Album Review: "Driving Towards The Daylight" by Joe Bonamassa

Here's a guy I'd never heard of until I started playing guitar again. There are artists that only other guitarists know and love and once I started darkening the doorway of Guitar Center again...I'd heard of Joe Bonamassa.

I suppose I'm getting closer to being able to say that I enjoy the blues. With John Lee Hooker and many "punk" blues artists in my library these days, I'm really beginning to understand and appreciate the genre. In the past, I can only say that I've been a fan of blues based rock like Led Zeppelin and all of their children. I, personally, would put Joe Bonamassa in a spot between Hooker'n'Heat (electric blues) and Led Zeppelin (blues based rock). This album is neither one nor the other, but it definitely was enough to draw me in. After I'd read that Brad Whitford and son were among the featured sidemen for this album, I was in. It didn't hurt that I'd read all about guitar players gushing about Joe on the internet I suppose. I'm always looking for an artist that makes me want to get better, and Joe fits that bill.

Double Neck

This is one one of the few albums I purchased without even listening to a preview of the songs on either Amazon or checking out Youtube videos. I didn't even do this after the fact. So, I was completely surprised when I heard this man's singing voice. I do not know of a way to describe how he sings. I think it's very unique and definitely compliments his playing.

On this album, the guitar work runs the gamut from being minimalist like John Lee Hooker to being full and big like Jimmy Page. I'm always told that Bonamassa is blues, but I don't feel like he can be precisely put into that genre, but that's just my opinion.

On this record, he pays homage to the blues greats, write some genius originals, and plays some wicked solos. The title track will always come to mind. That song is a great example about what I'm finding myself really loving about this album and Joe Bonamassa in general. There has always been a knock on virtuoso players because their playing, or singing, can lack feeling, but Bonamassa shrugs off this stereotype as easily as taking off his suit jacket before he lets it fly. On the title track the guitar solo was so powerful and so emotional that I could not believe the depths it moved me to. It was staggeringly beautiful.

Even though this album is mostly covers, he makes the songs his own. In the case of Robert Johnson's "Stones In My Passway," he reinvents the song. Instead of it just being a man and his acoustic guitar, it's a full band arrangement.

All in all this is a spectacular album. It was definitely worth the money I paid for it and my only regret is not being able to see him on this tour. When he's in town this time, I'm out of town.

Genre: Blues
Year: 2012
Run time: 56:19
Playlists: I Has A Sad, Rock, Modern Rock

Track listing:

1) Dislocated Boy
2) Stones In My Passway
3) Driving Towards The Daylight
4) Who's Been Talking?
5) I Got All You Need
6) A Place In My Heart
7) Lonely Town Lonely Street
8) Heavenly Soul
9) New Coat of Paint
10) Somewhere Trouble Don't Go
11) Too Much Ain't Enough