Want to learn to play guitar like Joe Bonamassa?

This Joe Bonamassa Player Study will fuel your “Drive” to be a better blues guitar player. This course will take you through the theory, scales and techniques Joe Bonamassa uses to create his distinctive fast runs and beautiful melodies!

Background 

Joe Bonamassa picked up the guitar at the tender age of four. His father was a big music fan and played him records of British blues players like Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, which inspired the young Bonamassa. At 11, he was being mentored in guitar by “redneck jazz” pioneer Danny Gatton, and by 12 was gigging around Western New York and Pennsylvania on weekends with his band, Smokin’ Joe Bonamassa. Also that year, he opened for blues legend B.B. King for about 20 gigs. 

Bonamassa played in a band called Bloodline with the sons of Miles Davis, Robby Krieger and Berry Oakley before putting out his debut solo album in 2000.  He has released a total of 15 solo albums through his independent record label, 11 of which have reached No. 1 on the Billboard Blues chart. 

In 2020, Bonamassa created an independent record label called Keeping the Blues Alive Records, dedicated to promoting blues musicians. 

Style

Bonamassa has cited Eric Clapton, Jethro Tull, and Stevie Ray Vaughan as some of his biggest influences. He fuses rock and blues together in his playing, incorporating atypical groupings of notes in scale patterns. He also plays “outside of the box” by starting on second beats, utilizing string bends, and repeating rhythms. 

Gear 

Bonamassa has a huge guitar and gear collection. He got a head start on the collection since his parents own a music shop in Central New York.  In 2019, he told Guitar World that he has more than 400 guitars and 400 amplifiers. 

Bonamassa has said that his favorite guitar is his 1951 Fender Telecaster, nicknamed “The Bludgeon”.  He also collaborated with Epiphone in 2021 to release a replica of his 1958 Gibson Les Paul Custom. 

 

Once you’ve mastered Bonamassa’s signature style with the player study course, you can find tabs for 44 of his songs, including “A New Day Yesterday”, “If Heartaches Were Nickels”, and “Sloe Gin”. 

Ten romantic rock songs to learn for Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is coming up fast. If you still need a surprise for your person, grab your guitar and start learning one of these romantic rock songs!


With or Without You – U2

One of Irish band U2’s most popular songs ever, “With or Without You” was also used in NBC’s sitcom “Friends” as the theme song for Ross and Rachel’s relationship.


More Than Words – Extreme

Extreme lead guitarist Nuno Bettencourt described this song as a warning that the phrase “I love you” was becoming meaningless.

“People use it so easily and so lightly that they think you can say that and fix everything, or you can say that and everything’s OK,” he told the AP in 1991.

“Sometimes you have to do more and you have to show it—there’s other ways to say ‘I love you.’


Sweet Child O’ Mine  – Guns N’ Roses

Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash came up with the guitar riff for “Sweet Child” as a joke, saying it was a “circus melody”.

Within an hour, it was well on its way to being a full song – lead singer Axl Rose finished the lyrics by the next afternoon, basing them on his girlfriend Erin Everly. 

 

Time After Time – Cyndi Lauper 

Singer-songwriter Cyndi Lauper was inspired by a movie name she saw in TV Guide, “Time After Time”, and was inspired to write this song for her debut solo album. The track has landed on several lists of “The Best Love Songs of All Time”.

 

505 – Arctic Monkeys

The organ chords used in this 2007 track are the same from the soundtrack for “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly”.

 

Chasing Cars – Snow Patrol 

According to Snow Patrol lead singer Gary Lightbody, the phrase “chasing cars” came from his father’s advice about a girl Lightbody was infatuated with. Lightbody said his dad said, “”You’re like a dog chasing a car. You’ll never catch it and you just wouldn’t know what to do with it if you did.”

 

Dreams – Fleetwood Mac Stevie Nicks wrote “Dreams” in about ten minutes while the band was recording their celebrated “Rumours” album.

 

Layla – Eric Clapton

Another Clapton track, “Layla” was inspired both by a 12th century Persian poem and his secret love for Pattie Boyd, who was married to his friend George Harrison at the time.


Iris – The Goo Goo DollsThe Goo Goo Dolls’ signature song, “Iris” was written for the 1998 movie “City of Angels”. Lead singer John Rzeznik wrote the song after watching an early cut of the movie, saying in a 2013 interview, “I was thinking about the situation of the Nicolas Cage character in the movie. This guy is completely willing to give up his own immortality, just to be able to feel something very human. And I think, ‘Wow! What an amazing thing it must be like to love someone so much that you give up everything to be with them.’ That’s a pretty heavy thought.”

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