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Joe is being featured in newspapers and magazines around the country.
Check back here
often to find out about Joe's latest articles and interviews.
LATEST PRESS
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Bonamassa
added to Blues Foundation Board |
Joe Bonamassa has been elected to fill a vacant seat on
The Blues Foundation's Board of Directors. He will serve
in a Board-Elected slot for a three year term--2005-2008.
According to Jay Sieleman, Executive Director, "The
Board is always seeking to enhance its makeup by adding
members with skills, constituencies, and perspectives
that may otherwise be lacking. Joe's age, audience, and
experience should bring an added dimension to the Board
and The Blues Foundation."
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| BluesWax Artist of the Year, BluesWax Ezine, February 3, 2005 |
| Yes, the readers of BluesWax, the largest subscribed Blues publication in the world, have selected their BluesWax Artist of the Year 2004 and BluesWax Album of the Year 2004.
Click here to view the rest of the article |
| Bonamassa keeps blues alive in schools, The Lubbock Avalanche, December 26, 2004 |
| Native American music forms this country's oldest musical heritage, but the blues was the next pure music style to have its origin in the United States.
Click here to view the rest of the article |
| Joe Bonamassa
Youthful guitar wizard dedicates life to blues music, The Lubbock Avalanche, December 26, 2004 |
| It is easy to empathize with the homeroom teacher at Joe Bonamassa's school in Utica, N.Y., who assigned his students to write a paper about what they did during their summer vacation. After all, 12-year-old Bonamassa had just opened for blues giant B.B. King at a concert venue in nearby Rochester.
Click here to view the rest of the article |
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Students Hear A Bluesman's Story, April 2004 |
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Joe Bonamassa just wanted to earn enough money to buy a deluxe
Nintendo game when he started playing the guitar professionally.
Then he met blues legend B.B. King.
Click here to view the rest of the article |
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Guitarist Joe Bonamassa at the Webster, April 2004 |
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Teenage blues guitarists were all the rage a few years ago:
Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Jonny Lang, Shannon Curfman, Joe Bonamassa.
Now they're all grown up and mostly missing in action. Not
Bonamassa. (Nor Lang, really, but he's not on tour right now.)
Click here to view the rest of the article |
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BluesWax Ezine, March 2004 |
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During this year's BluesFirst
Weekend in Memphis last month, BluesWax had the
opportunity to talk with Joe Bonamassa about his tour for
The Blues Foundation's Blues In The Schools program. This
important grassroots program exposes schoolchildren to the
Blues. If you are a parent or you care about young people, you
should find out about this program. Talk to the officers of your
local Blues society and help them by getting involved.
Click here to view the rest of the article |
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Guitar Player
featured article |
| early everyone is
familiar with the story of Robert Johnson selling his soul to the
devil to become the “King of the Delta Blues.” But is it possible for
that contract to reach through the decades and affect others with a
connection to Johnson? “Smoking Joe” Bonamassa, for example, was born
on May 8—which, by most accounts, is Johnson’s birth date—and he was
playing killer blues licks note-for-note at 4 years old. At 11, he
opened for B.B. King, received the legend’s blessing, and went on to
perform with John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, Albert Collins, and others.
click here to view the rest of Guitar Players article
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Blues In the
Schools |
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The “Blues In The Schools” program was developed
by the Blues Foundation (http://www.blues.org)
in Memphis ten years ago as part of their effort to promote and
preserve the heritage of Blues music to school kids. The Blues
Foundation recently joined forces with Joe Bonamassa—who has been
recognized as a child prodigy blues guitarist since the age of 8—as a
torchbearer of blues music and a spokesperson for the Blues In The
Schools program.
Click here to view the rest of the article |
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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....
Click here to view the rest of the story featured in the Chronicle
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Roaming
guitarist
spreads the blues |
If
young people even think of the blues today, they typically think of
B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters or Robert Johnson -- older
African-American men bent over the weeping sound of a wailing guitar.
But 26-year-old
guitarist Joe Bonamassa, like fellow younger contemporary blues
artists such as Robert Randolph, Jonny Lang and Derek Trucks, is of a
generation to which teenage students can relate.
Click here to view the rest of the story featured on Charlotte.com
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The Tennessean
thinks Joe's got the blues, and he wants to share 'em with today's
teens |
| Today's high schoolers
are weaned on the music of 50 Cent, Linkin Park, Christina Aguilera
and Lil Jon. You think they have any time to check out the blues? Or
even know of legendary blues men such as Robert Johnson or W.C.
Click here to view the rest of the story featured on Tennesseans
Website
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The
Tone Quest raves about Joe in
their latest report. |
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"Joe
Bonamassa is one of the greatest singer/guitarists fronting a 3-piece
band that we have heard in decades. The fact that he had yet to be
born when most of his heroes were at their peak simply underscores his
brilliant, high-powered interpretation of rock and blues for what it
is - fresh, original and utterly captivating in concept and
execution."
Click here to download the PDF version of the Tone Quest's Cover Story
Need Adobe Acrobat Reader?
Click here to download your own copy
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****
FOUR STARS ****
Check out this
amazing new review from
Guitar World |
| "Bonamassa's
breathless So, It's Like That proves that the idiomatic
shackles of the blues can be broken by a strong musical personality.
At 25, the Utica, New York native has indisputably found himself as an
artist. His pop-conscious arrangements build a gilded frame for his
rich, throaty voice blending acoustic and electric textures for tracks
like "My Mistake" and "The Hard Way" rock-radio-ready songs that
don't sacrifice the spirit or edges of the blues."
Click here to download the complete PDF version of Ted Drozdowski's
feature review
Need Adobe Acrobat Reader?
Click here to download your own copy
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The Washington
Post loves
Joe's rocking new album - check out the review right here |
| "If 25-year-old
guitar phenom Joe Bonamassa wants to land a tune on a blockbuster film
soundtrack in the near future -- say, something with producer Jerry
Bruckheimer's name stamped all over it -- he should use "So, It's Like
That" as a calling card. After all, it's not hard to imagine "My
Mistake," "Mountain Time" and "The Hard Way" sitting right alongside a
widescreen-tailored anthem by Aerosmith."
Click here to view the complete online version of Mike Joyce's review
from the August 22 Edition
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| The Miami New
Times just
gave So, It's Like That a great review - we've got it for you |
| "Ever since Diane
Sawyer profiled the cherubic Utica, New York native with piston
dexterity over a decade ago, Joe Bonamassa, now 25, has been working
on his blues prerequisites: thick riffs, thicker skin. So, It's
Like That, Bonamassa's second LP, finds him wading in the genre's
chasm between sunshine and moonshine, his optimism ringing most
credible."
Click here to read the complete online version of Shawn Bean's review
from the August 22 Edition
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Amazon.com
gave Joe's new album So, It's Like That an amazing review |
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"....Bonamassa is
indeed a certifiable fretboard phenom, consistently capable of
startlingly effective solos, but he's also a strong singer, and that's
what makes the collection of songs, a dozen of the 13 cowritten by
Bonamassa, successful..."
Click here to read the entire review featured on Amazon's website
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'A Mean Opening Ax'
- Joe's featured
article in the
Rocky Mountain News from August
12 |
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"Being
the opening act can be a drag. You start early, you don't get much of
a sound check, people ignore you.
On
the other hand, guitarist Joe Bonamassa lives to be the opening act.
He's a blues-rock guitarist in the style of the greats, and the
reaction is almost always the same: People who've never heard of him
see him live and become fanatics."
Click here to read the entire article online
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The
San Antonio
Express just
featured this amazing article about Joe & his new album |
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"Several
years ago guitar ace Eric Johnson, in discussing the relative merits
of six string slingers, made a prophetic statement. Johnson said
there's an 18-year old kid somewhere in the Midwest who's locked up in
his bedroom practicing eight or ten hours a day with his sights set on
being the best. Johnson was right and wrong. One of those kids about
whom he might have been speaking, Joe Bonamassa, was considerably
younger than 18. And he hails from Utica, NY."
Click here to download the complete PDF version of Jim Beal Jr.'s
article
Need Adobe Acrobat Reader?
Click here to download your own copy
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