Joe Bonamassa is Back in the Dust Bowl

Joe Bonamassa is back, baby!  We were so thoroughly disappointed in his last album — Black Country Communion — because that effort was so un-Joe-like in execution and expectation and style and tone, but today, Joe sets everything right again with the just-dropped release of: Dust Bowl.

Here’s the PR blurp about the album:

Joe Bonamassa 2011 Dustbowl Album – Coming soon Just awarded by Billboard Magazine as the #1 Blues Artist of 2010,blues-rock guitar hero and singer-songwriter Joe Bonamassa is set to release his twelfth solo album, DUST BOWL on March 22, 2011. The album was recorded in sessions at Black Rock Studios in Santorini, Greece, Ben’s Studio in Nashville, TN, The Cave in Malibu, CA and The Village in Los Angeles, CA. DUST BOWL combines the gritty, blues-based tones of Bonamassa’s first albums with the fluid, genre-defying sounds he’s mastered in the years since, plus a dose of Nashville in duets with legends John Hiatt and Vince Gill.

Here’s a very cool Japanese promo for Joe’s Dust Bowl so you can taste the dry sounds of his juicy greatness:

Dust Bowl has it all.  You have Joe’s ripping Blues guitar stinging you from every angle and his raspy vocals disappear along the wind.  His melodies arc and his rhythm swings.  You have classic country influence in “You Better Watch Yourself” and hardcore Blues in “Black Lung Heartache” and country pop in “Sweet Rowenta.”  The growling guitar on “No Love On the Street” is classic Bonamassa at his sustained best.

I love it that Joe includes the list of gear he used to create the album.  Now we don’t have to wonder if Joe is really a Gibson guy or not — he is! — and we can start the search for Ernie Ball 11-52 strings.

Here’s the iTunes Ping! proof-of-purchase from this morning, just so you know I put my money where my review is:

Joe Bonamassa is one of our greatest living guitar legends. I think it’s fantastic that Joe has gone back to his roots for Dust Bowl and become authentic in his music again. It looks like he’s dropped the heavy sunglasses, and the mortician’s suit, too, and he’s just being Regular Joe again, and that immediately makes his music more accessible and beloved — because we can finally see again the real man behind the SuperGenius magic.