Joe Bonamassa’s “amp shanty” is the stuff of legend – and many a YouTube video tour. You will no doubt be familiar with some of his heavy hitters, the venerable Marshall Silver Jubilee heads, pure unobtanium in the form of his Dumble tube amps.
But what about his fly rig, the amp he uses for those occasions when he is sitting in with a band for one night only? Bonamassa has shared his thoughts on this – and, helpfully, some advice for any player who is trying to choose a guitar amp for a gig.
Speaking to Guitarist magazine, for a recent YouTube segment [below], Bonamassa explains it is all a question of power. When it comes down to it he is not fussy; wattage and volume are his primary concerns. If there’s a Fender Super Reverb kicking around, that’ll do.
“If I’m just sitting in, I just prefer to play through whatever’s there,” he says. “The only thing that will make me bring my own amp is if they go, ‘Yeah, we’ve got a Princeton Reverb’ and it’s a live band. Well, you can’t really move the needle there; it’s not loud enough. You’re just peaked.
“In any situation, you just want to bring something that’s appropriate. You don’t bring a high-powered '[Fender] Tweed Twin to a small blues gig. It’s just too loud. You want something that is power appropriate but when you solo it has enough headroom to where you feel it.”
How do you know how much power is appropriate? Many players will argue that for small gigs, playing alongside a bass player and a drummer – especially one who is playing with brushes – then a medium-powered combo such as a Deluxe Reverb will be more than enough, especially once it’s mic’d up. But every situation is different.
“It really is dependent on the drummer,” says Bonamassa. “The drummer and the rhythm section eats up a lot of the bandwidth on guitar, so if you have a loud drummer, in a small place, you need to balance the band. You need to have the power equivalent.”
Bonamassa’s choices would be a modified Vibrolux. Fuchs OD-50, switchable between 50 and 100-watts. “It does a really, really wonderful approximation of a Dumble. It is not a specific one. It does that thing.”
But you also have to think of the practicalities.You have to think of the practicalities. Are there stairs where you are playing? That’s worth considering before you haul out the Fender Super Reverb – 65lbs is heavy enough going down the stairs, let alone getting back up. When Bonamassa plays a guest spot, he travels light. “I just scale accordingly,” he says. “It’s only one guitar, a gig bag, a protector case, and a cable.”
Check the pic at the top of the page. That’s Bonamassa playing a Guild DE-500 Duane Eddy signature guitar from 1963 at the Titan of Twang tribute show, hosted by the Grand Ole Opry, in Nashville, last month.
My rig is large. It’s not complex. It’s just bigger stages requires more headroom
Joe Bonamassa
“We were paying tribute to Duane Eddy so I brought an amp with a lot of reverb and tremolo, and from 1963 and tremmed away,” he says. “So it just depends on the type of thing you get called for. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to get a great sound, and it doesn’t have to be overly complex.
“My rig is large. It’s not complex. It’s just bigger stages requires more headroom. In this room, a Tweed Champ would sound super-loud. All we have to go is 100-feet from here and you will barely hear it.”
In other Bonamassa news, there has officially been white smoke above Nerdville. He has a new album, titled Breakthrough, out on 18 July through J&R Records.
Each time Joe undertakes a new recording project, he seems to access a different part of his vast library of music genre from the jukebox-in-his-head
Kevin Shirley
Produced once more by Kevin ‘The Caveman’ Shirley, it is available for pre-order. Shirley describes it as a “round-the-world musical trip” so expect the unexpected.
“While there are plenty of guitar solos on this record, his emphasis has been on songs primarily,” says Shirley. “Each time Joe undertakes a new recording project, he seems to access a different part of his vast library of music genre from the jukebox-in-his-head! This album is a round-the-world musical trip – from Little Feat funkiness to Texas swing, from hard rock power to acoustic singer/songwriter-style songs.”
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