Joe Bonamassa is most typically seen with a Gibson Les Paul in his hands, but he believes the Fender Stratocaster is a more versatile instrument — and for one small reason.
Leo Fender’s most famous electric guitar design turned 70 years old last year, and its recipe has barely changed during that period. Bonamassa believes that’s because it's the “utility knife” of guitars, and with some minor adjustments, it can convincingly mimic legendary tones crafted by Eric Clapton and Angus Young on Gibson guitars.
“You can do anything with a Stratocaster,” he proclaims in conversation with Guitarist. “I‘ve seen Strats perform all kinds of guitar music and flourish in that environment because of the third pickup.”
He accepts that the guitar’s ultimate versatility needs to be tapped by making “a slight mod to one of the tone pots.” With that in place, the tonal world is your oyster.
“You can just move it over one position on the switch, and your tone pot now works for both,” he explains. “Or there's a mod where you can have it run both, or just bridge pickup only. [Add in] a couple of little gain augmenters, and you can do anything. They’re the Swiss Army knife of guitars.”
His “gain augmenter” of choice is an Ibanez TS808 tube screamer, but any overdrive pedal will do. This isn’t about making an internal modification to the guitar; the trick is to inject a little more heat and fuel into the Strat’s three single-coil pickups.
The passive pickups, Bonamasssa adds, and simple but versatile control set means that even the slightest switch-up can completely change the guitar’s character.
“If you’re like, ‘Man, I really want to get the Eric Clapton woman tone, like he got in Cream 1966,’ okay,” he says. “Put on the front pickup and duck the tone down to two or three. Add some gain, and it sounds like that.”
Clapton's woman tone was originally achieved on the Fool SG, and was introduced in the psychedelic, heavy blues of 1967's Disraeli Gears. The guitar, however, isn't the most crucial component; it's what he does with the guitar's dials before even playing a note that makes all the difference.
“The woman tone is produced by using the bass [neck] pickup, or the lead [bridge] pickup, with all the bass off,” Clapton explained in a late '60s TV interview. He added that it can even be achieved with the pickup switch in the middle position, as long as the bass is scooped out of both tone controls. The result is extremely lyrical, and it has become the hallmark that countless guitarists have aimed for over the past 50 years.
But as Bonamassa says, it isn't exclusive to twin-humbucker guitars like the SG.
He adds that the Strat can also mimic the sounds sculpted by another SG player: AC/DC’s Angus Young.
“If you want a big, crunchy Angus Young tone, all you do is put it on the treble pickup and roll some tone off of it, clean it up, and season to taste,” he details.
Bonamassa is currently in Cork, Ireland, the hometown of blues guitar sensation Rory Gallagher, where he’ll be playing three tribute shows. That’s seen him steadily assemble quite the arsenal of Stratocasters for a show he’s called “the biggest challenge of my musical life.”
Just before rehearsals got underway, he visited the guitar store where Rory Gallagher got his iconic ‘61 Strat from, for the princely sum of £100 in 1963. Unsurprisingly, Bonamassa was hit with a bout of GAS and walked out with his own sunburst Strat.
Meanwhile, Bonamassa has discussed the dangers of AI after sharing a deep fake video where scammers are using his image and AI-generated audio for a video that purports to show him creating a video message for a female fan. “2025 is a scary time, my friends,” he says.
He's also said players shouldn't be swayed to buy a guitar based on its reputation or peer pressure. The surefire way to avoid buyer's remorse, he believes, is to “buy things that make you happy. If you’re sitting on the couch and you can’t stop grabbing a guitar, it doesn't matter what it says on the headstock. It doesn’t matter how much you paid for it.”
