Review: Joe Bonamassa - Dust Bowl

Joe Bonamassa is first and foremost a blues guitarist. He toured with Buddy Guy when he was 12. He has played with BB King and Eric Clapton. The blues is his milieu. Dust Bowl, Bonamassa’s 9th solo album and his sixth with Kevin Shirley producing was recorded in Greece, Nashville, Malibu and Los Angeles. It is a blues album through and through, although at first blush it may not seem so.

In sixty-three minutes, Dust Bowl rolls through twelve songs that range in styles from country to Stevie Ray Vaughan boogie, bluegrass tinged rock to pop, without ever leaving the blues influence behind. And throughout Bonamassa’s virtuosity shines through.

Beginning with the sound of a train leaving the station, Slow Train is a slow hard blues, the band driving a great groove, Bonamassa ripping through cool blues licks. Leading into the title track, another slow tempoed but hard driving song, Dust Bowl is punctuated by a laid back western guitar lick.

Bonamassa’s singing is excellent throughout the album, as is his song writing. There are, none the less, three tracks with a guest singer and the third song Tennessee Plates is the first. John Hiatt shares the singing duties on the up-tempo country track, while Vince Gill fills the song with hot country guitar licks. Gill also plays and sings on the country boogie song Sweet Rowena. The guests are filled out by Bonamassa’s Black Country Communion band-mate Glenn Hughes, who co-sings the Free song, Paul Rodgers’ Heartbreaker.

But it is the Bonamassa songs that really shine. The mandolin led Black Lung Heartache, the Spanish infused slow blues The Last Matador of Bayonne, or the dirty sounding The Whale that Swallowed Jonah. Bonamassa is a storyteller, weaving tales in his writing that enhance his songs but don’t overshadow his strong band or his flawless guitar playing.

You Better Watch Yourself is a Stevie Ray Vaughan shuffle that at first hearing was intimately familiar. My first thought was that it was one of the standards, something Vaughan or Eric Clapton have covered previously. It is, however, a Bonamassa original and the albums best song. Beginning with Bonamassa riding his wah-wah pedal with a Hendrix like riff, he keeps on the pedal throughout and gives a performance that is so Stevie Ray like it seems a sure thing it was played on a Stratocaster.

The album ends on a surprising note, the Karen Lawrence/John Desautels song Prisoner. Formerly known as the Love Theme from “The Eye’s of Laura Mars” (prisoner), Bonamassa and producer Kevin Shirley take the Barbara Streisand ballad and turn it into a slow, sultry blues. It is what Jimmy Page’s Prisoner’s Blues aimed to be, but failed.

If you’re a blues rock fan waiting it out until June for Black Country Communion to release their 2nd album, Joe Bonamassa’s Dust Bowl is a must have album. It is a showcase of the blues in it’s many variants by one of it’s most prolific and virtuosic performers.



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Track Listing

1. Slow Train


2. Dust Bowl


3. Tennessee Plates


4. The Meaning of the Blues


5. Black Lung Heartache


6. You Better Watch Yourself


7. The Last Matador of Bayonne


8. Heartbreaker


9. No Love on the Street


10. The Whale That Swallowed Jonah


11. Sweet Rowena


12. Prisoner

Kevin Shirley Interview

Grammy nominated recording engineer Dave Rideau sat recently with Kevin “The Caveman” Shirley at Shirley's studio, The Cave in Malibu. In the interview for Solid State Logic, Los Angeles based Rideau talked with Shirley about his career, and his recording methods, including working with Led Zeppelin and Black Country Communion.

The resulting 39 minute interview was published in three parts on YouTube.

In part 1, he discusses working on the Led Zeppelin DVD and the live CD, How the West Was Won. Jimmy Page and Kevin Shirley did not always, it seems, get along perfectly:

I got to the studio and it was like, well there’s room full of old tapes, going back from 1968 to 1980. And we’re going to do something with them and it was like, what are we going to do with them. And Jimmy Page at that point was like, “well, I want to be in New Orleans in 8 weeks time to see my son. So we need to do something in 8 weeks.”

And I looked at them, and I opened up the first tape which was like, 1968 recording of The Royal Albert Hall and the tape was falling apart. I said, “We gotta’ bake these tapes.” and he was furious, he was like, “Why do you have to bake the tapes?” And I’m like well, there’s oxide and tape and glue and it’s coming off, and storing in mouldy old England, it’ll do that to you. And he was livid, and we finally had to bake the stuff, had to bake everything and transfer everything so that alone took us about 3 or 4 weeks to get done.

So we started off on the wrong foot

It’s a theme that would carry into the second video:

When we worked at Sound West, and Jimmy would be upstairs, and he’d come downstairs and say, “what you doing?” And I’d say, “well, I’m just working on this thing over here, I just repaired this one guitar thing.”

He’s like, “Don’t you dare, let me hear it.” And then I would play it to him, he goes, “let me hear how it was.” Then I’d play it back to him, he’d say, “let’s hear what you did to it.” and then he’d listen back, he’d go, “I’m going upstairs to smoke.” And then he goes, “I don’t wanna know, I don’t wanna know. If it sounds better, that’s good but I don’t wanna know.”

Repairs? On Jimmy Page’s guitar work? Surely not? Well, yes, and call me Shirley:

There’s one obvious one in the Zeppelin DVD where, that great fanfare that marks the end of the solo in Stairway to Heaven. He goes up high and he does that fanfare right at the end of the solo. If you watch that performance on the DVD, which I think is from Earls Court, the high string breaks, and so he has to go and play the fanfare down an octave… I have taken the liberty of pinching the fanfare from another performance and putting it on there. So if you look you can see that it’s played an octave down, but sounds an octave up.

Shirley explains, too, that there is, in fact, lots more Led Zeppelin material sitting in the vault. Not all of it, however, is useable:

I got to the studio and it was like, well there’s room full of old tapes, going back from 1968 to 1980... And by the time we started looking at it, it really wasn’t that much. There was some really shaky performances, and there was a lot of drug use going on in the band in the 70’s. So there were performances that really weren’t good at all.

The Caveman, as Shirley is known, didn’t just work with Led Zeppelin. He was instrumental in putting together, “these guys called Black Country Communion,” and shares the story of “crafting” their first album:

I booked the studio down the road, and we just booked two days, and I had everyone come into the studio…
Shangri-La, Just down the road here. And they came in for two days, and… Joe and Glenn had written nuggets of ideas, so we cut it all in bits and pieces… And then, they all went away, and in the evenings I cut it all up together when I was working on an Iron Maiden album in the Bahamas and I had time to spare. I put the headphones on and my laptop and I edited it all up, and that’s how this record came about…

It’s interesting… to see like 10,000 reviews that, “you can hear that these guys are all playing live,” well they are playing live, it’s just, they weren’t playing quite as you hear.

The third part is more technical, but still a fascinating watch.

Black Country Communion 2 Complete

Mastered and ready for June release, Black Country Communion’s 2nd album, BCC2, is longer, harder and darker, according to singer and bassist Glenn Hughes.

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“BCC 2 70 mins. Long. A Rock ‘n Roll Rollercoaster… organic… darker than “1”… my darkest lyrics since Addiction,” said Hughes via Facebook. (Addiction was Hughes 5th solo album. Released in 1996 it is the album that is regarded as his heaviest, both musically and lyrically. Many of the songs focus on Hughes drug addiction that he experienced through the 1980’s).

On Thursday, Hughes mentioned he had a mastered CD in hand. This comes after commenting that “BCC has given me a new belief in Rock ‘n Roll…” And yesterday (Friday Feb 25), Hughes comments that:

Joe Rocks [sic] harder than ever… and I get to sing some desperate blues… this album has woken the Rock

Hughes is not the only one excited about BCC 2. Kevin Shirley is reported to have said it’s the “best album of his career.” The Caveman, Kevin Shirley, has himself said on Facebook, “…it’s sounding awesome. Anyone ready for some big Bonham drums.”

Desperate blues, Joe Bonamassa rocking hard and big Bonham drums. Sounds like BCC2 is an album to look forward too.

Leaving behind recording, Black Country Communion announced their first two North American shows this week. BCC will perform two shows in California before beginning their European tour in June, appearing in San Diego June 9th and Anaheim June 10th. More shows will be announced.

BCC2 Smokin' Hot?

Glenn Hughes was heading to Producer Kevin Shirley, aka The Caveman's, studio to record vocals for the last two songs of Black Country Communion's second album. Upon arriving at "The Cave", Shirley discovered a fire:

I opened up to thick acrid smoke and a sideboard aflame. Miraculously, there were no guitars lost, no masters affected and the studio is smelly but otherwise OK.

Hughes finished his vocals, reporting via Facebook, "all vocals are now done... what a crazy day" He has previously said of BBC2 it is his "proudest musical moment," and "it has been a wonderful experience." On Kevin Shirley, Hughes said he is the "best producer I have ever worked with."

BBC2, which is so hot it fried a soundboard, is due for release in June.

JasonBonmham Interview on KLOS

Jason Bonham performed at the Mark & Brian Christmas Show at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles Thursday night. Jason performed with an all star Band that featured Joe Perry, Paul Rodgers, Michael Anthony and Steve Lukather. Before the show he sat with Sal Cirricione, and had a lot of interesting things to say:

On Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience, he says there is a possibility of more Led Zeppelin Experience shows next year.

On Black Country Communion, Bonham confirms that they will be recording in LA in January, with Kevin Shirley again producing. It looks like BCC will tour beginning the end of May or early June, although the time line is not clear yet.  Any Led Zeppelin Experience shows will likely go off between those dates.

Finally, and most significantly, is his mention of a DVD of the Zeppelin 02 show:

“Nothing is official, as yet. I only know that because Robert had said that he’d watched it. I really do hope that it eventually will see the light of day. It’s just nice to know that Robert had seen it, so I knew something, but it was nice that he rang up and said ‘Wow, it sounded great.’”

Lots of exciting news from Jason Bonham, including hopes that maybe that 02 DVD will eventually see the light of day.