Joe BonamassaSloe Gin | J+R Adventures  October 22,
2007 5:22:07 PM
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Six CDs into his solo career, this singer and six-stringer from upstate New York has hit his artistic stride. This is an elegant and brawny guitar-hero album, diverse enough — with its mix of electric and acoustic performances, stone blues, and granite-hard rock — and bolstered by fine songwriting from Chris Whitley, Alvin Lee, Paul Rogers and Mick Ralphs, Charles Brown, John Mayall, and Bonamassa himself. “India” is a sitar-like workout played on a National Triolian. “One of These Days” is a freedom song that speaks a brash language of grinding power chords and braying slide. And “Sloe Gin,” a potentially wimpy ballad written by Bob Ezrin and Michael Kamen, is a raucous essay in heartache thanks to Bonamassa’s explosive guitar accents. His reading of Whitley’s “Ball Peen Hammer” even captures its late author’s intensity, no mean feat. Right now, there’s no better blues-rock artist than Bonamassa.
Joe Bonamassa | Berklee Performance Center, 136 Mass Ave, Boston | October 26 | 617.931.2000
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