This fall, guitar icon Joe Bonamassa will release Blues Deluxe, Vol. 2, a two-decades-in-the-making follow-up to his best-selling album, Blues Deluxe. Assembling this new collection of original songs and reinterpretations of classics was a definitive mission for the 46-year-old musician whose career began as a 12-year-old prodigy opening for B.B. King. It showcases the evolution of Bonamassa’s artistry, something that will also be on display on Aug. 4 at the Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan. Las Vegas Magazine’s Brock Radke recently checked in with the guitarist.
You just wrapped up a European tour in July. Which international destinations and audiences seem to care most about blues music?
I’m kind of an anomaly in the sense that we draw a pretty decent crowd everywhere we go. I don’t really see one territory that really goes for the blues, but Europe is where it started for me and then I brought it back to the United States. As far as blues and jazz, there are people that will tell you there’s more of a market for that in Europe, and we see that to a point. They do appreciate more traditional American music en masse than they do here, but it’s a case-by-case basis.
When you decided to put together Blues Deluxe, Vol. 2, did you find yourself revisiting where you were as a musician 20 years ago?
Blues Deluxe was the first album that kind of struck a nerve with our fanbase, I guess at that point our new fanbase. Instead of remastering it or doing something like that to acknowledge it 20 years later, I wanted to ask the question, “Am I as good as I was 20 years ago?” It’s a good question to ask yourself over the years—“Can I still bring it like when I was 25?” Honestly, I think I’m a better singer than I was, and also a better bandleader and musician than I was before, but it wasn’t a foregone conclusion.
How did the process of selecting material for the album change after two decades?
Vol. 2 definitely has more melody to it than the first one. Twenty years ago, as a singer, I could shout in one key. It was hard for me to hold a tune. Now I can sing a song like “Twenty-Four Hour Blues,” and I couldn’t do that (before) … I was more of a straight-ahead blues shouter. So now we have more options, much more options.
You also recently launched the Journeyman company, which is basically a one-stop shop for independent musicians as a label and management and promotion company.
That’s what we’ve been doing for the last 20 years of our lives. I don’t have a booking agent and I wouldn’t want one. We do everything in-house, and when you streamline how many people are involved in your process, it becomes a lot more efficient. The key is to make sure you have the artist’s best interests in mind, and for me, it’s a way of giving back. We have two great artists on the label now in Joanne Shaw Taylor and Robert Jon & The Wreck.
It must be nice to be bringing your tour back to Las Vegas.
It’s been a minute since we played Vegas, and it’s changed so much there in the last 10 or 12 years. It’s been amazing to see the residencies and so many different acts, and it’s our first time at The Cosmopolitan. We used to go every two years (to Vegas) until the pandemic kicked us off the merry-go-round, so it’s nice to get that back.
The Cosmopolitan, 8 p.m. Aug. 4, starting at $73 plus tax and fee. ticketmaster.com
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