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  • 3 months ago
When recording his star-studded new tribute album, B.B. King's Blues Summit 100, Joe Bonamassa had trouble finding someone, anyone, willing to cover The King of the Blues' signature tune, The Thrill Is Gone. It's so iconic, Bonamassa tells us, but it's also a shining example of King's improvisational genius
Transcript
00:00When I listen to The Thrill Is Gone, it's very, some of the riffs that he played are
00:08iconic, but they sound like he just improvised them, you know?
00:13Like, how are we getting into this?
00:14Okay.
00:36I'm paraphrasing, but without that head, it's almost like jazz.
00:41It's almost like the melody, it's like a second melody of the song.
00:45And it's so iconic that those have to be there for it to be The Thrill Is Gone.
00:53And it's really, really important.
00:55And, you know, any time it's covered, every guitar player will start it like.
01:06And, you know, you can just see Bebe in the studio, just, okay, this is how I play blues,
01:11you know?
01:11And you start listening to the great, you know, masters of this craft, the Bebe's and the Buddy
01:18Guys, who's also on the album.
01:20And you realize that these phrases just flow out of them naturally.
01:27There's no real thought ahead of time.
01:30I doubt he sat there and worked out, you know.
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