If you thought the stasis of lockdown was tough on the average rock star, imagine what it did to the ultra-prolific Joe Bonamassa and Glenn Hughes. Combined, the blues gunslinger and journeyman shrieker have notched up almost 40 studio albums during Classic Rock’s lifetime (don’t get us started on the live records, production work, cameos and onenight stands). Amid this epic discography, some of the loftiest peaks came when Hughes and Bonamassa joined forces in Black Country Communion, the Anglo-American supergroup completed by drummer Jason Bonham and keyboard player man Derek Sherinian.
Our first issue came out in 1998. How were your careers going back then? Joe: I was just a kid – twenty-one years old – and about to embark on this journey. I’d just signed a development deal with Epic Records and was starting work with [producer] Tom Dowd on what would become my first solo album, A New Day Yesterday. Honestly, I wouldn’t change a thing. The only advice I’d give myself in 1998 would be: don’t put a shelf life on your career. Because my big moment came when I played the Albert Hall, days before my thirty-second birthday.
In the late nineties I was figuring out what I wanted to do. I’ve always changed horses midstream, as you know. I’d got sober for the first time, in 1991. But let’s just
