Guitar hero Joe Bonamassa's current tour almost ended before it began.

"Three days before the start of the tour, our loyal bus burned down,"
Bonamassa says. "I don't know how it happened. We're pretty tame people."

Armed with his fiery flair for guitar and a new bus, Bonamassa stops at the
Rhythm Room on Sunday.

At 25, Bonamassa is a veteran of the road, having toured the United States
steadily since age 12. He credits his accomplishments to supportive parents.

"Starting out, my mom was my booking agent, and my dad was the road manager,"
Bonamassa says. "I couldn't have asked for a more conducive environment."

The New York native's prodigious musical skill became evident when he first
picked up the guitar when he was barely 4 years old. He was playing Jimi
Hendrix's Voodoo Child within two years' time.

"My dad was a guitar dealer, and so I was always around guitars, and I
happened to have asked for one for Christmas," Bonamassa says. "After my dad gave me
some lessons I tried to play along to records. I got good at 6 or 7 taking
classical guitar lessons from a guy who taught at Julliard, but I'm mostly
self-taught."

Bonamassa got his first big break when he was the spotlight of a 25-minute
segment on TV news magazine Real Life With Jane Pauley more than a decade ago.

Record labels were calling within minutes after the program had ended.

"I got signed, and I got to see the country," Bonamassa says. "I wouldn't
trade it for anything in the world."

Since then, "the kid that plays the Telecaster" has been telecasting
blistering guitar licks before faithful fans, while living the life aspiring musicians
only dream about.

It's not always easy though. "All the time, people come up to me and say 'I
wish I was you,' but sometimes I want to tell them 'I wish I was you,' "
Bonamassa says. "They have friends in their cities while we're on a bus nine months
a year. It can be a hard ride at times."

A ride surely not too hard if it means opening for blues forefather B.B. King
and sitting shotgun with the sons of musical greats Miles Davis and Doors
guitarist Robbie Krieger.

Bonamassa recalls his first meeting with King: "He called me into his
dressing room and we talked," Bonamassa says. "He called me onstage to sit in with
him for You Upset Me Baby in front of 5,000 people. It was a pretty humbling
experience."

After touring with King, Bonamassa made his national recording debut in 1995
as the lead guitarist for Bloodline, a band whose members included drummer
Erin Davis (son of late jazz icon Davis), Waylon Krieger and Berry Oakley Jr.
(son of the Allman Brothers bassist).

"What was I to do? I was 13, I didn't sing, and I was chubby," Bonamassa
says. "We were together for about six and a half years, and we kind of grew up
together. It was a lot of fun; 50 percent of the fans who come up to me now are
Bloodline fans."

Bonamassa's eclectic musical education has produced a broad spectrum of
sound. His latest album, Blues Deluxe, includes nine covers and three originals.
His previous album, So, It's Like That, spent three weeks in the Billboard
chart's top three slots for top blues album in 2002, the same year Bonamassa was
named by Guitar One Magazine as one of 10 guitarists on the brink of greatness.

"It's very comforting to be compared to Stevie Ray Vaughn, but no one will
ever be able to do what he did," Bonamassa says. "I'm just a product of my
influences."

Bonamassa perennially cites Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Hendrix, Otis Rush and
Texas trio ZZ Top as his chief inspirations.

The young but wise musician says his own success is all about being true to
himself.

"Be true to who you are," Bonamassa professes. "How the holes in your jeans
look doesn't matter. If you build it, they will come."

Joe Bonamassa

Where: Rhythm Room, 1815 Washington; 713-629-3700.

When: Doors open at 8 p.m. Sunday.

Tickets: $ 15.