London Calling
When you’re two decades and 40-odd albums into your solo career, you could be forgiven for running low on inspiration or fresh ideas for how to get the creative juices flowing. But Joe Bonamassa had no such issues – he was going to London to make a record, testing his hypothesis that an album’s sound is as much about where it’s written as it’s about what’s going on in your head at the time.
And that’s exactly what he did earlier this year. Teaming up with Whitesnake legend Bernie Marsden, Cream lyricist Pete Brown, Dave Stewart, Jools Holland and an all-star cast of collaborators at the legendary Abbey Road Studios, Bonamassa settled in to write and record the album that would become Royal Tea.
“I’m happy with the way it came out. Travelling to London, writing the record with Bernie and Pete and Jools and Dave, it did what it was supposed to do,” says Joe, reflecting on the record from the other end of a Zoom call. “I hear the British influence just because I was in Britannia. I knew I wanted to do a record in London, and I always wanted to see if my theory played out, that if I immersed myself in British culture, it would make the music sound British. So I didn’t come in there with the idea of making a record that was a tribute to Eric Clapton or Peter Green or whoever.
