Joe Bonamassa – Uncrowned King of Blues-Rock

Riders on the Storm

I’d listened to the lyrics of Joe’s recent songs in preparation for an expected evening of fret-board pyrotechnics and this is a man who knows about rain and the surging waters of depression on a dark night.   Considering the set at Guilfest on the Saturday night, perhaps Joe has tried to see a great guitarist from behind a wall of umbrellas.   Those umbrellas whilst blocking the view of perhaps ten people each were ineffective at shielding people whose idea of urban poverty is not being able to take that third week in Tuscany this year - plonkers to whom cotton-picking is choosing a shirt in Army & Navy - selfish sons of bitches, and the bitches themselves!   No wonder they put the Pimms bus next to that stage.   In the words of Peter Green “Oh Well”…
OK so I am a hypocrite - I like the blues and I am not quite broke - I have a house (sort of) and a job to pay for it and a clapped-out car to take me to the job. I don't work in the fields and take my jelly-roll to a barrel-house, but nor does Joe.   He may have grown up in the company of the likes of BB King and formed his first band with Miles Davis' son, but Joe has taken as much from Jeff Beck, Peter Green, Clapton and Jimmy Page as he has from BB and Muddy.    By playing Guilfest, Joe was paying his dues by bringing American-influenced British blues to the place it started, Surrey and the neighbouring SW London Boroughs.

Travelling Riverside Blues

You see, Joe was bringing the blues back home – to the Thames and Wey Delta, the cradle of British Blues where Eric ‘Slowhand’ Clapton, Peter Green, The Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds all paid their dues.   During the set, the rain was coming down so hard the levee was bound to break.  That would be the levee on the River Wey that runs alongside Stoke Park, Guildford, where what was originally the Guildford Folk and Blues Festival, now Guilfest, is held.    Along that lonesome road bordering the Park, The Wooden Bridge pub used to host the Stones (and later the Jam).  Near Guildford, you’d find it tough to find an established pub that didn’t have some story of the pre-Zeppelin Yardbirds, the Stones or the likes of Rick Wakeman and Jeff Beck playing in the bar.   Sometimes, the likes of Paul Jones (Blues Band) or Gary Brooker (Procul Harum etc) are still to be found knocking out world-class rock-blues to a pub audience.  In the dry.

Tears in Heaven

Out of the Surrey sky, of which Joe’s hero Clapton sang on “Let it Rain”, the deluge was pouring.   I blame the Lightning Seeds, who played the set before and who really should have followed local metal band “Open The Skies” with that theme.   I may be setting the scene as ‘a bit damp’ but when the aptly-named flood-lights swept the crowd during the set, it was plain that Joe was playing through a wall of water.

Back in Black

By background, Joe was brought up in America and by his teenage years was playing on the bill with BB King.   Despite having such a ‘traditional’ blues environment, Joe turned to the likes of Clapton, Green’s Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin to hear a fresh (British) interpretation of the blues.  In interview, Joe has praised the freedom that the British blues artists of the 1960s-1970s brought to the form and which he in turn has applied to his music.

“The Ballad of John Henry” is Joe’s 2009 album, the first in which he admits to bringing his personal life into the public arena.   Naturally, with the critical acclaim that “BJH” (definitely not “Barclay James Harvest”) has received, Joe kicks off with the title track.
The set list (according to a retentive chap called Ian who also posted some footage from the gig on Youtube) was as follows :

1. Ballad of John Henry
2. Last Kiss
3. So Many Roads
4. Further Up the Road
5. Sloe Gin
6. Story of a Quarry Man
7. Lonesome Road Blues
8. Just Got Paid – (Jimmy Page solo from Dazed and Confused)
9. Encore: - India/Mountain Time

The End

With “Beach Boy” Brian Wilson playing a climate-defying set on Main Stage, the support for Joe on the Ents24 (Second) Stage was astounding, which was why the evil of golf umbrellas was so exaggerated in my mind.   Seeing Joe, coming near the front of stage – squeezing notes out of a golden Gibson Les Paul through the pouring rain there was something both authentic and inspiring about his playing.

Joe has something of many guitarists about him – he has the ‘chops and licks’ of ZZ Top/Eric Clapton, the energy of Jimmy Page or Michael Schenker, the dramatic tension of BB King and the fluidity of Carlos Santana all brought together with a strong soulful voice – something many other guitarists fail to add.

Whilst fundamentally Joe gave a fine display of what a blues guitarist should be, he added that ’rock’ dimension that takes it away from being formulaic and thus widens his audience in the way that Richard Thompson or Rory Gallagher did.

If you like your rock bluesy or your blues rocky, then take in Joe Bonamassa.  His 2008 album “Live from nowhere in particular” serves as a good introduction, but you’ll also want the “Ballad of John Henry” for an update.   Considering the eponymous hero takes on a steam hammer in a man versus machine duel, you can even file it under ‘heavy metal’.