![\"Issue38-JOE-BONAMASSA\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Issue38-JOE-BONAMASSA.jpg\")
<\/h1>\n<\/h1>\nWhen Joe Bonamassa started work on his 11th solo release, Different Shades of Blue<\/i>, the guitarist-vocalist knew he needed to shake things up. So Bonamassa teamed up with top Nashville songwriters\u2014including Jonathan Cain, James House and Jerry Flowers\u2014to pen original tunes. \u201cI owed it to my fans to do an all-original record, and I owed it to myself to prove I could,\u201d he says. With producer Kevin Shirley (Journey, Iron Maiden, Rush), Bonamassa recorded with session pros in Las Vegas. \u201cThe album has a distinctive feel to it,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s bluesier than anything I\u2019ve done in the past five years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why team with other writers?<\/b><\/p>\n
Because I\u2019m not Bob Dylan, and it\u2019d probably take me five years! Necessity is the mother of invention, and a plane ticket is the mother of necessity. Every three or four years I like to throw a cherry bomb in my life\u2014shake it up, do something different. I just said, \u201cI\u2019m going to be involved in writing all the songs, but I\u2019m going to Nashville to work with some of the greatest songwriters I can think of.\u201d Luckily, they were nice enough to work with me. I went to Nashville five times last year.<\/p>\n
Nashville isn\u2019t known as a blues town.<\/b><\/p>\n
It is known as a country town but some of the most soulful people I know\u2014including great blues writers\u2014live in Nashville. Some of the world\u2019s best players live there. It\u2019s not all Luke Bryan and Taylor Swift. Many artists go there because that\u2019s where the great musicians are.<\/p>\n
Was it a challenging experience?<\/b><\/p>\n
I\u2019m of the mind that I\u2019d rather be the worst person in the room than the best person in the room. I don\u2019t want to be sitting in L.A. talking to cats about singles. We don\u2019t do singles. It was definitely a good experience, and I\u2019m going back to Nashville to record next summer. The writers I worked with are great lyricists and that\u2019s the name of the game\u2014if you get a great lyric you can put one chord over it and still have a great song. If you put bad lyrics over a beautiful piece of music, it\u2019s still a bad tune.<\/p>\n
Describe the writing process.<\/b><\/p>\n
It\u2019s like going to a dinner party. You bring an appetizer or a bottle of wine. You walk in and hopefully you\u2019ve got something started and they\u2019ve got something started, and that\u2019s the ballgame.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re not a big fan of recording.<\/b><\/p>\n
When I go into the studio, I just want to get in and out. It\u2019s like going to the doctor\u2019s office for me. I prefer playing live. Nothing makes me happier than doing one or two takes and getting out. All the solos on this album, except for one or two, were done live, and there\u2019s not a lot of layering. It really is old-school. The only thing I don\u2019t do while we\u2019re tracking is sing. Chances are I\u2019m chewing gum at the same time and something\u2019s gotta give.<\/p>\n
Why did you and Kevin Shirley decide to record in Las Vegas?<\/b><\/p>\n
We\u2019ve done four albums there\u2014we mixed one and recorded three. We recorded everything pretty much live except for the vocals, which were done later because there\u2019s a lot of bleed. We like Vegas and the Studio at the Palms. It\u2019s a great way to get out of town and escape L.A. It\u2019s also a great way to change your headspace. This album is one of the best-received albums I\u2019ve done in a long time, if not the<\/i> best-received. If the fans love it, I\u2019m happy\u2014and if the fans hate it, I\u2019m not happy.<\/p>\n
\u2013Jeff Tamarkin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JOE BONAMASSA The dedicated bluesman mines Music City talent for an album of originals When Joe Bonamassa started work on his 11th solo release, Different Shades of Blue, the guitarist-vocalist knew he needed to shake things up. So Bonamassa teamed up with top Nashville songwriters\u2014including Jonathan Cain, James House and Jerry Flowers\u2014to pen original tunes. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[313,7665],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14718"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14720,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14718\/revisions\/14720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}