Blues-rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa
was not even in his teen years when he opened for the legendary B.B. King. He
cut his musical chops performing in bands and with his own band and recording
dozens of albums over the course of two decades eventually having three albums
hit No. 1 on Billboard's Blues Chart. By 2009, he was performing at Royal
Albert Hall in London and shared the stage with Eric Clapton.
Joe Bonamassa has had a long,
storied career, but his energy and drive makes it feel like he's just getting
started. He's bringing his blues-soaked rollicking show to the Saenger Theatre
on March 8th at 8 p.m. Where Y'at was able to talk to him ahead of
the show about his latest work, his musical foundation, and making it as an
artist in the age of social media.
WYAT: Your latest album Time Clocks has a few songs
that are a departure from most of your catalogue. Have you reached a point in
your career where you want to experiment musically?
Joe Bonamassa: Time Clocks has elements of prog,
Americana, blues.... It's a rock record, really. When you're as deep into a
career as I am, I've got 45 albums out, sometimes you just make a record and
you do stuff on record just because you haven't done it before. You just do it
because you can. There are no rules. It's not like I've come up with this
winning formula where it's just hit after hit on the radio or Grammy after
Grammy. You just do stuff that you want to do because you can.
Sometimes you'll look at a guy like Bruce Hornsby and Bob
Dylan who did some of the best work of their career later in life that changed
the game again. The late, great Jeff Beck, he made forward-thinking records
right to the very end. He never rested on his laurels or his hits. It's just a
mindset. Then there's bands that go, 'There's nothing we can come up with right
now that's going to supercede these gigantic radio hits, and the 10,000 people
that are here to see you play want to hear them.'
WYAT: Your foundation Keeping Blues Alive has granted money
to so many people, but what are you granting the money for?
Joe: It's a case-by-case basis. If a school calls us up and
says, 'We're thinking about starting a guitar department,' we have a check for
you. If a school calls up and says, 'Our guitars are in poor condition, we need
guitar strings,' we have a check for you. If they said, 'We want to fund a
program where we teach the significance of Swedish Death Metal,' we have a
check for you. It's music; it's not just the blues.
Most of the over million dollars that we've raised so far
went to about 300 different artists during the pandemic because we were sending
out $1,500 checks by the hundreds to musicians and people. Maybe it went to pay
his electric bill, maybe it went to a guitar program. Honestly to me, it's all
of the same good deed how it all falls under that umbrella.
WYAT: The pandemic did change a lot of things for working
musicians. They were hit hard because venues were closed for so long or people
couldn't gather for a concert. The world seems mostly back to normal now, but what
is it like for working musicians post-shutdown?
Joe: The farm system has gone away where 20 years ago, 25
years ago when I was coming up, there was a [circuit] of small little blues
clubs and you could work your way across the country playing two-hundred
seaters. Those have dried up. It's increasingly difficult for artists and acts
to find places that they can grow into. You can put 100 people or less into a
place and still have a good vibe. You don't want to play the House of Blues if
you've got 50 people, there's no vibe. Those businesses struggled even before
the pandemic, and then the pandemic and most people just gave up. There's a
labor of love factor, but once your house is on the line, people cry uncle.
But if touring is a problem for you in 2023, if it's a drag
or a strain on your family, then this business isn't for you. That really is
the only way to get out there and create a market for your music. It does cost
a lot of money to tour and smaller venues have shut down. The live show and the
tickets have become the one direct source of income for an artist. You get
original bands that get $200 a night and then a Van Halen tribute that can pull
$5,000 because people want to hear the music. It's supply and demand.
WYAT: What is the future of music consumption and discovery?
Joe: I think having the internet and social media platforms,
as toxic as they can be, give artists a leg up because they can put their stuff
out there, and, if people discover it, it can scale much quicker than it used
to. I had play New Orleans 10 times at the very beginning to get 200 people to
show up at the House of Blues. Once I did that, the word of mouth in the town
got out. Now the town square is Instagram and YouTube and Facebook. Your
awareness, if you have something special and people can relate to it, and it
resonates, your business scales a lot quicker than it used to. Building it like
you were going town to town selling records out of your trunk.
WYAT: What is the state of the blues genre right now?
Joe: They've been trying to kill blues since the 60s, but I
think it's alive and well. There were times when B.B. King was having a hard
time selling tickets, next ten years another generation discovers B.B. King
and he's selling out theaters again.
Every genre has an ebb and flow. I get kids as young as 7 in the crowd. When
you're in this genre, you're not relevant to pop culture and you're playing a
very dangerous game with your fanbase because your fanbase is looking for
something that's not in pop culture. I've seen a lot of acts blow up and have a
hit on the radio, then their true core fanbase never come back because they
think that was my little discovery and it's everyone's. Then the pop fans is
fleeting and they go onto the next thing.
The advice B.B.King gave to me was, 'Just keep doing what
you're doing and ride it out. Never change with the times.'
