COVER STORY
To remain on a path of continued
artistic growth, Bonamassa
feels guitar playing, singing, and
songwriting must all go hand in
hand. “All three are not necessarily
mutually exclusive,” he points
out. “All of those elements come
together when you write a song. I
know the playbook. I could easily
write myself an easy record to sing
— not pushing it too hard, knowing
I have to go out and tour this thing
a couple hundred times. But that
DNA is not in me. It’s more about
the hard work, and the fight. I’ve
been programmed because the
music business is so tough, and
it was very tough to get to where
we’re at. I always carry these chips
on my shoulder, where I feel I have
to fight the whole damn world. I
realize more and more that I don’t.
But intrinsically, when I pick up the
guitar — especially electric guitar
— I can’t turn that off. It’s been 27
years of hard work, and the chips on
my shoulder are still there because
I had to claw and scratch to build
something, hopefully unique, that
people like.”
While Bonamassa’s electric guitar
prowess is widely praised, the man
is also a pretty fierce acoustic
player — but don’t tell him that. “I
learned from my acoustic tours that
I’m an electric guitar player. That’s
what I do for a living,” Bonamassa
clarifies. “Acoustic guitars are tools
for me. I don’t sit at home with
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GUITAR TRICKS INSIDER
DIGITAL EDITION
acoustic guitars — I break them out
when I need them.”
That said, Bonamassa learned some
seriously valuable lessons during his
series of unplugged dates. “What
the acoustic gigs boil down to is
they’re about the songs and the
vocals,” he reveals. “Once you get
your head around that, everything
becomes a little simpler. I’ve seen
other artists who are predominantly
electric players do acoustic things,
and they still feel the need to
maintain that certain level of shred
— and it doesn’t work. Musically,
it just doesn’t work. You have to
service the song and service the gig
the proper way. You can only do so
much on the acoustic guitar.”
This level of artistic self-awareness
carries over into how Bonamassa
approaches nailing the “right” solo
in the studio. “I try very hard, and,
95 percent of the time, I do get
the solo as the takes go down,” he
details. “What I do is, I develop
these little themes. Usually, my
first t