LONDON CALLING
“Ihave the coronavirus,” Joe Bonamassa announces as he shakes hands and sits down barely three feet away. But this is early January; ‘Covid-19’ sounds like the name of a bad prog band, and that whole ‘thing’ seems far, far away, and will probably blow over. We’re oblivious to even the concept of ‘social distancing’, and nobody could anticipate the utter havoc that the C-word is about to wreak across the world.
We’re in the upstairs observation room at Abbey Road’s cavernous, breathtaking Studio One. The largest purpose-built recording room in the world, it easily accommodates the 100-strong orchestras used to soundtrack Hollywood blockbusters.
It smells of aged wood, sweet dust and history. It really does. Its high walls are baffled by square and oblong soundproofing panels, seemingly placed at random but clearly not. When you speak in the ‘live’ room your voice sounds sharply present and then evaporates, spirited up and out into the space.
For today’s photo-shoot, Bonamassa stands in the 30-ish-feet-square corner of the room he and his band set up in to record his new album, Royal Tea (note the very English title). He plugs in one of his many six-figure Les Paul guitars and launches into some tasty blues licks. The sound is massive – crystal-clear yet steeped in the creamiest natural reverb you’ve ever heard; it’s almost sensuous. His long-time producer Kevin Shirley is being only a little flippant when he says you can just plonk a top-end Abbey Road mic in front of a speaker here and you’re in business.
“Socially I’m awkward. I say things out loud that I should keep internal sometimes.”
Of course, despite Bonamassa’s ominous selfdiagnosis he doesn’t actually have coronavirus. The reality is that he’s been struggling with a stubborn sinus infection for the whole week that he, his band and Shirley have been here tracking the album. Shirley has his own struggle to cope with, having to be finished within this one, intense week here.
