Joe Bonamassa on blazing his own blues trail

Brighton Centre, King’s Road, Friday, October 30, and Saturday, October 31

FROM winning television talent shows to becoming an internet sensation, musicians across the world are constantly searching for new ways to reach an audience.

Precious few are following the same traditional route as blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa.

He has become a word of mouth success in the UK and US through a relentless touring schedule of between 100 and 200 shows a year, augmented by a series of albums released on his own Provogue label.

He is marking the tenth anniversary of his first UK show this year with an intimate show at the very same venue it all began - Poole’s 300-capacity venue Mr Kyps on Sunday, November 1.

At that original 2005 show the promoter ended up dropping the £10 ticket price to welcome a total of 100 punters who saw the guitarist for free. Bonamassa returned to the venue several times over the next few years, to the point owner Kyp claimed he could have sold the venue out a thousand times over on his last appearance.

Despite being so big he didn’t need to play the venue again Bonamassa promised to return with his full band.

“It’s a nice mix so we don’t have to keep playing the big places,” says Bonamassa on a break from soundchecking in Prague, where he sits and picks at his guitar at the same time as talking on the phone.

“It makes it fun for everybody.”

That’s not to say Bonamassa doesn’t enjoy playing large capacity venues like the Brighton Centre. He regularly mixes up his sets to keep them fresh both for fans and the band.

Last year he opened his shows, including a recently released appearance at New York's Radio City Music Hall, with a 45-minute acoustic set, before returning to the stage for a full 90-minute electric band performance.

And on this tour he is slowly building up the line-up as the show goes on.

“We start with a three-piece so we do three or four songs as a power trio,” he says. “Then we add the keyboards, and six songs later we add the horns for the rest of the night.

“When it starts it feels intimate, then by the end of the show it's bigger.”

Bonamassa admits he enjoys coming to Brighton, saying the city has been good to him – so much so his long-sold-out Saturday night show now has an extra Friday night performance.

“The Brighton Centre is an arena, but it feels more like a theatre,” he says. “I really like playing those sort of venues.”

The UK had a major role in the young Bonamassa’s education in the blues – having started his live career as a 12-year-old guitarist supporting BB King.

“I was living in upstate New York, but listening to British blues,” he says.

“Now I’m selling back to the British public the stuff that Rod Stewart, Jeff Beck, John Mayall and Led Zeppelin sold back to us.

“At the end of the day the blues is a universal language. It’s never in style, it’s never out of style – it just is.”

King, who died in May, was an early mentor for Bonamassa.

“I must have done 100 shows with BB King,” he says. “He was my big break as a kid. I’m very fortunate, but I wasn’t the only person he mentored. He was the sort of guy that would give you the shirt off his back. He gave great advice and stuff like that.”

Bonamassa is following in King’s footsteps by founding his own Keeping The Blues Alive Foundation – which funds students and teachers through programmes and scholarships to help them achieve their musical potential.

“I’m trying to give back to the people who have helped me and raise a little awareness of the blues,” he says. “It was tough enough as kids.

“Music which is designed to be popular in the 21st century is cutting edge and digital, it’s not organic sounding, although there are exceptions like Adele.

"All the dynamics and light and shade has gone away – it's everything the blues isn’t.

"Everyone hopes the blues will go mainstream, but why would it want to be? We can play the music on our own terms. I’m selling 150,000 to 200,000 copies of my record on my own terms. Everyone has an opinion on the best way to do it, but if I had listened to everybody we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Doors 6.30pm, tickets from £35 (Sat SOLD OUT). Call 08448 471515.