — or blues artist — working today, one who inhabits a rarified space in the music business. Along with his manager, Roy Weisman, he operates J&R Adventures, which oversees all things Bonamassa: albums, tours, merch — hell, he’s even got a cruise. 

To celebrate his two-decade mark of independence, the guitarist revisited the concept of the record that started it all by recording a sequel, Blues Deluxe Vol. 2, packed with fiery renditions of numbers by Bobby “Blue” Bland, Albert King, Ronnie Earl and Peter Green–era Fleetwood Mac, among others, with a drizzle of potent originals. 

Asked to describe the difference between the two albums, Bonamassa laughs. “With Blues Deluxe, I thought it might be my last record. This time, I know I’m going to make another one.”

The revisionist view is that there was some sort of grand plan behind Blues Deluxe and the start of J&R Adventures. In reality, you and Roy were just making it up as you went along. 

Totally. Now there’s a lot of awareness of what we’ve done, but at the time we were just trying to get to next month. People say, “Oh, you guys were visionaries.” We were in danger of going out of business all the time. There was no fucking romance in what we were doing. Nobody wanted Blues Deluxe — even Alligator passed.

[Alligator president] Bruce Iglauer is a good friend, but I tease him all the time about that. So we put it out ourselves. We had one lady, Faye Cobb, who worked for us and administered the whole thing. We had a shitty little office that cost a thousand a month. Roy had a day gig, and I was just trying to stay on the road to make rent. 

It was just step and repeat. About a year after Blues Deluxe, we went to Europe for the first time, and there was some immediate notoriety going forward. That was the beginning of what was to become. 

And you were set on doing it all without radio. 

Yeah. That was the very first time that things felt connected to some movement and it moved the needle. And it was because, I think, we were being honest with ourselves, or at least I was being honest. This is who I am. You know what I mean? Because up until that point, there was a lot of outside A&R and things that are like, “Hey, we need to get you on the radio.” 

It was like radio, radio, fucking radio. You don’t have to be a radio artist to have a good following. And we started to prove that 20 years ago.

At a certain point, however, you guys must have sensed there was a strategy to build on. 

We were making decisions as we went. Fortunately, Roy graduated from Syracuse University — he’s a CPA — so money management was always our thing. As soon as we started making money, we invested in our future and in the brand. 

Our saying was, “Coca-Cola still advertises.” Think about it: Everybody knows Coca-Cola, so why do they advertise? You still have to build awareness, and you have to keep hitting people. 

By 2006, you met producer Kevin Shirley and began an ongoing collaboration with him. 

That’s right. In the years between Blues Deluxe and Had to Cry Today, I met Kevin, and that set the stage for what we would release with You & Me. That took things to another level. 

Everything started paying off by this point. In 2009, you headlined the Royal Albert Hall in London. 

Even then, we were all in with our chips on black. We spun the wheel with the DVD of that show, and it hit. Then the PBS special became a thing, and suddenly we were selling out big places. We played arenas in Europe. I look back now and it seems very simple and calculated, but it wasn’t. 

Over the past 20 years, you’ve played lots of other prestigious places: Red Rocks, the Hollywood Bowl, the Sydney Opera House, Carnegie Hall — 

All in my neighborhood. [laughs] 

Exactly. Lots of classy joints. Was there one venue where, the minute you walked in, you thought, Okay, I’ve arrived? 

That happened in 2011, the second time I played the Royal Albert Hall. 

The second time? Why was that? 

Because I was much calmer then. I’d already done it. That’s when the realization kicked in, because I played it once and thought maybe I couldn’t return or whatever. When I sold it out the second time, it felt different. 

It’s funny: The first time you play somewhere, the place seems larger. I’ve now played Red Rocks 10 times. We’ve done the Ryman in Nashville 10 times — that’s just a couple of blocks from where I’m sitting. 

This year I played Red Rocks, and I was like, “It’s not as big as I thought.” When you first stand on that stage, the seats go forever. 

After a while you go, “It’s 9,000 seats and it’s cool.” 

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not jaded, but I definitely feel like I’ve arrived. They’ve got my picture in the back of Red Rocks. It takes an act from the city to take the picture down. 

You’ve released quite a few records… 

Like, 50 of them. [laughs] 

Are there any that stand out to you as real growth records? 

The Ballad of John Henry was the one that set it up. Studio-wise, I’d say that one and Driving Towards the Daylight. Live, I would say Muddy Wolf at Red Rocks. I think those three represent big spikes, along with the acoustic Live at Carnegie Hall. 

On that one, I had no other option than to just sing. It’s like, “You are a singer tonight, not a guitar player. You can noodle about as much as you want, but you have to sing most of the night.” 

Both of the acoustic live records — Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Opera House — were the biggest challenges that, I think, made me a better artist. By the way, you can throw in the Three Kings record [Live at the Greek Theatre]. That’s one I’m proud of, too.

With Blues Deluxe, you had everything to prove. With Blues Deluxe Vol. 2, you don’t have anything to prove anymore. 

Only to myself. I went to Josh Smith, who plays guitar in our band, and I said, “Do you want to produce?” He said, “Let’s do it,” and we started picking songs. I wanted to prove two things: Am I a better artist overall today than I was 20 years ago, and am I a better singer? 

Coming out of the sessions, I said to myself, Twenty years ago, I couldn’t have made this as an artist and as a singer. I think I’ve improved in those areas, and I’m proud of that. 

This is the first album you’ve made in quite some time without Kevin Shirley. 

I talked to Kevin and said I wanted Josh to produce because I had a very specific idea in mind. Kevin approaches things production-wise a certain way, like, “How can we make this more palatable to the masses?” 

On this one, I didn’t give shit. I wanted it the way I wanted it. Since Blues Deluxe Vol. 2, Kevin has produced two things for me — a new solo album and a live record from the Hollywood Bowl. 

Blues Deluxe Vol. 2 sounds very authentic, almost like a blues record from 60 or 70 years ago. 

That was the vision, but it’s not a soundalike record. We mess with everything. Why put on my soundalike version of something when you can hear the original? Why try to re-create somebody else’s magic? You have to put your own personality and soul into it. I don’t think we went more than three takes with anything. Ninety percent of the solos were cut live. Flaws are human. People want to hear the flaws. 

Last year in Guitar World, you wrote that you were going into this record “with an eye towards curtailing your propensity to overplay.” Do you feel that you were somewhat over the top on Blues Deluxe? 

At that time, I had chips on both shoulders, and I was daring someone to knock ’em off. I knew I could play guitar. But when you’re young and struggling, you want to get noticed. How do you get noticed? You overplay. 

Now things are different. I’ve already shredded my way to success. Maybe now is a good time to just go, “Is this serving the song in the right way without over-intellectualizing it?” You know what I mean? 

Sure, but you do play some pretty seismic stuff, like on Fleetwood Mac’s “Lazy Poker Blues.” What were you trying to bring to what Peter Green once played?

That was me tipping my hat to London blues. I didn’t go through Chicago or Mississippi — I went west, not east. The British blues was very powerful to me. “Lazy Poker Blues” was my upbeat tribute to Peter Green, and it gave me an excuse to fire up the JTM45 and a Les Paul. 

And on “Well, I Done Got Over It,” the Guitar Slim cover, we could have done more of a traditional thing with more traditional sounds. But when I heard that beat, I said, “Just give me a Les Paul, and let’s just do it like Clapton on Blues Breakers.” And that was it. It’s one of my favorite songs on the record. 

How about “You Sure Drive a Hard Bargain”? What did you bring to that one? 

Fear. Again, you have to bring your own personality. It’s easy to play shitty blues, but it’s hard to play it right. I’ve been guilty of both. I was afraid that I was going to “Albert King” the song. 

I needed to sing a song that I know in a different way and play a different way and not do all the Albert stuff, because then you can just listen to Albert’s version. It’s a very pragmatic way of looking at it. It’s a very non-egotistical way. Why would anybody listen to my version? If it’s just like Albert’s, who cares?

People reading this might be surprised that you still have fear when you record. 

Fear is what drives you to be better. If you walk in with full ego and you’re like “I got this,” you run the risk of embarrassing yourself. You have to be humble in front of your musical gods, because if you’re not, they’ll bite you in the ass. Every time I play a Muddy Waters song, I’m like, “Okay, this is a big one. I’ve got to do it right.”

Joe Bonamassa's new album Blues Deluxe Vol. 2 is available to buy and stream now

Fender’s recent release of the reissue Dual Professional guitar amplifier – a late-’40s combo designed for use in larger venues – began with a request by Joe Bonamassa to re-create his original ’48 model, a prized piece in his vast collection that is so intact it’s like a time capsule from Fender’s past. “I bought it 15 years ago from a guy in San Francisco, who also sold me a ’54 Strat and a mint-condition tweed Deluxe,” the guitarist tells Guitar Player. “When I got the Dual Pro, it was just for the collection. And then I plugged into it, and I was like, ‘Holy shit, is this thing good!’

“So I told Stan Cotey [Fender’s VP of Product Development] about it and said, ‘Can you replicate the tone?’ Stan took the amp and worked on it for about a year. We tried different caps, different speakers and all these things, and then Fender built the cabinet, which has, like, 11 pieces of the tweed cloth on it that came from the same vendor they used in 1948. So it’s as close as you possibly can get. The new ones are a little bit louder and more efficient, but that’s because everything on the original one is 74 years old. You have to take some artistic liberties with these things, because the components don’t exist anymore. But we got it 98 percent to the original.”

The Dual Pro is a beauty, with its solid-pine, split-baffle V-front cabinet, chromed divider strip, nailed-on logo plate and neatly applied white tweed covering. The chrome-plated top panel is the epitome of simplicity, featuring three knobs (instrument volume, mic volume and tone), a quartet of input jacks (two instrument, mic and low gain), and an on/off toggle switch and jeweled pilot light. The rear side of the open-back cabinet is where you can see the two EF806S preamp tubes and 12AU7 phase inverter, and the 5U4GB rectifier and pair of 6L6 power tubes that reside within a steel cage that’s removable, if you so desire. The old-style, tube-location label that’s glued to the inside of the cabinet is a nice touch.

Undo six screws that hold the shielded rear cover in place, and the hand-wired circuitry is revealed. Here’s where you get to see a phenolic board holding the caps and carbon-comp resistors, the neatly routed leads and the chassis-mounted jacks, pots, switches and tube sockets. The workmanship is top-notch and the whole affair looks rugged and easy to service. Even the power cord goes straight into the chassis instead of a modern IEC socket.

My review amp tipped the scales at 37 pounds and is fairly compact at 22.38 inches wide, 19.75 inches high and a little under 10 inches deep. Bonamassa personally auditioned the custom-made Mercury Magnetics power and output transformers to find the most original-sounding ones, and the speakers are signature 10-inch Celestion JB35s, wired in parallel for a total load of four ohms. Bonamassa says he went with the Celestions because he liked the darker midrange of the ceramic magnets. “To me, they sounded the more accurate,” he explains.

It’s an amazing thing to check out a brand-new amp that has been so painstakingly constructed to be close as possible to something Fender built back when Harry Truman was president. “When Joe loaned me his amp, the first things I did were to draw a schematic, measure all the various voltages and go through it component by component and note their values,” Cotey says. “Interestingly, most of the components were within 10 percent of their original design values, which is crazy because caps and resistors would have been more like 20 percent tolerance back then. Then the guys at the Fender design center built a cabinet and a chassis, and I made as close a copy as I could, which meant using new-old-stock octal pentode tubes for the preamp section. It was a proof of concept for Joe to play and see whether it was going to be worthwhile, and he really liked it.”

After realizing that sourcing enough non-microphonic new-old-stock octal tubes was going to be difficult at best, a decision was made to try and find a suitable modern pentode tube. “Pentodes distort very differently than triodes” Cotey explains. “They stay clean a lot longer and then dip into distortion more suddenly. That transfer character was important, so we wanted to keep the front end all pentode.

“But what do you do when there aren’t many modern pentodes being made? The EF86 is a likely candidate, but I always have a hard time finding non-microphonic ones. I found that JJ Electronic made one called an EF806 that works great and has very low microphonics, so it was an easy substitution. The original amp also used an octal 6N7 for the phase inverter, but since they’re not findable anymore, I used a 12AU7 as a close enough substitute. It’s a single gain stage with another gain stage that’s set up to be just an inverter. It’s simple and it works great.

“This amp does a really good job of being very clean and will get gradually more distorted all the way, until it’s rippin’. It’s really fun to play, because there’s lots of tones on just the volume knob. It’s weird to think how some of the earlier ’50s amps were sometimes a little anemic, but the Dual Pro’s sound was fully realized in the late ’40s.”

Tested with a newer Fender Strat, a Gibson Historic ’59 Les Paul and a PRS Myles Kennedy signature T-style, the Dual Pro proved a fierce little beast that had no problem hanging with loud bass and drums. The amp comes with a dummy plug that increases gain and brightness when inserted in the right-hand “Instruments” bore. I started without it, and the sound was clear and glassy with the volume set at five and the guitar volume on the low side. It transitioned smoothly into distortion when turned up, becoming increasingly grinding until fully cranked, where the tone was round and saturated, and great for lead and grinding rhythm work.

With the dummy plug inserted, the amp indeed sounded brighter and gainier, delivering gnarly, saturated tones that were dynamically responsive to the guitar’s volume knob and covered the gamut from clean to dirty rhythm to lead. The mic input is another option for a higher gain response, but the tone control is less effective in that mode because it was intended for microphones.

The Dual Pro responds well with pedals, and for small stages the amp’s volume could be backed off to yield both awesome cleans and killer distortion when fired up with either a TS-808 or a TWA Scott Henderson SH9. Playing this amp is an amazing experience because of the way it dynamically goes from being almost impossibly clean to being really round and super distorted, and you get it all from the guitar volume and your playing touch. It feels more like playing an instrument than just an amplifier, and it’s one of many things that make the Dual Pro so lovable.

“It takes Fender guitars really well, it takes humbucking pickups really well, and it records great,” Bonamassa says. “You put a mic in front of it and it’s like, ‘Oh God, it’s larger than life!’ It’s not loud enough for me live” – JB uses two 1987 Marshall Silver Jubilees, two Fender reissue High-Powered Twins and three Dumbles onstage – “but it would be good in a lower-volume situation. It’s really a session amp, where you plug in a reverb or tremolo pedal and it just works. In 1948, Leo Fender had put out the Deluxe and maybe the Princeton. But the Dual Pro was the first amplifier that he would give to people in professional bands.”

Seventy-five years later, it continues to stand the test of time.

Visit Joe Bonamassa’s shop for more details.

Ally Venable has been releasing records for nearly half her life – which is saying something considering the fact that the guitarist and singer is all of 23 years old. “Nobody told me that I couldn’t start putting out records when I did, so I just did it,” she says. “Thank goodness I didn’t know about any of these supposed rules, because they probably would have held me back.” She laughs, then adds, “Of course, I do like breaking rules.”

Over the past decade, the Les Paul-toting Texan has become a hot commodity in contemporary blues circles. Her 2021 release, Heart of Fire, hit number two on Billboard’s Blues Albums chart, and she’s proved to be a reliable draw in concert. But as she graduates to the big leagues, Venable makes it clear that she has more aspirational goals in mind.

“I want to be an inspiration to young girls,” she says. “I’m starting to see it. After my shows, I’ll sign stuff at the merch table and there will be a line of young girls who want my autograph or to talk to me. It’s so cool. If I can be a role model to girls and get them to pick up the guitar, then I’ll feel like I made a real impact.”

Venable’s forceful playing – a vibrant mix of traditional influences and modern flash, delivered with a highly theatrical flair – has attracted admirers such as Buddy Guy and Joe Bonamassa, both of whom turn up on her new album, Real Gone. On the blues stomper “Texas Louisiana,” Venable and Guy intertwine high-energy vocals and guitar solos as if they were part of one body and mind. Bonamassa takes much of the six-string spotlight on the soulful ballad “Next Time I See You,” turning in a corker of a lead matched only by Venable’s emotive singing.

Other highlights, such as the half-acoustic, half-electric grinder “Blues Is My Best Friend” and the hard-driving blues-rock title cut, belong to Venable herself. Her extraordinary instrumental command – she simply never seems to repeat a phrase or nuance – elevates the best set of material she’s ever had.

“I give a lot of credit to my producer, Tom Hambridge, and a songwriter named Rich Fleming,” Venable says. “We got together in Nashville and wrote the whole album in two days, which is crazy. On my other albums, I had complete control, but this time I handed the reins to Tom, and we made a pretty magical record together. I never felt so comfortable in the studio before. With Tom calling the shots, I could focus on singing and playing, and I could just let go.”

As the story goes, you got into the blues at the age of 12. That’s not exactly normal.

No, I guess it isn’t. [laughs] I just really connected with it. My dad and I would listen to music every morning when he dropped me off at school. He liked ’80s hair bands and stuff. One day I noticed he had a CD of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Texas Flood in his truck, and I was like, “What’s this?” I popped it in and said, “Wow, this is different!” I didn’t know anything about the blues, but I really liked the sound of Stevie’s voice. Then I watched YouTube videos of him, and I was like, “Oh, he’s playing guitar. Wow, he’s amazing!”

This was around the time that I started learning songs and playing guitar. I had an acoustic, but seeing Stevie play made me really want to rip into the electric. I got one and started learning his songs and then some Buddy Guy songs. It just started snowballing into the rest of the blues.

Did you just go down the YouTube rabbit hole?

Exactly – the rabbit hole of the blues music. I had a Mexican Strat, and then I got an anniversary model Strat. I just played and played. I could play by ear, and I could sing and match pitch really well. I think that played a big part in how I learned to play. I could hear things and emulate what players were doing.

You’re saying that learning to play wasn’t a big struggle for you. It came to you pretty naturally?

Pretty much, but I still had to work at it and practice the delivery of everything. I studied how songs were structured. Once I got to that point where I could play a full song, I’d hone in on my emotions to really deliver the song to an audience. That’s something I worked at, because there’s so much you’re thinking about during a performance.

What kinds of gigs did you do at first?

I played anywhere I could. I played at a crawfish stand and in front of a grocery store. I played at coffee shops. I would play and I would practice with my band. Every week we would play four-hour shows for tips.

Guitarists often have quirks to how they play. I notice you bend your thumb over the neck.

Yeah, I do the thumb thing. That’s how Stevie played. I learned that by watching his videos. I saw other players do it too. I always noticed their thumb was on the top of the lowest string, and it seemed like a good way to get the bass note and play the high strings at the same time. People always point out that I don’t use my pinkie much. I tuck it back a little. I guess if I lost my pinkie, I could still play.

You’ve always had a very musical feel for how you use a wah, especially on the new album.

Oh, thanks! The guitar players that I look at for a wah are probably Buddy Guy and Jimi Hendrix. Stevie, too, but mainly Buddy. I like using a wah because it lets me glide more. It’s like this other frequency. I just think I play differently with a wah.

You’re also a great acoustic player. I love the way you dig into the acoustic on the opening of “Blues is My Best Friend.”

That was fun. Different guitars require different approaches. I play a Les Paul differently than when I play a Strat, so it figures that I’d play an acoustic differently, too. You do have to dig into it a bit more.

I was expecting you and Joe might sing together on “Next Time I See You.”

No, he just plays.

How did you and Joe work out your guitar parts?

[laughs] We didn’t. I thought the progression of the song was perfect for Joe. It just called out for the “Joe B. sound.” We recorded the song, and I even did a solo on top, kind of anticipating what he might do. But then we took my solo out and sent the track for him to play on.

After Joe sent the track back, did you tweak your playing at all?

I think we just left it. It’s Joe Bonamassa, you know? I didn’t want to take away from anything he was doing. [laughs]

You and Buddy sing and play together on “Texas Louisiana,” though. Were you together in the studio?

We were. It’s a pretty magical thing working with Buddy. It feels like a kind of passing-the-torch thing. It’s just a dream being around him. We have a dialog with our guitars – we’re friends, and we’ve toured together. I’ll play a lick, and I can kind of anticipate what he might do, because nobody else sounds like him. I don’t know if he’s anticipating what I might do, but I do think we’re sharing a moment when we play.

Once upon a time, your favorite guitar virtuosos were novices, honing their chops and struggling through the same challenges and problems every beginning guitarist goes through.

Well, what if they could tell you what roadblocks they encountered and how they got around them?

Better still, what if they could provide you with their very own exercises designed to build chops in that particular area?

It would be awesome. And that’s exactly what this lesson is all about.

Here, Steve Vai, Mark Tremonti, Joe Bonamassa, Mike Stern, Yngwie Malmsteen, Paul Gilbert, Alex Skolnick, Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson share stories about their own efforts to build their chops and provide you with short exercises that will help you develop relevant techniques.

So grab your guitar and get ready to build your chops with the best players in the business.

STEVE VAI

"I would get extremely disciplinarian with myself when it came to building chops. When I would sit down to practice a lick, like the one here, I’d tell myself, 'Until you can play this lick properly, you will not get up, eat, go to sleep.' 

"That’s a pretty intense thing for a 14-year-old boy to do – it’s a reflection of a psychological imperfection, actually, or a crack in the cosmic eggshell. I was very intense about it. 

"I don’t need to sit and practice for 10 hours a day anymore, but I do try to be as proficient as possible."

MARK TREMONTI

"The exercise that helped my alternate picking the most was one I got from the first Paul Gilbert video, Intense Rock. That helped me to get that upstroke across strings really tight, so I could flow through three-notes-per-string scale patterns ascending. 

"Problem is, I became twice as good ascending scales as I was descending, so I then had to work in both directions to get my upstrokes and downstrokes equal. 

"It’s important that you practice it in both directions."

JOE BONAMASSA

"As a singer, you warm up and then warm down, and I like to think of the guitar in the same way. And if you’re playing four-hour gigs, like I do, you often wake up the next day with cramped-up hands and fingers. 

"So, to get the cobwebs out, I like to use what I call the 'Andy Summers Exercise.' I play a three-string sus2 shape moving up the neck, hitting all the natural roots in the key of C, and then repeat it on the accidental roots – the sharps and flats. I also do it with the roots on the 5th string. 

"Doing the exercise in this manner, rather than just chromatically, makes you pay attention a bit more, and keeps you from just mindlessly noodling."

MIKE STERN

"When I was 22 in 1975, I was doing gigs with Blood, Sweat & Tears where we were playing really fast tunes, and I was trying to play more like Jim Hall and float over the time. But then Jaco Pastorius said to me, 'Man you’re going really slow and trying to hear everything you play, which is great, but at this point you’re ready to ‘hit up against the time’' – or play eighth and 16th notes right with the time.

"So I went back and practiced playing a tune like, say, “Donna Lee,” with a metronome, and each day I’d click up the metronome a bit. Another thing I did was take classical pieces and, as an exercise, play them way faster than they’re supposed to be played.

"This one here, in G minor, is from Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Violin, and there’s no set fingering. I know a lot of cats who worked out of this book – John Scofield, Pat Metheny, Steve Vai. The thing is, if you’re gonna work on your chops, don’t just do a scalar exercise. Technique by itself is kind of useless, but when you include it with musical ideas, it makes sense.

"And remember, with chops all you can do is develop your potential. But what’s beautiful about music is that someone’s style or voice is defined as much by what they can’t do as what they can do. Some people can’t play fast, so they play more melodically. 

"I dig melodic playing, but I also dig the excitement in John Coltrane’s or Michael Brecker’s playing – it’s an obvious thing that people can relate to. West Montgomery, even, liked to work on his speed. He felt that it added variety to his phrasing. And it did."

YNGWIE MALMSTEEN

"Years ago, I recorded a band rehearsal on a slow tape machine, and when I listened to it the next day [on a machine at proper speed], I went, 'Man! That’s fast!' I didn’t realize that something was wrong with the machine. 

"After that, I started playing everything a lot faster. Like, if there was something I was originally playing legato, I’d want to be able to play it was alternate picking as well, completely coordinated and clean."

PAUL GILBERT

"I played for about eight years without having any significant picking technique. It was all hammer-ons and pull-offs. For me, what it took was learning to use the metronome – slowing a repeating lick down to where I could do it perfectly, then gradually speeding it up. I learned a really simple six-note picking lick on one string, and within a couple weeks I could play it really fast.

"But the hardest thing about fast picking is to go from string to string, so to improve at crossing the strings I practiced this one here, which gets progressively trickier with each section."

ALEX SKOLNICK

"The biggest thing that’s helped me has been learning licks off records, as opposed to playing exercises from books. And over the years, I’ve developed quite a few licks into exercises.

"One of the first was from Al Di Meola’s “Race with the Devil on Spanish Highway,” from Elegant Gypsy – the fast lick that everybody plays. It was very challenging, so I divided it into sections. 

"The first descends in a quintuplet pattern [A G F# E D]; the next one is a four-note group [F# E D C#]. To expand the exercise, you can move the entire pattern up to the next note, B, and use the same rhythm pattern. Keep going up the scale, playing either the quintuplet alone or whole lick, and move it up and down as well as across the fretboard."

JOE SATRIANI

"When you’re hammering on and pulling off, it’s all about accuracy, not brute force – you really have to pay attention to the way your fingers are moving. For instance, when I put my finger down on a string, do I feel that I have put it in the most efficient spot possible? Should the string be a little more in the center of my fingertip, or a little off to its side?

"I used to find the perfect spot to hammer on and pull off – both on my finger and on the fretboard – and then focus all my energy on the movement required to get there. 

"Doing that freed me up to really start whipping my fingers around in a musical rhythm."

ERIC JOHNSON

"The most important thing I’ve done for my chops is that I’ve always worked on my picking and fretting at the same time, so that whatever I play, it’s really clean. 

"You can work on this with whatever you’re playing – it’s just a process of fretting a note right, picking the string right, and muting in all the right places. 

"The key is to make sure you’re in sync, and if you are, the result is a nice, pure sound that really projects."

The following article originally appeared in Guitar Aficionado in 2012. 

Although he was born in 1977, Joe Bonamassa is already a seasoned blues veteran. Having traded licks onstage with B.B. King at the tender age of 12 he made his solo debut a decade later with the album A New Day Yesterday.

He was destined to be a guitar aficionado, growing up as he did behind the counter of his parents’ music shop in upstate New York, Bank Place Guitars. At 14, he received a $5,500 inheritance from his great-grandmother and used the windfall to acquire his first vintage instrument, a 1954 hard-tail Stratocaster, from a local seller.

“It had a few issues as a collector’s piece but certainly wasn’t a bad beginner guitar,” said Bonamassa. “But I wasn’t satisfied with just one old guitar. By my late teens I had vintage examples of all the classics: a 335, a Telecaster, and others.”

Bonamassa reflected on a period in the mid 2000s when his guitar buying became so frenetic that he often found himself purchasing an instrument, only to remember later that he already had one – or three – almost identical examples. “It got to be so gluttonous,” he recalled. “I’d be on tour in a place like Japan, jet-lagged and ready to start my day at four in the morning. No Starbucks would be open, so I’d just go to the website Gbase and throw something on the credit card.

“I ended up with all these guitars I didn’t even play – a bunch of old [ES-5] Switchmasters and ES-350s and even four Trini Lopezes – guitars that were killer to look at but not useful to me on the stage or in the studio. Finally, I just said, ‘Garage sale!’ and got rid of a ton of stuff.”

By 2012, Bonamassa had pruned his collection to a mere 90 guitars, half vintage instruments and half recent models, mostly Gibson Custom Shop guitars that “sound and play killer and look just like the originals, if you saw them from row G.”

At the heart of the collection was a trio of that most desirable of solidbodies, the sunburst Les Paul Standard, comprising two 1959s and a 1960 with a 1959 neck profile. But the stable also included less coveted pieces, such as a 1969 Grammer Johnny Cash flat-top acoustic.

“You’ve got to see this special guitar,” Bonamassa said as he bolted from the couch and disappeared into a laundry room. He returned with an old, heavily stickered case. “This one is so rare I just had to have it, even though I’m not much of an acoustic guy,” he said, nimbly fingerpicking a series of ninth and 13th chords. “Now everyone who plays it wants it. It sounds incredible and just seems to have a lot of songs in it.”

Another unobvious collector’s piece was Bonamassa’s 1972 Gibson ES-355TDC, its twin humbuckers bearing the embossed Gibson logo on their covers. The guitar hails from what many consider to be a dark period in the company’s design and quality control, but Bonamassa sought it out because of its similarity to the ax played by blues legend Freddie King.

“This was my first and only eBay purchase,” he said. “I ended up in a pitched battle to win it for $2,900 – a steal considering that these are harder to find than a ’59 Les Paul or even an original korina Flying V.”

Bonamassa directed us out of the courtyard and upstairs to a small room where he displayed a nice cross-section of his collection: the ES-355, along with a 1961 ES-335, a 1963 Gibson Firebird I, 1953 and 1954 blackguard Fender Telecasters, a 1955 hardtail Stratocaster, a 1932 Martin 0-17, and a 1970 Martin D-41.

A trio of brown cases – two Liftons and a Stone – were placed on the floor, each holding one of Bonamassa’s three ‘Bursts. The guitarist tenderly unlatched each case and revealed the guitars. Their gorgeous maple tops appeared faded into varying shades of scarlet and amber, and they glowed, as did their owner as he gazed upon them.

“I could’ve bought a house or these three-quarter-million-dollar guitars. I chose the guitars in a heartbeat. I love them. They’re like my children,” he said, with emotion.

His ‘Bursts at his feet, Bonamassa held forth on the subject of originality and his overall philosophy as a collector. “Refrets don’t bother me, but the pickup rings have gotta be right, the pickguard has gotta be right, and I’ve gotta open up that electronics cavity and see some vibrant original solder. I’ve seen some really good fakes out there, and it really bothers me. People are getting scammed for real money by guys who steal original parts to put on fake guitars. 

“I’m not a spiritual guy,” he continued, “but if you buy a guitar with a scratched-out serial number, chances are it was stolen at some point, and therefore it’s not good karma to play it. I find, on the other hand, that guitars with good histories don’t fight you. Somehow, they tend to stay in tune and play better. So all my guitars have got to be clean and honest. Playing wear is just fine, though.

“Check out the worming on the back of Principal Skinner,” he said, lifting his favorite ‘Burst from its case to show where the finish has succumbed to an oversized Seventies-era belt buckle. “Honest playing wear.” 

The ‘Burst triplets make an appearance on Driving Towards the Daylight, along with a handful of Bonamassa’s other vintage guitars. A collector in the best possible sense, he viewed his axes not as investments but as musical tools.

“I really pared things down for the recording sessions [for Driving Towards the Daylight]. I only used about 20 guitars, but they were the best guitars in the world – all the best examples for sure. At one point, I looked at them and thought, If I can’t get the job done with this, then I really need to stop buying guitars and just go home and practice.”

1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard (Serial: 9 0829)

“This one’s called Magellan, because it’s been around the globe with me – at least where it’s safe to travel with such an expensive instrument.

“Airline rule has it that if you want to carry onboard an expensive guitar, you must buy a seat for it. The good news is that they will serve both a ‘Burst and its owner a gin and tonic.”

1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard (Serial: 0 0137)

“I’m the third owner of this truly special ‘Burst, which was ordered in June of 1959 and delivered in August of that year. Although the stamp indicates that it was made in 1960, it’s obviously got all 1959 features.

“I sometimes call it Batman because of the weird winged bridge, a one-off. And I’m honored that Gibson Custom recreated the guitar in exacting detail as Collector’s Choice #3.” 

1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard (Serial: 9 1951)

“This guitar was originally known to the general public as the Skinner ‘Burst [after the auction house that sold it in 2006], but I have renamed it Principal Skinner.

“Killer in every way. This is the most rock Les Paul I own. Big flame equals big tone.”

1969 Grammer Johnny Cash

“This guitar has an unusual look – a grey-‘burst finish – which was apparently designed to look good with Johnny Cash’s black attire.

“It’s a rare bird with an incredible tone. Everyone who plays this guitar is surprised by the sound and wants to take it home.” 

1972 Gibson ES-355TDC

“This isn’t much of a collector’s piece, but Freddie King played one, and so I had to have one too.

“It’s all original, down to the embossed covers on the pickups, and extremely rare. Just try to find another from the same year.”

1932 Martin 0-17

“This 0-17 came from my repair guy in L.A. Someone who had inherited it from her grandmother had left it in the shop and forgotten about it, so I offered to give it a second life.

“It’s a really sweet-sounding little guitar.”