Joe Bonamassa – Blues Deluxe Vol. 2 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 42:37 minutes | 517 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © J&R Adventures
After 20 Years blues rock icon Joe Bonamassa has recorded a follow-up to his successful Blues Deluxe album, that came out in 2003.
Blues Deluxe Vol 2 is a brand-new studio album, that starts off with ‘Twenty-Four Hour Blues’, a cover of the amazing Bobby “Blue” Bland song. The original is releases on one of Joe Bonamassa’s favorite albums of all time, “Dreamer”. Blues Deluxe Vol. 2 features eight cover versions of songs by artists, such as Fleetwood Mac, Guitar Slim, Albert King and more. The album is completed with two original tracks, Hope You Realize It (Goodbye Again) and Is It Safe To Go Home. It is a true successor to the original Blues Deluxe album.
Twenty years after Blues Deluxe, his first all-blues album, Joe Bonamassa delivers a sequel with 2023’s Blues Deluxe, Vol. 2. He may follow the same blueprint — it largely consists of covers, supplemented by two originals — but the circumstances and collaborators have changed. Here, he foregoes using longtime producer Kevin Shirley to work with Josh Smith, a blues guitarist from Bonamassa’s own generation who also contributes the album’s closer “Is It Safe to Go Home.” Smith helps give Blues Deluxe, Vol. 2 a loose, lived-in feeling that contrasts with the eager fire of the 2003 record. It’s a change that suits Bonamassa well. Not pushing so hard with either his vocals or his guitar, Bonamassa instead settles into a muscular, horn-punctuated groove that rolls right through numbers by Bobby “Blue” Bland, Guitar Slim, Ronnie Earle & the Broadcasters, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, and Albert King. Bonamassa solos plenty but the song is placed at the forefront throughout Blues Deluxe, Vol. 2 — it’s closer to an old LP from the ’60s than to the shredding blues-rockers who followed in the wake of Stevie Ray Vaughan, which is a roundabout way of saying that Bonamassa’s blues seem to be deepening as he grows older, which is not a bad thing at all.
– Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Tracklist:
1-1. Joe Bonamassa – Twenty-Four Hour Blues (04:32)
1-2. Joe Bonamassa – It’s Hard But It’s Fair (03:15)
1-3. Joe Bonamassa – Well, I Done Got Over It (02:54)
1-4. Joe Bonamassa – I Want To Shout About It (04:12)
1-5. Joe Bonamassa – Win-O (05:29)
1-6. Joe Bonamassa – Hope You Realize It (Goodbye Again) (03:58)
1-7. Joe Bonamassa – Lazy Poker Blues (03:17)
1-8. Joe Bonamassa – You Sure Drive A Hard Bargain (03:59)
1-9. Joe Bonamassa – The Truth Hurts (04:35)
1-10. Joe Bonamassa – Is It Safe To Go Home (06:22)
