Joe Bonamassa
I have a 1969 Grammer Johnny Cash acoustic guitar, and it's so inspirational.Collection: Inspirational
Some people don't like me at all. But... whatever. It comes with the territory.
I've never been universally loved from the beginning.
I think what I do really well is that I can 'chameleon' myself into many styles at a very fast pace, sometimes in the same verse of a song.
I live, breathe, and sleep guitars.
I'm not a household name; I'm just a household name to guitar freaks.
I'm a kooky collector and own a couple of hundred guitars.
There was a rumour that I was buying Gibson. It circulated around the Internet... And I just go, 'How well off do you think I am?' I play blues-rock for a living. It's like a vow of poverty.
I've been lucky and very fortunate over the course of my career, and I try to do something good for people every day.
I went through a period in my life where I didn't have money to buy ramen noodles and peanut butter and jelly, but I also needed to go to the guitar store and buy strings and picks and polish and rags. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't play guitar.
It's nice just to be able to go out and, basically, be able to play other types of music and not have any pressure to almost explain it and justify why you did. I just do it because I like to have some fun.
I'll tell you, what the world doesn't need is another Joe Bonamassa DVD.
Carnegie was a life-long dream because I was a born New Yorker. I was born in upstate New York, and we've played Radio City, and we've played The Beacon, but Carnegie was this mystical place, you know?
I collect as many acoustic guitars as I need for a specific purpose. Acoustic guitars are really just tools for me.
The first thing you realise very quickly when you decide to do an acoustic version of an electric song is your solo either becomes either very truncated, very different, or non-existent, because even if you play a clean solo, it's different with the Kryptonite... with the acoustic.
When you go into a situation, and you're honest and straight-up about something, you put all your cards on the table.
Basically, 2011 was the hardest year on the road for me because I did a spring tour and a fall tour plus nine weeks in the summer, and I was pretty worse for wear by the time I got home in December. I know I was only 34, but that was a tough lap.
I've always been a fan of the five-speed transmission - on anything.
There are good '59 Les Pauls, and there are not-so-good ones. There are ones that are just OK, that don't sustain as well.
My goal for 'Black Rock' was pretty simple: I wanted to make the feel-good record of the summer.
Greece is so beautiful and inspiring.
That's right, I take vocal lessons - done it for years. There's nothing wrong with it.
As far as actual playing, Clapton - by far - is my biggest influence, and you can tuck Jeff Beck underneath that.
I'm a self-loathing slide player. Some people like the way I play slide - I hate it.
'Beck-Ola' is a weird album.
John Mayall doesn't get enough credit. He's not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is a tragedy.
I really loved being able to perform my songs and sing them myself.
There's always talk about the blues dying out, but it won't.
Most blues guitar players don't concentrate on singing and melodies. And forget about the bridge - the bridge doesn't exist. They go straight for the solo.
If I feel like things are getting into a routine, I want them to be different. I need to keep improving and keep moving forward.
The one area where I'll say that Hendrix is underrated was his ability to use chord melodies. He used different inversions of chords and was able to make a three-piece band sound absolutely huge. From the moment Hendrix and the Experience came on the scene, power trios had their work cut out for them.
Jimi Hendrix is a classic example of a player in which everything he did, it was all in his hands.
I don't think there's any music that you hear on the radio today that would be possible without Jimi Hendrix. Rock, blues-rock, heavy metal, any guitar stuff when you get right down to it - Jimi did it. He's certainly the guy who basically invented the blues-rock genre for guitar players.
That's the thing about the blues: It's one thing to hit a note on a guitar. To make it matter is something else altogether.
When you think blues, you think BB King. Even a young kid can look at a picture of BB King and say, 'the blues.' The man is more than a musician. He's a monument.
If it wasn't for guys like Gary Moore, I wouldn't exist. He not only proved that the blues could rock but it could draw a crowd as well. All of which made a huge impression on me.
Everything Paul Kossoff did came from his fingers and went right into the amp. He was his own effects unit.
A guitar is a guitar. Whether it was made yesterday or 51 years ago, if it's good, it will stand the test of time.
I'm honored people think enough of my playing to chase my sound. Hell, I chase other players' tones all the time.
At the end of the day, you, as the player, create the tone coming out of the amp. The gear is part of it but by no means all of it.
I was thrust into an adult world very quickly, and that can make anyone somewhat socially maladjusted to dealing with people your own age. But I wouldn't trade any of it.
Whenever I hear my playing, I can't detach from my influences: there's my Jeff Beck, there's the Clapton bit, the Eric Johnson bit, the Birelli Lagrene bit, the Billy Gibbons.
That's where the Black Keys and Jack White have succeeded and I've failed: They've actually convinced college kids that they're listening to hip music - but it's just blues twisted a new way - while I'm playing for the college kid's parents.
All I'm trying to do is simply play guitar and elicit this creativity from the instrument.
I'm an acoustic guitar owner - in the sense that I own them, and they sit at my house, and I never play them.
I've always been a big fan of taking old songs and completely turning them on their head. Having no adherence to the fine tradition of the original version. Rearranging them and taking a different approach to them.
I used to watch MTV when they played music, and discovered Robert Cray, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Healey.
If you keep working hard and not take 'no' for an answer, you achieve.
If we got into a time machine and went back to the 1700s, classical and baroque music would have been the equivalent of Beyonce and Jay-Z.
Who's to say a blues man can't play rock and roll?