When Stevie Ray Vaughan roared onto the scene in the early Eighties, the guitarist with Texas-sized tone and chops to match not only single-handedly rescued the blues but also inspired would-be guitarists young and old across the globe to take up musical arms. Indeed, Vaughan’s influence had unprecedented reach, as kids as young as four years old began trading swim lessons for Strats, and Legos for Les Pauls. One of those youngsters—and arguably the best of them—was a kid from Utica, New York, named Joe Bonamassa.

In 1984, when he was just seven years old, Bonamassa was already copping SRV licks. But it was his father’s record collection featuring British blues titans Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Peter Green along with their Irish counterparts Rory Gallagher and Gary Moore that really fired his imagination and desire. At age 11, Bonamassa found a mentor in none other than Danny Gatton, and a year later was opening shows for B.B. King. The following year he met Berry Oakley, Jr., son of the Allman Brothers Band bassist, and formed Bloodline, along with Erin Davis (son of Miles), and Waylon Krieger (son of Robby), resulting in a critically acclaimed self-titled album. But Bonamassa was eager to go his own way and in 2000 finally released his solo debut, A New Day Yesterday. Ten more acclaimed studio and live discs have followed, including the latest, The Ballad of John Henry (J&R Adventures), which cracked the Billboard 200 and was a # 1 blues album in 2009.

One key to his successful journey down the blues highway is the praise he has earned from everyone from B.B. King to Ted Nugent. But in the end, it is the wallop of his emotional expression, fueled by the rocking energy he derives from that trans-Atlantic blues connection and driven by his devastating technical ability, that elevates him above his peers and makes him a certifiable blues guitar hero and the face of this blues generation.

How have you remained true to your kind of blues?
For a long time I felt alone and that everyone else was going in the opposite direction from me, to the Chicago sound, or certainly to the Texas sound. I would show up and have the only Marshall amp and Les Paul guitar. But, honestly, I couldn’t sell anything else. I probably could play Texas blues, but I think the fans would see through it.

The blues has to be played from the heart.
Yes, and the fact that I had good success in England meant a lot to me, because it was like selling it back to them. I figured everybody and their second cousin would have a Marshall Bluesbreakers combo, a Les Paul, and sound like Peter Green, but I was extremely mistaken. Again, it was more the Texas thing, and I thought, “Hmm, maybe if I really work this enough, I could be the only one!”

Did you ever study and learn theory?
I learned some classical guitar when I was a kid, but I don’t know the names of the modes and the numbers of the notes and chords. I do clinics at G.I.T., and ultimately some kid who is trying to impress his girlfriend will ask, “When you add the major 5th to the minor 6th, what is your thought process?” And I say, “They add up to 11, and I have not the slightest idea what you just said.” I learned by ear from records and would pick stuff out, like the way Eric Clapton would weave in and out of the minor and major pentatonic scales. But I always wanted to know why a riff was used and why it sounded so good at the “payoff” moment.

In 2007 you released Sloe Gin, which featured your acoustic playing. How would you describe the difference between electric and acoustic guitar?
With electric, sometimes the guitar and amp will take you for a ride, in the sense that if you get enough volume and sustain, sometimes the guitar will dictate and take you to places you are not intending to go. With the acoustic, everything comes out as intended— and it’s brutally honest. I think I sound more original on the acoustic because I have fewer influences. I use .011–.052 strings on all my guitars. I want the acoustic to fight me, but I don’t want it to win.

How would you like to see your playing improve?
It has always been and always will be phrasing for me. I can hand you my guitar and say, “Play an E note,” and you’ll play it a certain way, and I’ll play an E a certain way. Then we could hand the guitar to Eric Clapton, and he’ll play an E a certain way. You could record us and blindfold someone, and with just that single E note, they would be able to tell the difference between us. It’s phrasing that denotes a style. Learning lots of scales and technique like string skipping is great if you are playing in a band like Dragonforce—of course, there’s always room for the shred. But my kind of music is a little bit different. It’s more emotive and based on simplicityand a more soulful approach. Paul Kossoff, from Free, is a great example. He was the definition of “tactile and simple.” He could play a Les Paul straight into any amp, whether a Marshall or an Orange, and you could always tell it was him. His phrasing and tone, always warm and not too bright, as on “Mr. Big,” just got to me. And, he played with bad intentions, like he was trying to cut your head off.

Who were your main influences to play the Les Paul?
Clapton and Green, but also Jeff Beck. Hearing him on Truth, it was like, how does he get that tone on “Let Me Love You, Baby”? Then I met Ken Scott, who engineered the album, and I asked him about the intro. He said the studio was so small, they put the Marshall inside a closet, turned it up and miked it from the outside. It created that big, thick Les Paul sound that I always liked, the human voice quality of it. I tried an ES-335 for years, and it was pretty good, but the sound had less weight. The transition between the wound strings and the G string is a little brighter, while with the Les Paul, if you could find a good one, the sound is thick all across the neck like Paul Kossoff, or that outrageous tone Peter Green had on “So Many Roads.”

Didn’t Peter Green reverse the direction of the neck pickup on his LP to get a funky, midrange, out-of-phase sound?
I read that he turned the pickup around because he was trying to get the proper in-phase sound with both pickups selected. I think his guitar had been wired wrong. I turned the pickup around on my guitar and it did nothing. Upon further inspection, I realized you had to also reverse the wiring on the coils. Recently my tech put one together for me with a Burstbucker. It’s usable for some things, but it’s so Peter Green that it’s almost too much. You know, that sound is his thing.

Clapton used an effect on the “Beano” album combined with the ’Burst and the Marshall.
I heard that he used a Dallas Rangemaster treble booster, which is really more of a bass cut than a treble boost and that also cuts the input a little bit. Brian May makes a similar one now, and I tried a couple of them and they do a certain thing with the mids that’s actually pretty decent, but I would love to find one of the original ones. I recently played through a Bluesbreakers combo without a treble booster, but I used a Tube Screamer to kind of emulate the sound by taking a little off the bass and adding some to the top on the amp. Bring up the tone and turn the drive down almost to minimum on the Tube Screamer, turn your guitar up a little bit more, and it does its thing.

What is the rest of your basic gear setup?
My main guitar is the Joe Bonamassa signature Les Paul goldtop, which I love. I run that through my old Marshall Silver Jubilee, plus Category 5 JB 100, Van Weelden Twinkleland, and Carol Ann JB 100 amps. For effects I use a reissue Ibanez TS-808, Fulltone tremolo, Way Huge WHE 201 Pork Loin Soft Clip Injection Overdrive, a custom Fuzz Face and custom Crybaby wah, Boss DD-3 delay, and either a Layla or Palmer amp switch.

Speaking of Clapton, you recently got to play with him. What was that like?
I invited him to play with us at the Royal Albert Hall in London, in May, telling him what a special event it was for me because of the legacy and history he created. He accepted, and I was able to realize two of my lifelong goals. We chatted some about guitars and he told me he preferred the skinnier necks and the sound of the 1960 Les Paul, which I believe is what he played on the Bluesbreakers album. I recently got to A/B a 1959 and 1960 sunburst, and the 1960 model had a little more top end on the front pickup and the back pickup had a little less bass, which is what you hear on the album. We jammed on “Further on up the Road,” which was also special to me because his version from Just One Night was the first electric blues song I heard. I tried not to do my best Eric Clapton impersonation while he was up there with me, and it was the most thrilled and scared I’ve ever been. I told him I owe you a royalty check for everything I stole from you, and he laughed and said, “Don’t worry about it.”

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