“We are basically married, just without any of the fun stuff”: Joanne Shaw Taylor on her friendship with Joe Bonamassa
Over the years and through their shared love of the blues, Joe Bonamassa and Joanne Shaw Taylor have struck up quite the friendship.
And in a new interview with Classic Rock, the pair recall how it started at the Notodden Blues Festival in 2008.
“We ran into each other at the hotel check-in,” Bonamassa reveals. “And I offended you. Because you wanted to show me your really nice old Les Paul, and I just said: ‘I don’t like Les Pauls’ and walked off,” Taylor tells him.
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After the pair later struck up a friendship, Taylor recalls once having to drive from Maine to Detroit. “Joe would phone and keep me company,” she says. “I didn’t have any money. And you’d say: ‘Okay, I’ve booked you into a nice Marriott, get a good night’s sleep. Don’t pull into some dodgy shithole.’”
On why they clicked in the first place, Bonamassa reflects: “We share a dry, cutting sense of humour. Joanne loves it when I go off, ranting and raving.”
“And I poke the bear,” Taylor adds. “There’s also massive trust between us. That was a real benefit when Joe started producing me. We recorded Fade Away, which is about losing my mum, and he’s one of the few people – because she passed away a long time ago – who’s actually met her.”
“When I met Joanne, my life had just changed,” adds Bonamassa. “I’d played the Albert Hall for the first time. Next thing you know, there’s more people waiting for a meet and greet than were at the shows two years before. Things had got weird. I don’t believe I handled the pressure very well. And Joanne got me through a lot of that.”
When asked whether they are secretly a couple, Joanne Shaw Taylor replies: “We are basically married. Just without any of the fun stuff.
“We live next-door to each other in Nashville. After this interview is done I’m walking to his apartment, because I noticed there’s a dead bird on his patio!”
Joe Bonamassa recently performed three shows in Ireland in tribute to Rory Gallagher. In a reflective post on social media, he called the shows “the biggest honour and greatest challenge of my musical life”.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
