Guitar Center's Battle of the Blues

[Queen Bee Blues]

[FONT="Century Gothic"]Renowned blues rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa sits down in the vintage room of our Hollywood store to offer up some suggestions for your GC BOTB performance. Check it here! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S2tn8Tcgo8 P.s. Joe's playing at this year's Grand Finals and has judged plus emceed the big show in previous years so his advice comes highly recommended![/FONT]

[dinosr.]

cool beans

[eerylegging]

Bonamassa is fantastic! Not quite up there with SRV and Jimi, in my own opinion! His technique is cleaner and more developed, but there is just something missing in the feel/edge/raw emotion department, for me. Though I will say, I watched a video of him covering "Are you experienced", which totally blew me away. Joe's best performance in my opinion. Check it out on YT!

[zelmobeaty]

I want to like him, and respect his command of the instrument. But, I just don't find him too entertaining.

[David Bereuther]

good advice!

[texasbluesman40]

Joe has excellent control over the guitar. I do not like all of his stuff, but there are some tracks that just make my jaw drop!

[BydoEmpire]

I love JB. Thanks for sharing - good, common sense advice for playing in general.

[jrcorp]

I want to like him, and respect his command of the instrument. But, I just don't find him too entertaining.

+1 Not to stereotype, but he's a big clean-cut white guy in a suit with slick hair and glasses, and his playing doesn't help in that his technique is spot on but it almost feels cold and calculated, as though he's learned it all verbatim at some point. I can't stand when I get that robotic vibe from someone. Vanilla!

[urca]

He ain't no blues. Couldn't hold a candle to BB Albert and Freddy.

[Funky_DR]

I think the commentary on vibrato is helpful but is more of a Blues 101 tip. I would think that most players that are making it out of the store round should have this under their belt and firmly ingrained in their style...right? I feel like tone has become the most controversial debate in electric blues guitar...clean vs dirty is practically like picking a political party. I feel like tone is an important part of your guitar personality and it's more about choosing something you really connect with than it is about picking clean vs dirty. I know for me, the tone coming out of the amp has to match the tone in my head or I'm just totally unsatisfied. I think the best part of this whole thing was the beginning where he talked about phrasing. You see some of these performances and it sounds like a collection of licks vs a serious of ideas that work together to create a song. It certainly is easy to forget when you're playing over a backing track, but it's still a song and should be treated as such. I'm surprised there isn't a composition element of the judging since I feel like this is what separates good musicians from good players.

[larryguitar]

I've been playing 25 years, and still work on, and try to improve, my vibrato. I doubt I will ever stop. And I'm always amused when people do the 'versus' thing with Bonamassa; he's not as good as Freddy, he's no B.B., he can't play as well as SRV....like somehow music is a sort of Deathmatch 2000, where only ONE can survive. Dude can play, and play very, very well. He's committed to it, and doing it every single day. I don't care if he doesn't comb his hair like Clapton did, or wear the same shoes Gatemouth Brown wore.

[Lemuria]

Joe Bonamassa - the God of blues-rock, thanks for sharing!

[shane159]

I've been playing 25 years, and still work on, and try to improve, my vibrato. I doubt I will ever stop. And I'm always amused when people do the 'versus' thing with Bonamassa; he's not as good as Freddy, he's no B.B., he can't play as well as SRV....like somehow music is a sort of Deathmatch 2000, where only ONE can survive. Dude can play, and play very, very well. He's committed to it, and doing it every single day. I don't care if he doesn't comb his hair like Clapton did, or wear the same shoes Gatemouth Brown wore.

Very well said. Joe is a monster player, singer, and songwriter.

[philbo]

:thu: Exactly my feeling.

I've been playing 25 years, and still work on, and try to improve, my vibrato. I doubt I will ever stop. And I'm always amused when people do the 'versus' thing with Bonamassa; he's not as good as Freddy, he's no B.B., he can't play as well as SRV....like somehow music is a sort of Deathmatch 2000, where only ONE can survive. Dude can play, and play very, very well. He's committed to it, and doing it every single day. I don't care if he doesn't comb his hair like Clapton did, or wear the same shoes Gatemouth Brown wore.

[NewGuyonGuitar]

I've been playing 25 years, and still work on, and try to improve, my vibrato. I doubt I will ever stop. And I'm always amused when people do the 'versus' thing with Bonamassa; he's not as good as Freddy, he's no B.B., he can't play as well as SRV....like somehow music is a sort of Deathmatch 2000, where only ONE can survive. Dude can play, and play very, very well. He's committed to it, and doing it every single day. I don't care if he doesn't comb his hair like Clapton did, or wear the same shoes Gatemouth Brown wore.

Great comment. Had to Google Gatemouth Brown...