Are You the Next Joe Bonamassa? Enter the Battle of the Blues Now!

Sign up now for Guitar Center’s Battle of the Blues, the search for the top undiscovered blues guitar player! The grand prize package, worth more than $50,000, includes $25k cash, plus gear from Gibson and Epiphone – including the winner’s choice of a custom ’59 Les Paul or ES-335 reissue and an Epiphone ’65 Elitist Casino. Plus, the six finalists will perform live at the grand finals featuring Gibson star Joe Bonamassa.

Visit GuitarCenter.com/BattleoftheBlues for more details, and check out the videos below.

Joe Bonamassa talks about the contest, and gives a few tips on playing the blues:

An overview of the Battle of the Blues contest:

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Slash, Joe Bonamassa Win Guitar Awards

Guitar International feted two of Gibson heroes last week with major awards.

Joe Bonamassa was voted Guitarist of the Year in honor of his new album Dustbowl and Black Country Communion’s world tour and live DVD.

“Though still a young 34 years of age, this guitar slinger has accomplished more than most players could imagine to achieve in a lifetime, and 2011 was a testament to the hard work, dedication and hours spent in the practice room and on the bandstand by this guitar great,” Guitar International said in a statement.

And our man Slash was given a Lifetime Achievement Award. “A guitarist who has revived his career (twice, with his recent solo albums after Velvet Revolver’s demise), played with Michael Jackson, Alice Cooper and many more music icons, and held his commitment to rock over his entire career certainly deserves Guitar International’s Lifetime Achievement Award. And with his impeccable track record, one can only assume Slash has much more rock ’n’ roll in the tank.”

As a matter of fact, he does – and the engine is revving up now for a new album due later this year. Congrats, Joe and Slash!

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10 Things You Might Not Know About Joe Bonamassa

No one could accuse Joe Bonamassa of not staying busy. This year alone, the guitar sensation has released three albums—a solo disc titled Dust Bowl; a group album titled 2, with Black Country Communion; and a duet album of soul classics, titled Don’t Explain, with acclaimed singer Beth Hart. Amazingly, as recently as last fall, some scribes were still calling Bonamassa “the best living guitarist you’ve never heard of.” Guitar aficionados--and Gibson players, in particular—know better, and in fact many have delved into the details of Bonamassa’s life in music thus far. Still, we found a few tidbits that might have escaped all but the most dedicated followers.

His favorite guitar is a ’59 Les Paul Sunburst, a “Holy Grail” that he actually takes on the road with him.

“I tour nine months a year,” Bonamassa told Gibson.com, in a 2011 interview. “What am I going to do, come home and noodle with it on the couch? Go, ‘Wow look at this, I’ve got a ’59 Les Paul that never gets used, maybe on a recording here and there.’ I’d rather get a nice case for it--which I did--hire an ex-secret service agent as my security guard--which I did [laughs]--and take it on the road.” In an interview with AmericanBluesScene.com, Bonamassa praised the ‘59’ Les Paul’s extraordinary tone. “I have over 300 guitars, but out of all of them, that one is definitely my favorite.”

He uses heavy gauge strings partly as a “preventative” measure.

“I’m not a shredder guy,” Bonamassa once told Premier Guitar, “but I have shredder tendencies that I think get in my way. I have a tendency to put in a million notes and show off to the world, and that’s not usually my best solo. So, the .011s keep me from going there all the time. I can ramp up to it, but I’m not living there, over-playing all the time.”

His all-time favorite guitarist is Free’s Paul Kossoff.

“He’s such an unsung hero,” Bonamassa told M – Music & Musicians, in 2011. “His playing cuts like a knife through butter. You can feel his emotions in every note, whether it’s a hard note or a soft note. He’s a tactile player. And the tone he got with that beautiful ’59 Les Paul was just crushing. I actually got to play that guitar as a show in Newcastle last year. A friend of a friend owns it, and he let me borrow it I. That was a thrill. I felt like I was channeling Kossoff.”

The first rock song he mastered, as a child, was Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile.”

“I learned that riff properly,” Bonamassa told M – Music and Musicians. “A lot of kids today learn the Stevie Ray Vaughan version of that riff. Hendrix’s ‘Slight Return’ riff is different.” Bonamassa also told GuitarMessenger.com that the only other guitar piece he learned, note for note, was the dueling solo from the film, Crossroads. “That was difficult and challenging and very frustrating,” he said. “I’m just not a note-for-note kind of guy.”

Those trademark shades he wears vary with the seasons.

“I have four sets of them,” Bonamassa once told GuitarMessenger.com. “I have the 'hot summer show' ones–called Silhouettes, because they wrap around your ears. That prevents them from sliding off. Then, when you get into the wintertime and the theater’s not that hot, I wear a set of Pradas. I also have a set of Ray Bans and a set of Revos. I’m sure I’ve bought enough sunglasses to put somebody’s kid through college.”

The place you’re most likely to find him, when he’s not on tour, is The Home Depot.

“I’m deep into home improvements,” Bonamassa told a fan forum, in 2006. “I love The Home Depot. I'm good at walking in and picking things out, buying the supplies for the deck or whatever other project is on the list. But I leave the work to the pros. I’m just good at the buying part.”

His biggest regret is that he didn’t start singing at an earlier age.

“I didn’t start singing ‘till I was 18, and that’s something I deeply regret,” Bonamassa once lamented. “But then again, there’s tons of stuff where you go back and say, ‘Well, I should’ve gone left, but instead I went right. That was a bad decision.’ Anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and makes you smarter for the next day.”

He would much rather perform live than record in the studio.

“The studio is a daunting place, for me,” Bonamassa told GuitarMessenger.com, in 2007. “Some people flourish in that environment, but I don’t. Everything is decisions. ‘Is this good enough?’ ‘Is the sound just right?’ ‘Is there enough reverb?’ ‘Is it panned correctly?’ I get overwhelmed. Whereas, live, who cares? It comes from the top of your head, and you just blow it out. If I suck tonight, I’ll be better tomorrow. The cool thing about live is there’s always tomorrow to redeem yourself.”

The most important advice he received from his mentor, B.B. King, had nothing to do with guitar playing.

“He said, ‘Watch your money and keep your eye on the business side of things,’” Bonamassa told M – Music & Musicians, in 2011. “It’s about music, but it’s also about business. He sat me down and said, ‘Joe, you need to always reinvest back into what you do, back into your fan base. Fans can detect if you’re not doing that, if you’re not doing things to improve the show.’ It’s no different from running a Walgreen’s, or a Joe’s Pizza Shack.”

He believes great rhythm guitar playing is underappreciated.

“Even someone like me, who often gets caught up in soloing, plays rhythm guitar eighty percent of the time,” Bonamassa once said, in an unpublished interview. “Even a guy who puts on a ‘guitar show’ has to play rhythm, and has to be fluent in chords and voicings. Also, if you don’t learn how to back off your volume when someone else is soloing, that’s problematic. Rhythm playing is about learning how to blend in with the band, and be part of the ensemble.”

Joe Bonamassa Custom Les Paul

Joe Bonamassa 2011 Gibson.com interview

Joe Bonamassa Stirs up Dust Bowl

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The Gibson Interview: Joe Bonamassa (Part One)

Joe Bonamassa was born to play the guitar. His parents owned and ran a guitar shop in Utica, New York, so he was literally surrounded by the instrument from birth. A fourth-generation musician, Bonamassa took to the guitar early on, receiving his first axe at the tender age of four. By 11, he was cutting his teeth with Danny Gatton and, a year later, he opened for B.B. King. From there, his rise to the top of the guitar world has been a steady one, from his teen prodigy band, Bloodline, to his award-winning solo career and, more recently, his tenure in the supergroup Black Country Communion.

Along the way, Bonamassa has been a constant lover (and abuser) of the Gibson Les Paul. With Gibson USA proudly announcing, this week, the new Gibson USA Joe Bonamassa Les Paul, we sat down with the mild-mannered gunslinger to talk axes.

Tell me about the new Gibson USA Joe Bonamassa Les Paul.

Well, I’m excited, man. It’s a cool guitar. I mean, essentially, a guitar that’s like the Bonamassa Custom Shop one and the Epiphone one like we did last year, but it kinda has the appointments of a Les Paul Studio. It’s not bound, but it’s a Gibson. I think it’s really cool. I’ve been playing it. I’ve had the prototype for about two or three months, maybe more. I think more. And I’ve been playing it, and it’s got an inviting neck. It’s one of those guitars that makes you want to play it.

But I think it will be good for the kids out there who don’t have $4,000 to spend on the Custom Shop one and the ones who didn’t get the thousand Epiphones that were sold extremely quickly, actually. So I think it’s a good opportunity. And I think it’s also a good opportunity to get a guitar into the hands of some kids, which is kind of the whole point anyway.

How much input did you have on this guitar? Was it a true collaboration between you and Gibson USA?

I spoke to my ER rep and all the guys in Nashville at Gibson USA and we came up with a concept. They used a lot of the specs from the Custom Shop one – you know, the neck size and the dish and everything else. And so, a lot of the work was already done, because we’ve had really good luck with the Custom Shop ones. And you know, we’ve done them in sunburst and blue and all the different colors. And [laughs] I think that’s it. And gold, of course. But yeah, it was one of those things where a lot of the work was already done, so they just took the specs off the Custom Shop one and kind of amalgamated it into their factory – which a lot of people don’t know their factories are separate.

So it was a real blast and, you know, when the first prototype came out I was really shocked. They did a really good job. I didn’t really have a whole lot of comments for it.

You’ve always been associated with Les Pauls. What is it about those axes that’s always spoken to you?

You know, everybody has this sound in their head. You know what I mean? The ideal guitar sound that kinda fits in your head. And for me, it’s a really thick, kind of mid-range-y, warm sound. You know, not a lot of top end, but it still has enough drive and saturation to where it’s not too clean, but it’s not too overdriven, but it’s very articulate. You can dial it in on any guitar, but it takes a lot more work. But when you plug a Les Paul even just straight into an amp – you know, Marshall amp or whatever, Fender, whatever – it just does that thing, you know? It’s very, very easy for me to achieve the sound that I hear in my head with a Les Paul. So I’ve been using those kinds of guitars forever.

What was your first Les Paul?

My first Les Paul was a 1980. It was a 1980 that my father traded a mustard-color Fender Stratocaster for back in like, this is 1981-1982. He didn’t like [the Strat], because the Fender didn’t have good enough frets – which it didn’t. Actually, somebody tried to hack them out at one point. And this opportunity came up to get a Les Paul Standard. And it was a sunburst, you know, 1980 Les Paul Standard. And it was really… for me it was a real treat. And again, it was louder and it was thicker, and it had a lot of really good qualities to it. But I was also like six years old, so...

Do you still have it?

No, I don’t. I traded up. I’ve kind of like been collecting guitars for, god, it has to be over 20 years, 22 years maybe. I finally just got my first real ’59 this year and, you know, that’s a real treat. I worked my way up through the Les Pauls of yesterday to get the Holy Grail, so to speak.

You don’t take that on the road, do you?

I do! I absolutely do.

Really?

I insure the hell out of it and I take it on the road. The way I look at it is: what am I going to do with it? Leave it at home? You know? I tour nine months a year and, what I going to do, come home, noodle on it on the couch… you know? Go, “Wow look at this, I’ve got a ’59 Les Paul that never gets used, maybe on a recording here and there.” I’d rather get a nice case for it – which I did – hire an ex-secret service agent as my security guard – which I did [laughs] – and take it on the road.

That’s nice to hear. I get a little depressed when I see vintage guitars in glass cases in restaurants. They’re like little tombs, you know?

Well, yeah. And they’re very functional. You know, my guitar is 52 years old and, honestly, it plays and sounds great. But the important thing to realize – and yes, it is a fantastic Les Paul and when people play it, even when you don’t tell them it’s a ’59. They say, “Wow, this is a really great guitar. I mean, we don’t care if it’s a 1979.” But the truth of the matter is, it’s still just a really good guitar and, if I look at it in those terms, I really have no problem taking it on the road.

Check back tomorrow for the conclusion of The Gibson Interview.

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Joe Bonamassa: Iron Maiden Inspired Black Country Communion

In an interview to be published tomorrow on Gibson.com, guitar virtuoso Joe Bonamassa said he’s thrilled to be in Black Country Communion because it lets him show off his hard rock chops.

“It allows me to be more unapologetically hard rock, to really explore my roots in British hard rock. Where sometimes I do that in my solo band and it’s a bit out of place, you know, and people start giving you that weird look,” he said. “But with this band, we don’t have to apologize for it; this is just who we are and, you know, it sounds like 1974.”

The rock supergroup includes Bonamassa, Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple), Jason Bonham (Led Zeppelin) and Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater). After releasing their debut album last year, Black Country Communion are set to put out their new album, 2, in June. In the interview, Bonamassa talked about being inspired by Iron Maiden on a particular song on the new album.

“With ‘Hadrian’s Wall,’ I wanted it to be like… that very British title, you know? Almost like a song that Iron Maiden would write. You know, with old wars and stuff,” he said. “And I love Maiden. I think they’re one of the most popular underrated bands in the world. I say that meaning that, not many times is a band like that mentioned in the same sentence as a Zeppelin or Metallica or something like that, but then all of a sudden 60,000 people show up for the gig. [Laughs] So they’re doing something right, you know?”

To read part one of the Bonamassa interview, click here.

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