CD Review: 'Sloe Gin' by Joe Bonamassa

by Tom Watson.

Sloe Gin, the seventh solo studio album from Joe Bonamassa, is scheduled for release by Premier Artists Records (US) and Provogue Records (Europe) on August 20, 2007. This would have been everybody's Summer of 2007 CD had it been on shelves in early June.

On the other hand, Sloe Gin isn't a summer album. It has the makings of a year-round classic that could set a new standard for recorded blues, rock, blues-rock and a few other genres not always associated with "Joe Bonamassa the blues artist". Within the first 20 seconds of the opening track, "Ball Peen Hammer", it's clear we're in the presence of something special.

A strong opener

The dark, folk-blues song opens with acoustic guitar, resonator, deep bowed hint of the Bovaland Symphonic Orchestra strings, and the crystal clear voice of Joe Bonamassa. The recording quality of Joe's vocal leaves nothing to the imagination. This is a gutsy, confident singer willing to lay it on the line. No hiding. No distance. The consonants are unmasked and hard, like the song being sung: "I'm gonna go there, I'm gonna climb. Now I don't know about no law, I don't see no crime. Ain't no reason, ain't no rest. I'm gonna get down to the water and get undressed.”

Over the next three minutes, the unrelenting churn of "Ball Peen Hammer" reveals the aggressive frustration of the Chris Whitely-penned song through a classic rock style use of tension and release, volume-down acoustic moments followed by a quickly rising wall of sound underpinned by the Bova strings. By the close, Bonamassa's standing on the crest of an heroic sonic mountain railing at the gods, shouting, "I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it. I can’t wait to see them walls fallin’ down.” Gliss up, gliss down, quick fade, time to breathe.

Song's over, heart's pumping, but, wait a minute, was there a guitar solo? After all, this is Joe Bonamassa, Guitar Player's 2007 blues player of the year, the fellow with his own Signature Sounds, Styles & Techniques instructional DVD, the just-turned-30 blues ambassador who as a 12-year-old guitar wunderkind awed crowds as the opening act for B.B. King.

If what is meant by "guitar solo" is moments where the guitar stands up front to carry the song forward, the answer's yes. But, if the phrase means a flurry of "listen to this" single-note lines presented to demonstrate technical prowess, the answer is no, and this says much about both "Ball Peen Hammer" and the album in general. Sloe Gin is not a collection of songs that serve as an excuse for guitar solos, it's an album of convincing music on which Bonamassa uses his guitar to serve the songs.

What Sloe Gin is and is not

Though it includes several flat-out blues and blues-rock numbers, Sloe Gin is not a blues album per se. Instead, it's a Joe Bonamassa-the-artist-as-he-sees himself-today 11-track sampler that includes an array of styles and influences. The album is primarily a rich and uniquely Bonamassa blend of US-UK rock, folk, blues, and country on which you'll find an American country-folk-style ballad drawing on British-based acoustic passages and Led Zeppelin-ish blues-rock arrangements with a twinge of Southern rock. Note the seven covers selected for Sloe Gin: Chris Whitley's "Ball Peen Hammer" (US); "One of These Days" by Alvin Lee (UK); Paul Rodgers' "Seagull" (UK); "Sloe Gin" written by Bob Ezrin (Canada/US) and Michael Kamen from the US for British performer Tim Curry (UK); "Another Kind of Love" by John Mayall (UK); "Black Night", written by either Charles Brown or Jessie Mae Robinson, both from the United States (US); and "Jelly Roll" written and originally recorded by John Martyn (UK).

Bonamassa says Sloe Gin's variety was inspired in part by Rod Stewart's 1969 solo debut, The Rod Stewart Album, in which Stewart, who had just left the Jeff Beck Group, sought to demonstrate his artistic range through a blues-flavored album, several tracks of which feature acoustic slide guitar.

In fact, when Bonamassa and producer Kevin Shirley (a name Bonamassa fans will recognize from 2006's successful You & Me), started planning the Sloe Gin project, Joe considered making it an all-acoustic album. That plan was replaced by an acoustic-electric compromise (six predominantly acoustic tracks and five electric). But, whether acoustic or electric, it's the album's emphasis on singing, song, and stylistic blending that sets it apart from Bonamassa's previous records. Rock, classic rock, blues-rock, Southern rock, electric blues, traditional acoustic blues, piano bar ballad blues, country, English folk, American folk, roots, and Indian raga all play a straight or blended role in this Joe Bonamassa sampler.

Sloe Gin is a magic mirror album. It serves up a reflection of what predispositions the listener brings. Blues fans will call it a blues album, rock fans will call it rock, those in between will call it blues influenced rock, or vice versa, but then the blues, rock, blues-rock factions will be hard pressed to account for the acoustic country-folk flavored ballads "Around The Bend" and "Richmond" or the acoustic raga-influenced atmospheric "India", all three of which are Bonamassa originals (with co-writers). If calling Sloe Gin a Bonamassa sampler isn't graphic enough, think of the album as a musical buffet in which unrelated entrées share a single trait: they taste good.

The contributions of Kevin Shirley

Serious mention must also be made of the contributions to Sloe Gin by Kevin Shirley who produced and mixed the album (Shirley also produced, engineered and mixed You & Me). It's not just Joe Bonamassa that will stun your ears in the first 20 seconds of "Ball Peen Hammer", you'll also be struck by the extraordinary recording quality of the track, and then of the album overall. A partial list of Shirley's credits includes work on CD or DVD projects by Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Rush, Joe Satriani, Black Crowes, Dream Theater, and Silverchair.

In his role as producer, Shirley's efforts and contributions will remain mostly unknown except through the words of Joe Bonamassa. "It's unbelievable," Joe says in a pre-release one-sheet, "he takes my vision, augments it, and brings it further than I ever would have thought to." As a mixer, Shirley is a consummate placement professional. He treats the use of panning, or channel placement of a song's musical elements, as an art form and in doing so successfully, becomes an important performer in his own right. More attention should be paid to the contributions of producer, engineer (Jared Kvitka), and mixer on albums as sonically intense as Sloe Gin.

Between now and August 20, you'll be tempted to visit sites like Amazon to hear snippets from the album's tracks, but avoid the temptation. Save your ears from those grossly downsampled versions and save them for the high resolution CD originals.

Track listing with comments

1. "Ball Peen Hammer": Written and previously recorded by Chris Whitely (Dirt Floor, 1998, Messenger Records). Whitley's original is worth a listen on its own merits and to hear the dark, powerful source from which Joe and Kevin drew inspiration. On a side note, after several listens, "Ball Peen Hammer", and other tracks from Sloe Gin, started suggesting a single-voice violin (or fiddle, depending upon your mindset) either threading the background or as soloist or in duet mode with Bonamassa's acoustic guitar. Several violinists came to mind, such as Alison Krauss on the album's acoustic ballads and either of the two violinists (Alex De Pue and Ann Marie Calhoun) with Steve Vai's Sound Theories Tour on the heavier, electric, up-tempo tracks. One string leads to another.

2. "One of These Days": The pre-release liner notes credit this song to Joe Bonamassa and Alvin Lee, but in light of the fact that it first appeared on the Ten Years After album, A Space in Time, that was issued (1971, Capitol) before Joe was born, it's obviously not a Bonamassa-Lee co-write. The song is a forceful blues-rocker with an extended outro that could remind listeners of Clapton's "Layla" (opinion of Joe Bonamassa and Kevin Shirley), British blues-rock, or classic Southern rock in general (this writer's opinion, due mostly to the style of the slide guitar). It's the magic mirror at work.

3. "Seagull": A Paul Rodgers (Free) and co-writer Mick Ralphs song first recorded by Bad Company. This essentially acoustic track could have started and stayed small and intimate, but the arrangement goes for dramatic effect and mixes coffee house small with outdoor concert stage large. By the end of the song, you'll understand the importance Bonamassa-Shirley arrangements often place on sonic contrast to invoke a sense of theater and the heroic through devices that hearken back to the best days of classic rock, days that gave rise to the larger than life sound of groups like Led Zeppelin.

4. "Dirt in My Pocket": This is classic rock acoustic-electric, big sound, stadium music, complete with jangly acoustic passages in which keyboard player Rick Melick adds a bit of tabla (2:15). Written by Bonamassa and Jim Huff, it serves as a perfect example of Bonamassa's application of restraint. You'll expect heavy extended guitar soloing, but you'll have to wait until the next track for that.

5. "Sloe Gin": The title track is a cover of a somewhat obscure song that appears on Tim Curry's 1978 debut solo album, Read My Lips. Most might know Curry as a TV and screen actor, though he's also had an extensive career in theater which he began as part of the original London cast of the musical Hair before moving on to play Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show. More recently, Curry has donned the stage role of King Arthur in Spamalot. Though sloe gin might seem an unlikely drink of choice for someone, as the song's lyrics go, "Tryin' to wash away the pain inside", and a mental image of Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter or King Arthur trying to do exactly that might summon visions of comedy, satire or farce, "Sloe Gin" is a serious, blues-infected, though not traditionally blues-structured, song written by Bob Ezrin and Michael Kamen for Curry's album, which, likewise, was a serious, though somewhat offbeat, music project (it's rumored that Nils Lofgren appears on the album playing accordion).

Bonamassa's version is a strong, slow, direct lament about loneliness. It's the longest (8:13) track on Sloe Gin. At around 4:46, the music fades out and and the sound of sirens fades in serving as both the end of the lyric portion of the arrangement and the introduction of the remainder, which is an extended electric guitar solo. The segue is surprising and interesting. Are the sirens an ambulance response to an attempted suicide by the "so damn lonely" person and the extended guitar solo, with its several wailing passages, an inner glimpse on the way to the hospital? We're free to imagine. It's a powerful song, powerfully presented.

Joe says this about "Sloe Gin": I never would have found that one on my own or gone where Kevin [Shirley] went with it. I really owe that whole sound to him."

6. "Another Kind of Love" [*]: Back to classic blues-rock with a John Mayall song from Mayall's 1967 album A Hard Road that featured guitarist Peter Green. Green was a seminal British blues player that some younger blues fans may not have yet discovered. Today, his name is often overshadowed by others from the Bluesbreakers guitar fraternity such as Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, and, more recently, Walter Trout, Coco Montoya, and Buddy Whittington. It's interesting to note that Green is closely associated with a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Burst, and Bonamassa plays his version of "Another Kind of Love" with a new Gibson 1959 Les Paul re-issue. Not to say that Bonamassa is intentionally paying tribute to Green on this track, but Joe's quick vibrato on the solos is very reminiscent of Green's style. If it is a tribute, it's a fitting one.

7. "Around the Bend": Fans will remember this acoustic-based ballad from 2004's Had To Cry Today. Though the two versions are separated by only three years, the difference is striking. Both Bonamassa's voice and his instrumental presentation have matured, though no doubt the input and influence of Kevin Shirley also play a role. The new version is smooth and complete and lets the song take its own time in the telling while the original was a bit nervous and rushed, not fully flushed out.

8. "Black Night": 1951 was a good year for singer-pianist Charles Brown. His version of "Black Night", done as a piano-centric blues ballad, topped the R&B charts. Though the pre-release liner notes attribute Brown as the writer of "Black Night", some sources claim it was written by Jessie Mae Robinson. Brown's subsequent career was built on a style he called "blue ballad", a smooth, sophisticated approach to the blues that's also referred to as "nightclub" or "cocktail" blues. Though he slipped from the chart-topping limelight, in the '90s Brown again received wide recognition when he toured with Bonnie Raitt who has said, "I fell for the lure of 'Black Night' because Charles Brown had a sound all his own. I found out how many blues and jazz singers were influenced by Charles and it all made sense. He was the bridge." Brown, who passed away in 1999, was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Early Influence category. The presenter was Bonnie Raitt.

In the hands of Bonamassa and Shirley, "Black Night" becomes a much more aggressive, electric slow blues that reflects an interesting mix of soft and hard, sweet and sour, a Bonamassa-Shirley approach to musical contrast that's often reflected in Sloe Gin. Bonamassa's solos are relatively short, but very tasteful. The change in his electric guitar tone following his switch from the Fender Stratocaster is very noticeable, and some passages are reminiscent of early Carlos Santana with respect to both tone and phrasing. Bonamassa says much in a short space, getting right to the point.

9. "Jelly Roll": Add a flatted seventh to the first chord in "Jelly Roll" and you'd swear you're listening to Bonamassa covering a two minute piece of up-tempo traditional acoustic Delta blues. You're not. What you're hearing is Joe covering a Delta blues-influenced piece by UK singer-songwriter-guitarist John Martyn that appears on Martyn's album, Solid Air (1973, Island Records, re-released in 1998). No complex arrangement here, just Joe fingerpicking an acoustic and letting us know, "I bake the best jelly roll in town. I'm the only man baking and I'm gonna keep my damper down." Excellent and certainly not often heard presentation of English folk meets Delta blues.

10. "Richmond": Written by Joe Bonamassa and Mike Himelstein, "Richmond" is a bittersweet fish-out-of-water-there's-no-place-like-home country-folk acoustic ballad that also contains a strong dash of UK-folk influence. Magic mirror time again. Lyrics are US-based, but the arrangement and Joe's vocal will remind you of Rod Stewart, though Joe has less gravel. An extended mid-section or outro with Joe on acoustic slide would have been great. It would be nice to hear him stretch his unplugged legs.

11. "India": This will strike some, if not many, as a strange choice for the album closer. "India", composed by Bonamassa and keyboardist Rick Melick (who plays tabla on this track), seems a late '60s Haight-Ashbury acoustic atmospheric instrumental. With the preceding ten tracks so devoted to emotional storytelling, "India" can be a bit of a jolt on first listen. There's no tale to be told, only a mood to be created. But, remember, this is a Joe Bonamassa music sampler, not a concept album on which each track tells part of a larger story, unless, as is the case, the story being told by Sloe Gin is that Joe Bonamassa the musician is much more than Joe Bonamassa the electric blues guitarist. It also tells us that Joe's interests and influences extend beyond the US and UK.

[* Joe has been quoted saying "I sequenced the album (Sloe Gin) as a throwback to the Side A/Side B set-up of vinyl records...listening to an album as a whole is a lost pastime. I wanted to bring that experience back around." In an interview with Modern Guitars that will be published separately, Bonamassa says he considers tracks 1-5 the A side and tracks 6-11 the B side.]

Other musicians appearing on Sloe Gin

Anton Fig: drums and percussion
Carmine Rojas: bass
Rick Melick: keyboards and tabla
Bogie Bowles: drums on "Seagull" and hammer dulcimer
Jeff Bova: orchestral arrangements
The Bovaland Symphonic Orchestra*: strings

[* a "virtual" orchestra consisting of high-quality samples created by the multi-instrumentalist Jeff Bova]

Closing comments

It may have been simply a poor choice of words by Joe Bonamassa. The same pre-release one-sheet previously mentioned quotes Joe saying, "Sloe Gin is different than anything I've ever done before [agree]. I know we [Bonamassa and Shirley] bettered You & Me."

Bettered? The word expanded is more accurate. You & Me and the Bonamassa-Shirley association certainly laid the groundwork for Sloe Gin, but the new album builds off that groundwork and goes in a new direction more clearly focused on song, voice and expanding the Bonamassa-Shirley blending of influences. If value judgments are appropriate, it's difficult to imagine Bonamassa bettering Sloe Gin with his eighth solo studio release.

[Note: I spoke to Joe Bonamassa and Kevin Shirley on August 1, 2007. The original plan was to publish a review and the two interviews as a single article, but the length of the review made that impractical. The only information above that draws on the Bonamassa and Shirley interviews are the opinions of Shirley and Bonamassa given in the track notes to "One of These Days"; the footnote that says Joe sees the "A side of the album" as tracks 1-5 and the "B side" as tracks 6-11; and the note about the "virtual" nature of the The Bovaland Symphonic Orchestra.]

Related Links
Joe Bonamassa Talks about Sloe Gin
Record Producer Kevin Shirley Talks about Sloe Gin
Joe Bonamassa's official website
Joe Bonamassa on MySpace
Joe Bonamassa fan website
Provogue Records
Mascot-Provogue website
Caveman Productions (Kevin Shirley's website)
Joe Bonamassa to Tour UK and Release New Album in August
Joe Bonamassa interview on Modern Guitars
Brian D. Holland's review of Live at Rockpalast
Brian D. Holland's review of Signature Sounds, Styles, and Techniques

More articles by Tom Watson

---