During the past 25 years, Joe Bonamassa has established a solid reputation as a guitarist, singer, bandleader, producer and song interpreter. And on the new Different Shades of Blue, his 11th solo studio album, he stakes an even stronger claim as a songwriter.
The diverse 11-song set, due out Sept. 23, marks the first time Bonamassa has released an album of all-original material after songwriting sessions in Nashville with Journey’s Jonathan Cain and country hitmakers such as James House, Jeffrey Steele and Jerry Flowers. “I’ve always done 60/40 covers vs. originals, or vice versa, and this time I really wanted to be involved with writing it,” Bonamassa tells Billboard. “I felt I owed it to myself to see if I could do it. And I owed it to my fans; it’s just one of those things where I thought my fans would appreciate the fact I took the time to write, y’know?” Bonamassa is no stranger to Nashville – “Every time I go there I work with all or some of the cast of characters, depending on who’s around,” he notes – so he knew it would be fertile territory.
“I knew they all had writing chops,” Bonamassa says. “I think they enjoyed what I was doing and that I didn’t say, ‘Hey, write me the next Luke Bryan single.’ I was like, ‘I don’t care if a song is six minutes long; let’s write the blues and who cares.’ I think they were like, ‘Yeah man, let’s cook. Let’s get on it.’ It was almost like a dinner party, but instead of wine and appetizers I’d bring in bits and pieces and they would bring in bits and pieces and we’d get together on a few things. I got a bunch of songs I liked pretty much immediately.”
Bonamassa says even Cain was able to break out of his norm a bit on the hard rocking “Never Give All Your Heart.” “He’s a real deep musician,” Bonamassa notes. “He knows the blues really well. He gets typecast ‘cause he’s in Journey, but when you say, ‘Let’s write something like Free with Paul Rodgers, he’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m into that!’ and it just came out.”
Bonamassa plans to record another solo album next year and says after “Different Shades of Blue” he’ll “try to write the whole thing again. I like the results.” He’s also eyeballing a third album with Beth Hart for 2015 or 2016, but before that he’ll be releasing an album of Betty Davis songs he and producer Kevin Shirley recorded with Mahalia Barnes, the daughter of Australian singer Jimmy Barnes, which will be out in 2015 as well.