Asking The Right Questions with Joe Bonamassa
"There aren't any questions I haven't been asked." Joe Bonamassa noted this during our interview late last week. For the benefit of the uninitiated, Bonamassa is a multiple Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and blues/rock guitar legend. Joe has been a frequent visitor to the area over the last three decades, and his origins are up the 90 near Utica.
Joe will perform at Shea's on Tuesday, February 25. The historic venue's website says under his name in bold letters, "Every Show is a New Experience!" And if you look at the many albums he has released over his career, you can see there is no shortage of material to draw from.
Joe started his career at age 12, opening for B.B. King at The Festival Tent in Rochester, NY, in the summer of 1989. It was my third time interviewing Joe, so I proudly mentioned at the outset that I was at that show and met him a few months later when he performed at Red Creek when I was the bar manager there. We had already discussed that in the two previous interviews, so I knew I needed a different line of questioning for this new experience.
I sought common ground since my guitar skills and knowledge were not in the same stratosphere as Joe's; I started by asking him how he conducts interviews.
Bonamassa has hosted his web-based interview show, "Live from Nerdville." ." We have even interviewed many of the same artists over the years. He also interviews artists aboard his annual Keeping The Blues Alive cruise. So, I decided to ask him what he has learned through the process of being the interviewer that helps him as an interviewee.
"I try to ask the questions nobody asks," he said. "I'm always interested in what makes people tick—not the talking points on the sheet. Who started you in music? Who put that first B.B. King or Led Zeppelin record in front of you?"
For Bonamassa, a great interview is about curiosity. "One of the best interviews I ever did was with Bobby Rush. He revealed to me in front of a thousand people that he was a stand-up comedian before he became a musician. That changed everything—it suddenly made sense why his stage presence was so unique."
And while he's had his fair share of bad interviews, Bonamassa believes the best ones feel like a conversation. "I've stopped interviews before and said, 'Do me a favor—hang up, call me back, and do some research,'" he admitted with a laugh. "A real journalist isn't just reading questions—it's about having a dialogue."
Thankfully, he didn't ask me to hang up.
The next line of questioning concerned his fifth Grammy nomination. Other media outlets recently quoted Joe extensively about having been nominated multiple times without winning. Still, with him coming to Buffalo in the wake of another Bills season where the team came up short, it seemed like a logical topic.
"There's no winners and losers in something subjective," he said. "John Hiatt's been up for ten Grammys and hasn't won. Mavis Staples? Nine nominations, zero wins. It's all about hard ticket sales, and I have nothing to feel bad about, I am still selling tickets, and if it helps another artist sell tickets, it helps us all. So I am happy for whoever wins," Joe said.
As I had hoped, he compared the experience to sports, particularly the Buffalo Bills' infamous four straight Super Bowl losses in the 1990s. "Sometimes there's no fairytale ending. Sometimes, life is just what it is. But that doesn't mean you didn't accomplish something great."
For Bonamassa, success isn't measured in awards or industry approval. It's about the music, the fans, and the community he's built through hard work and engagement. Moreover, his incredible body of work speaks for itself.
Even though he has lived in California for a long time, he isn't afraid of whatever weather Mother Nature brings as he heads back to Western New York.
"I don't care about the snow," he said. "I'll bring my four buses and three trucks through whatever the Thruway throws at us.
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