Been sort of over Joe B – just puts out so much stuff. Heard he was doing a Rory album – The Spirit Of Rory and thought meh.
But , hey, ok his voice hasn’t got the swing of Rory but jeez he is playing the frets off on this live in Cork show. I assume that is Rory’s Fender???
Clip in comments.
Unfortunately, for me, he’s chosen to cover the stodgiest Rory era – the Blueprint/Tattoo era. To my ears, the music he made before and after that was much better. But I doubt I’m the intended audience for this.
I assume you didn’t bother to watch / listen to that extended solo.
To be fair, I didn’t – I’m doing so now. He’s very good at it, of course…
I really dislike the Walk On Hot Coals, Bullfrog Blues et al. repertoire though – I can’t explain it, I just prefer the first couple of albums and the albums after the keyboard fellow was dispensed with.
Slight hijacking of the thread but it’s an opportunity to mention that the latest ‘Word in Your Ear’ features Hepworth interviewing Paul Charles, who is probably the most Afterword promoter ever. Rory is one of the artists he promoted (Charles is from Northern Ireland so Irish artists have featured heavily on his roster over the years). Others include Van Morrison, Ry Cooder, Elvis Costello, Christy Moore, Jackson Browne, Waterboys – the list goes on. He’s a great talker and also of all the promoters I knew and worked with back in the day when I was working in venues, he is the most genuinely enthusiastic about the actual music. Not least about Rory, as is clear when he briefly mentions him in the interview. Worth a listen.
Seconding this – a really interesting and engaging listen. I’m more of a Live in Europe man myself but my brother was at this show and said it was pretty fantastic….
Bonamassa is a fine player, obviously, but if the idea here was to capture the “spirit” of Rory, this falls well short for me, I’m afraid. It’s just too … nice. The tone’s wrong (too glassy, and the mids need overdriving much harder). The vibrato’s wrong (too nervy, nowhere near fluid enough). And he seems to have missed how Rory’s right hand was a constant blur, switching pickups and tweaking the volume and tone knobs every few bars so nothing ever stayed the same for more than a few seconds. Rory’s playing was organic and spontaneous, whereas this is too measured, too disciplined.
For me, the spirit of Rory has been captured best by Davy Knowles and Marcel Scherpenzeel – not least because both have often been accompanied by Gerry McAvoy, Rory’s eternal bass player, and Ted McKenna, his late-period drummer. They may not be rich and famous, but they get it.
Don’t get me wrong. As I said, Bonamassa is a technically brilliant blues player, and nobody would argue otherwise, but I just don’t think he gets anywhere near the essence of Rory’s playing. It may sound good but it feels all wrong.
I agree, he’s a great player who does nothing at all for me. Mind you I’ve only heard his reworkings of Brit blues classics, maybe when he’s doing his own stuff he’s better.
I am generally of that view. I just liked the solo on this one.
Minority opinion it would seem.