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.”
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
Joe Bonamassa
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.
