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Bonamassa keeps making music, but might stop making records

Enjoy Joe Bonamassa's latest album, "The Spirit of Rory: Live from Cork." There might not be many more after it.

No contemporary blues artist may be more prolific or more successful than Bonamassa. He's released more than 40 albums since his 2000 debut, "A New Day Yesterday." Thirty-one of those albums have topped Billboard's Blues Chart, including "Live from Cork," a tribute to Irish guitar legend Rory Gallager.

Bonamassa also has been playing shows in the Mahoning Valley for most of that career, starting at The Cellar in Struthers, multiple dates at the Covelli Centre and now playing the Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre on Aug. 9 on a co-headlining tour with Gov't Mule.

But during a telephone interview last week, Bonamassa said it doesn't make economic sense to keep making full-length albums in today's marketplace.

"You have to recognize where the music industry is at, and physical copies of albums -- that's not where the market's at," he said. "Luckily, I came up in a time where people bought records, but (now) everybody streams music. I know people like (producer and artist) Jack Antonoff say, 'Oh, people discard the importance of an album.' Well, those people don't have to pay for them. They get paid to make singles and they get paid to make records.

"But the actual business of making records, there's no money in it because nobody buys records, and then you have to recoup on streams, which are fractional pennies. So yeah, eventually by sheer attrition, my Rory record will recoup.

"You know my B.B. (King) record will recoup by sheer attrition, but it doesn't recoup as fast. It takes years. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result."

His next album already is completed, but Bonamassa has no recording plans after that.

"If something comes about, great. If not, great," Bonamassa said. "I've had a pretty good run."

That doesn't mean he's going to stop playing music. He has more than 50 dates scheduled in the U.S. and Europe into 2027, and there's the Keeping the Blues Alive cruise to the Grand Cayman Islands next March followed by Joe Bonamassa's Soundwave Beach Weekend in Florida in April 2027.

The Youngstown date is one of eight shows Bonamassa is playing co-billed with Gov't Mule, led by acclaimed guitar player Warren Haynes. Bonamassa said they've played together on numerous occasions, but this is the first tour together. Last week's interview took place before the first of those eight shows, but it shouldn't be a surprise that two musicians known for their collaborative spirits are planning to spend some time on stage together in addition to playing their separate sets.

"He (Haynes) literally just texted me an hour ago about putting together a list of songs that we both know, so I can sit with them, they can sit with me," Bonamassa said. "We're on it. But we've played so much together over the years that we don't really even have to talk about it. It's like, 'You want to do this one again?'"

The band Bonamassa will have him on Aug. 9 is a bit different than the lineup he had for his 2024 date at the Covelli Centre. Keyboard player Reese Wynans, a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee as a member of Stevie Ray Vaughan's band Double Trouble, announced last year that he was stepping back from touring. Taking his place in the touring band is Australian musician Lachy Doley.

"There's no replacing Reese. He's one of a kind, and he still plays great, but he's 77, going on 78 years old," Bonamassa said. "He was with us for 12 years, and it was the longest gig he ever had. He said, 'I played with you longer than anyone.' What an honor.

"Lachy Doley was on the Rory Gallagher shows and when I knew about Reese's retirement, we reached out to him like, 'Are you interested in doing the gig?,' and he came right on board and was super excited, and he's been doing a great job."

"The Spirit of Rory" album came about when Gallagher's family invited him to perform in Ireland last year for the 30th anniversary of his death.

"I wouldn't have done it on my own, as much as I love Rory," he said. "It helped that it was sanctioned by the family ... The title of the album,'The Spirit of Rory,' really represents what I think it is. I'm not Rory Gallagher. Yeah, he's a big influence on me, but I'm not a doppelganger. And there's plenty of guys out there that could do it better than I did, who dedicated more of their performing life to that music, but they asked me."

While he'd been listening to Gallagher since he was a teenager, the only one of his songs that Bonamassa had recorded before the Ireland concerts was "Cradle Rock." Bonamassa said he used the setlists Gallagher played on his 1974 tour as the blueprint for the setlist, which included Gallagher originals such as "Bad Penny," "Tattoo'd Lady," "A Million Miles Away" and "Back on My Stompin' Ground" as well as blues-rock favorites "Treat Her Right" and "Messin' with the Kid."

"The one thing I tried to capture, and nobody can, is the energy. He brought such an energy to everything he did. One of my favorite songs to play on that show, and one we're doing this summer, is a song called 'I Fall Apart.' It's a very sensitive, very well-written song. It's not just something you bash out at a 2000-seat club. It's really a great, great song, and we were able to make something really nice out of it."

If you go …

WHO: Joe Bonamassa and Gov't Mule

WHEN: 7 p.m. Aug. 9

WHERE: Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre 201 S. Phelps St., Youngstown

HOW MUCH: Tickets start at $35 and are available through Ticketmaster.