General Article name: Black Rock
Genre: Rock englischsprachig Product type: LP (Vinyl) Label: Provogue Number of tracks: 13 Tracklist LP - 1 1. Joe Bonamassa - Steal Your Heart Away 2. Joe Bonamassa - Know A Place 3. Joe Bonamassa - When The Fire Hits The Sea 4. Joe Bonamassa - Quarryman's Lament 5. Joe Bonamassa - Spanish Boots 6. Joe Bonamassa - Bird On A Wire 7. Joe Bonamassa - Three Times A Fool 8. Joe Bonamassa / B.B. King - Night Life 9. Joe Bonamassa - Wandering Earth 10. Joe Bonamassa - Look Over Yonder Wall 11. Joe Bonamassa - Athens To Athens 12. Joe Bonamassa - Blue And Evil 13. Joe Bonamassa - Baby You Gotta Change Your Mind   Description Album Review (en)

It’s a sign of Joe Bonamassa’s increasing profile that he got blues legend B.B. King to guest on his eighth album Black Rock -- and if what you’re doing is good enough to rope B.B. in, there’s not much reason to change, so Bonamassa doesn’t tinker with his formula here, retaining a little of the folky undertow of The Ballad of John Henry, but with its remaining roots in a thick, heavy blues-rock more redolent of ‘60s London than the ‘50s Delta. Of course, Bonamassa has never shied away from his love of Brit-blues, even underscoring it with a good streamlined cover of Jeff Beck’s “Spanish Boots,” but he retains a healthy respect for all manners of classic blues, kicking out a Chicago groove on a cover of Otis Rush’s “Three Times a Fool,” reaching back to Blind Boy Fuller for “Baby You Gotta Change Your Mind” and ably replicating B.B.’s latter-day soul groove on a horn-smacked cover of Willie Nelson’s “Night Life.” Bonamassa has an ear for non-blues writers too, cherrypicking Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on a Wire” and John Hiatt’s “I Know a Place,” tying it all together with beefy lead lines, but the provocative moments on Black Rock are all self-penned, whether it’s the clattering stomp “When the Fire Hits the Sea,” the British folk lilt of “Quarryman’s Lament” and “Athens to Athens,” or the droning dramatic epic “Blue and Evil.” These are easily the most intriguing songs here, suggesting Bonamassa realizes that the familiar covers allow him to stretch out elsewhere, and while it might be interesting hearing him follow this path for a full album, what’s here on Black Rock is both satisfying and admirably, if reservedly, ambitious. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Contributors Artist: Joe Bonamassa Artist: Bonamassa Joe Record Label: Provogue Music Productions