Modern blues guitar master Joe Bonamassa discussed his guitar preferences and pointed out why he switched from Fender Stratocasters to Gibson Les Pauls as his main guitars.
And yes, we know — it’s not like Joe doesn’t own a bunch of Strats and Teles. Also, it’s not like he only uses Les Pauls. But these days, it seems that the good old single-cut models are his main weapons of choice, especially his favorite ’59, widely known as the “Skinnerburst.”
As he revealed in an interview with Chris Shiflett, the switch happened sometime in the early 2000s when he was still at the beginning of his solo career. While discussing how he does volume swells, Bonamassa went on to explain how this particular issue made him switch instruments. Saying that he got this from the likes of Roy Buchanan and Danny Gatton, he offered (transcribed by Killer Guitar Rigs):
“This is why I switched from Strat to Les Paul in 2002. I was opening up for Buddy Guy in Birmingham, Alabama, at some theater. It was at the merchandise table because that was the grift, okay? We had a 45-minute set I would play for 40 minutes because that would be five extra minutes to sell the CDs, which was all the money because we’re making 200 bucks.”
“And anyway, long story short, some guy comes up, he’s at the end of the merchandise line, and he kind of comes up to me. I used to do a little baroquean classical reference, like a minute piece, and it would kill — people would love it because they were like, ‘What? That guitar sounds like a violin!'”
“And then he says, ‘Man, when you played that piece that sounded just like a violin…’ I’m like, ‘Yeah?’, I thought, ‘He got the reference.’ He said, ‘Man, when you did that I closed my eyes, and it sounded exactly like Stevie Ray Vaughan.'”
“And I said, ‘He’s hearing with his eyes! [Laughs] Because there’s no Stevie Ray in that! He’s seeing it in the Strat.’ And I said, ‘I should probably pivot,’ because at that point — in the late ’90s, early 2000s — pretty much everybody in the genre was a Fender guy, Strat or Tele.”
“And there was a lot of Stevie Ray reference in the music — in mine, too. And I said, ‘I got to pivot and do something different.’ And it just so happened on that same tour, Gibson gave me an early — I think 2001 or 2002 — Les Paul Classic, the 1960 reissue.”
And we get what Bonamassa is saying. It’s a little tricky to constantly be compared to a guitar legend all the time. People will just start seeing you as a bland copy who’s riding someone else’s coattails.
But despite pivoting, as he said, and becoming a Les Paul guy, Bonamassa still encountered the same problem:
“And the next night in Memphis when we played the gig, there wasn’t many people there, but there was maybe a hundred. And I did ‘Blues Deluxe’ [album] with the Les Paul and the violins, and it killed!”
“Then I said, ‘That’s what I’m gonna do from now on, and nobody said it sounded like Stevie Ray Vaughan, huh?’ Then they said, ‘Well, that sounds like Peter Green.’ I’m like, ‘Fine!’
During the same interview, Joe also discussed how he picks guitars when he purchases some vintage stuff for his massive collection, offering:
“People be with me and I’m like on the hunt or the addiction is raging, and I’ll pick up a Les Paul. I don’t even plug it in. I just pick a Les Paul and be like [strums]. I look down the neck, make sure it’s straight, and I’m like, ‘All right, we’re good.’ And they’re like, ‘You don’t want to hear it?’ I’m like, ‘It sounds like a f***ing Les Paul, so that’s gonna sound like me playing.’ That’s it.”
“There’s no piece of wood that’s gonna move the needle for me at this point, you know what I mean? It’s important to make sure they work. And if you’re looking for a specific thing, not all guitars are created equal — there are some heavy ones. I don’t mind heavy guitars because sometimes those sound good, and they have this weight to them, both sonically and physically.”
“That’s a cool thing. I don’t want a six-pound Les Paul — when I play a Les Paul, I want it to be eight and a half or nine, because it feels substantial. And same thing with a Strat or a Tele, you want it to feel substantial, you don’t want it to be like it’s moving too much as I’m bearing down on it.”
Photo: Alberto Cabello (Joe Bonamassa (Black Country Communion) – 5880505158)
