Reflections On Peter Green With Joe Bonamassa

Guitar World

TALES FROM NERDVILLE by Joe Bonamassa. GREEN LIGHT.  Joe Bonamassa discussed his approach to recording a cover of the Peter Green/Fleetwood Mac track “Lazy Poker Blues,” for his upcoming album, Blues Deluxe, Vol. 2. Joe offers some insight into another musical tribute of his to the late, great British guitarist.

Transcript

00:00Hey guys, Joe Bonamassa. This is part 2 of our little tribute to Peter Green, the late

00:15great Peter Green. Obviously, The Hard Road was a record that I wore out time and time

00:22again when I was a kid, both on CD, tape, and vinyl. And to me, I covered Otis Rush's So

00:32Many Roads based on John Mayle and the Blues Breakers with Peter Green's So Many Roads.

00:38And it's that opening riff. I'll try to get the tone as close as I can.

00:52The Hard Road

01:22All done in the style of Peter Green and amalgamation of different British guitar players there.

01:39But it was really the sound to me and the phrasing. It was nonchalant, but it was angry. And that

01:51was always what I loved about both Beck, Clapton, Page, and of course Peter Green and Mick Taylor.

01:58All those kind of, you know, graduates of that mid-60s British blues explosion.

02:05So one of the things about, you know, plugging straight into an amp, especially an early Marshall

02:09or any kind of British amp, or any amp for any, for that matter, is your picking technique. Now,

02:16sometimes it's diametrically opposed to what you think you're hearing, because the intensity sounds

02:23very, very, like you're just really, really going after it. But sometimes you really have to back off

02:30on the right hand to get it to bloom, you know?

02:43So I'm playing loud, but I'm not playing hard. So I'll show you what it would sound like the same

02:48kind of phrase if I was really tacky. Now there's, you can use either way, but sometimes, you know,

03:07to get that kind of creamier, but still, you know, bright sound, you back off on your right hand.

03:18So you let the amp and the guitar do the work, and, you know, so it just depends on what you're

03:40trying to say in any of this.

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