Kit Wood
Joe Bonamassa on stage.
Joe Bonamassa
In 1999, guitarist/singer Joe Bonamassa landed in Madison for a performance at Luther’s Blues on University Avenue, and nobody showed up.
“I always come back to Madison, and when I see anybody in the crowd, I’m proud as a peacock, because I know what it’s like to walk on stage and have nobody there,” Bonamassa says, checking in from Los Angeles via phone a few weeks prior to beginning a month-long tour that will make a Feb. 20 stop at Madison’s Orpheum Theater (which most certainly will not be empty). “We did, like, five songs that night — just some rehearsal stuff — and then we were done.”
Nearly a quarter-century later, the 45-year-old’s career is still peaking. He’s outlasted Luther’s Blues (which closed in 2005) and released more than 40 studio, live and collaborative albums. His latest, 2021’s ambitious and rock-centric Time Clocks, earned Bonamassa his 25th No. 1 ranking on the Billboard Blues Album Chart, and his previous album, 2020’s Royal Tea, recorded at Abbey Road Studios, notched his third Grammy nomination.
“I have three houses and 500 guitars, and I could retire tomorrow,” Bonamassa says, laughing. “I think I’ve done okay.”
In April, Bonamassa will release Tales of Time, a searing live document captured at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado last summer that will be available through his own J&R Adventures label in multiple audio and video formats. The performance features the same fiery band and backup singers that will be in Madison, and a pre-release video clip of “The Loyal Kind” — punctuated by one of Bonamassa’s mind-boggling guitar solos — reveals a band playing as if they might never be on stage together again.
“[Time Clocks] was a very adventurous record to make in the studio and a pretty wet and wild one to play live,” Bonamassa says. “But it came off good, and I’m proud of the band. You know, every artist is guilty of putting a stamp on a gig and mailing it in. Nobody can say, ‘Hey, listen, I feel it every single night.’” But, he says, “on this particular night, we were all feeling it.”
While Guitar World hails Bonmassa as “arguably the world’s biggest blues guitarist,” the man isn’t afraid to stray from his roots.
“I’m a blues-based artist,” he says, citing his vast and diverse back catalog. “We’ll play trad blues, but then we’ll play prog. I look at my audience and think, ‘Half these people have seen the Allman Brothers Band, half of them saw Yes back in the day, half of them saw B.B. King.’ They are heritage rock fans. That same audience will go see Styx or Van Morrison, too.”
In an effort to ensure more indie blues-based artists achieve success, Bonamassa and his longtime manager, Roy Weisman, launched Journeyman LLC, a full-service artist management, record label, concert promotion and marketing company based on the 360-degree independent business model that propelled Bonamassa’s career. Early signings include British blues rocker Joanne Shaw Taylor and California-based Southern rockers Robert Jon & The Wreck.
Bonamassa also is leveraging his high profile to promote music education in schools across the country via his Keeping the Blues Alive Foundation (KTBA). The nonprofit organization, founded in 2011, has provided schools and teachers with more than $2 million in donations that collectively have impacted 88,000 students in all 50 states, according to KTBA officials.
When COVID-19 shut down the touring industry in 2020, Bonamassa created the Fueling Musicians Program, a KTBA arm that raises money for musicians affected by the pandemic. The initiative began as an emergency relief plan that provided immediate cash payments of $1,500 for essential living expenses. The program evolved from there and now has raised more than $560,000 and distributed funds to more than 300 artists.
One of the foundation’s largest fundraisers is the “Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea” cruise, a bi-annual floating festival that will set sail in March from Miami to the Dominican Republic immediately following Bonamassa’s current U.S. tour. The lineup includes Journeyman artists plus Little Feat, Dion, Bobby Rush, the Robert Randolph Band and several others.
“I really feel that providing an opportunity to express creativity is so valuable to a kid’s life,” Bonamassa says about KBTA. “Usually, school music programs are the first on the chopping block. That’s why we got involved years ago. And then when the pandemic hit, we were like, ‘Well, everybody's starving because nobody can make any money.’ So now our mission statement is pretty wide. If you're a DJ and you're struggling, or if you're a school that needs guitar equipment, we got you.”
