Joe Bonamassa on the Simple Secret to Clapton's Sound

How did it feel to be standing on stage with Eric Clapton? I mean, it was crazy. I mean, I'll see what I got. Do you know how that happened? I mean, did you contact him? Did he contact you? It was either an easy deal or I met him at a private event and I was surprised to find out that he knew who I was because I can't. I don't assume all. I don't assume anyone knows what I usually have right. and I was surprised that he knew that he and he had asked me at this private party about the baffle and the shields that I use in front of the amplifiers and I was like, "Oh my God, I don't even know who I am, he's actually watched me." . which is a really strange thing and we had a nice conversation and a mutual friend of ours and he said you should fight, you should invite Eric Clapton to the Royal Brahman, yeah, while we're doing that, let me, I'm gonna I'm gonna put clooney on the front row you know de niro will be here you know um you know you know bb king will be you know he'll be in a box up there I'm bottomless joe who no one's coming he's going write him a letter I'll get him the letter I wrote him by hand and I told him Mr.

Clapton, the reason I wanted to play at the Royal Albert Hall is because of his legacy in this place, you know, and if he had played all those legendary concerts at the Fox and Hound pub in London, you know, I would have liked it. play at Fox and Ham, right? They had nothing to do with the beauty and the grandeur of this room, it's just for those classic things that I do it in the 80s with 24 nights and cream and then you get the zeppelin, obviously, you know, and the Beatles, I mean, everyone has touched on that, but it was in particular Eric Clapton who had an impact on my life, so I wrote a letter and just articulated that.

I killed some trees because I screwed it up, but I wrote the letter by hand and left my email and then one day, it was a random Sunday, I got an email that I thought was spam and it just said Albert. I asked myself what is that and I clicked on it and said, oh shit, I know who that is and he said yes, as long as the vehicle is

simple

and you know, basically don't call giant steps, so I started thinking, well , he asked me to pick a song that I thought about later because it was the first electric blue song I ever learned and it was his version and I said, well that would be just surreal and he said do you want to do Bobby Bland's version or mine ? bringing like oh no, his version sir, so you know, and that was it and he showed up and this is the one thing about the team that I'll always tell people that showed up, he had a new custom shop, he was an Eric Clapton . blue daphne blue model and he had a new 57 reissue twin tweed twin I had the little one it had a little card on top with the sample settings and a monster cable in the amp on the guitar it

sound

ed like an Air Clapton

sound

like the ones blues breakers said that's talent and then he sings and it's like every note is divided in two and he plays and every phrase is in the right place you know it's a gift and you know and I could never repay the debt of gratitude I owe him because it really is especially in this country they put a seal of approval on me and then I became known, especially in the United States, because the British didn't realize until they met me or talked to me or heard me speak.

I was from upstate New York and it really was my whole life changed after that moment and it was something really cool that I could never recreate because you could see the look on my face, you could see the expression of how much it meant to me. , you know and he knew it, absolutely you.