Lock The Door & Cover Me – Joe Bonamassa
I love The Blues. Let’s just get that out of the way. My love for The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, just to name two of my top four bands all time, would not have existed without The Blues. I haven’t posted much about The Blues on The Giant Panther in deference to what was once strictly an outlet for new and independent music. I hope I haven’t ruined or watered down the vision, but I’ve got more than a couple of years on our friend Ryan so sometimes I worry about his audience and mine cancelling each other out. I know we do it for fun and the love of music, but I was reading a Classic Rock blog the other day, our friends over at Rock God Cred, talking about bringing Classic Rock Back…One Post at a Time (great tag line!) and thinking I am out of place here on The GP. The thing is, to me, great music is great music and I don’t care how old it is or if it’s Indie, Classic, Alternative, Blues, Folk, Hip Hop or Jazz . I’m not much for Top 40 or Disco, but I have to admit every now and then some pop song will strike me. That doesn’t mean I spend my time watching American Idol, my speed was more Rock Star INXS. I guess that makes me a bit of a dinosaur, but I’ve been called worse. It goes with the territory of aging I guess. Anyway…
Today I’m bringing The Blues and I’m bringing you three stinging covers. If you don’t know who Joe Bonamassa is by now I might be preaching to wrong choir again, but the short version is he’s a guitar wizard from Utica, NY. How good of a wizard? He just played the 2009 Classic Rock (Magazine) Roll of Honour in the UK and the audience included some pretty impressive names you may recognize such as Townshend, Page, Iommi, Wood, Beck, Gibbons, Perry, Slash and May just mention a couple. His qoute when asked about playing front of such luminaries was “I tried not to think about it.” Indeed. I saw Joe Bonamassa play Scullers Jazz Club on a snowy February night in 2005 and was extremely impressed. He’s not afraid to do covers and on this night he covered “Starship Trooper” by Yes. I had tears in my eyes as I am sometimes wont to do when overwhelmed, but man. Point blank range and I just sat there with my mouth open. I remember sitting with strangers at the same table and I didn’t have anyone to discuss it with. It’s ingrained in my memory though and I won’t forget it anytime soon. What an intimate and spectacular show.
The Blues seems to need rescueing every now and then. I can’t really explain that phenomenon, but it’s fairly true. When people think Blues they think Robert Johnson and the Mississippi Delta. They think of Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Freddy King, Albert King, B.B. King, Elmore James, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Leadbelly, Howlin’ Wolf, Junior Wells, Sonny Boy Williamson, Mississippi John Hurt, Reverend Gary Davis, John Mayall, Slim Harpo, Charley Patton, Son House, Otis Rush, Blind Willie McTell, Koko Taylor, Jimmy Reed, T-Bone Walker, Charlie Musselwhite, Big Joe Turner, Big Mama Thornton, W.C. Handy, Johnny Winter, Taj Mahal, Hound Dog Taylor, R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, Mississippi Fred McDowell, James Cotton and J.J. Cale just to quickly rattle off some heavyweights. They think of Chicago, Austin, TX and The Delta Crossroads. Making a deal with the Devil. That kind of thing. I don’t know how many of us actually realized how Blues based our heroes’ music was back in the 60′s and 70′s. I know I didn’t make the connection until much later. I get it now. I am a Blues fan at heart.
Eric Clapton sure did his part to bridge the Blues of the early 20th century to the modern day. John Mayall is still doing his thing, God bless him, well into his 70′s. But I can distinctly remember when Robert Cray surfaced in the 80′s. It was like The Blues was back. Stevie Ray Vaughan (R.I.P.) was an unbelievable talent and ambassador of The Blues while he was around too. The Allman Brothers Band & Gov’t Mule brought and still bring a distinctly southern but modern Blues sound to the fore. Then we have our modern day Blues Guitar Gods like Joe Bonamassa. I love guys like this. Joe’s never going to sell a ton of records. Nobody seems to anymore, but he’s playing his heart out every night on stages all over the world. I can still remember the first time I heard one of his songs back in 2000. It was actually a cover of Jethro Tull’s “A New Day Yesterday.” Carter Alan played it on his excellent Sunday Morning Blues program on WZLX-FM. I’ve always been a huge Jethro Tull fan and you can have all that stuff they play on Classic Rock radio. I must own 20 or 25 of their records. As I have said in past posts, I think they are mislabeled as a Progressive Rock band. They began as a Blues band.
Wikipedia claims that Joe’s biggest influences were Paul Kossoff, Peter Green (HUGE fan of his myself), Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Gary Moore, T-Bone Walker, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Rory Gallagher (I’ve got to do a post on that guy some day…whoa!). They say he warmed up, in the Danny Gatton Band, for B.B. King at age twelve. Twelve! Seriously, I was just learning how to get rejected by the girls in my fourth grade class for crying out loud. I feel so inadequate…geesh…
I’m not going to go on about his history, but Joe Bonamassa is keeping the flame of The Blues lit along with a couple of more local to Boston studs. Chris Fitz of The Chris Fitz Band (www.chrisfitzband.com) here in Massachusetts is another. Chris is flat tremendous and plays all over New England. Check out Western Massachusetts where Albert Cummings (www.albertcummings.com) of Williamstown is blasting away in the Berkshires. If you get the chance to see any of these folks play, don’t blow your chance. If you love The Blues as much as I do, you won’t regret one minute spent listening to these craftsmen. And buy their records! Well done men…
OK, the Joe Bonamassa covers are in order; Jethro Tull’s “A New Day Yesterday” from his 2000 CD of the same name, Blind Faith’s “Had To Cry Today” from his 2004 CD of the same name and Led Zeppelin’s “Tea For One” from his 2006 CD You & Me. Now these are some heavy duty covers!
Joe Bonamassa – A New Day Yesterday.mp3
Jethro Tull – A New Day Yesterday.mp3
Joe Bonamassa – Had To Cry Today.mp3
Blind Faith – Had To Cry Today.mp3
Joe Bonamassa – Tea For One.mp3
Led Zeppelin – Tea For One.mp3
Led Zeppelin – Tea For One.mp3 YSI
Buy or download Joe Bonamassa’s A New Day Yesterday from Amazon here.
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About the author
I'm just a guy who's mother used to play music constantly when I was as a child. I was exposed to a slew of 40's & 50's acts like Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Bill Haley & The Comets, Chuck Berry, Danny & The Juniors and countless one hit wonder bands. Add in your Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, Eddie Fisher with scores of popular soundtracks like Zorba The Greek and West Side Story and it's no wonder I became a music fiend. Thanks Mom. My first 45 RPM was The Letter by The Boxtops, but I went on to own a pretty decent 45 collection until I got the brainiac idea to sell it to the neighbors so I could buy baseball cards. Goodbye priceless Beatles, Stones, Who, Kinks, and Animals collector's items. Hello seven copies of backup catchers. I've been collecting since 1967 or so. Be it eight track tapes, cassettes, 45's, LP's, CDs, MP3's...even VHS or DVD copies of live performances; I've been going at it quite a while. When I was asked to contribute to this site I didn't have to be asked twice. I'm having a ball...
| This entry was posted by John Jay on December 17, 2009 at 11:52 pm, and is filed under Lock The Door & Cover Me. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
