Texas blues electric guitar great Jim Suhler has rubbed shoulders and exchanged licks with a veritable who’s who of musicians, including Billy Gibbons, George Thorogood, AC/DC, and Buddy Guy.
As such, he’s accumulated a great many industry stories over the years, and in a new interview with Guitar World, Suhler recalls the time a sick Joe Bonamassa stopped by the studio to feature on his Jim Suhler and Monkey Beat album, Tijuana Bible.
“Joe played on one track called Deep Water Lullaby, which was a title I had dreamed. I woke up and literally wrote it down,” he tells Guitar World.
“The song is very Hendrix, and I was thinking this really calls for somebody with superhuman capabilities to play a solo beyond my abilities. I knew Joe; I called Joe. He was coming from Houston and had a night off, but he was sick. He came out to the studio, sick, did the solo, and killed it.”
Bonamassa did a couple of passes, one with a Les Paul and one with a Strat. The final take features his Strat solo, which you can listen to below.
Suhler continues: “I tried to pay him some money, but he wouldn’t accept it. I’ve got a lot of love for Joe. We go way back; he was still riding around in a van when I met him before he ascended the stratosphere.”
Suhler met an emerging Bonamassa back in 2001 in San Diego, a year after the release of his debut studio album, A New Day Yesterday, when he was opening for George Thorogood. The blues guitarist vividly remembers that the now-legendary guitar star was playing Cradle Rock by Rory Gallagher, and his interpretation immediately impressed Suhler.
“I was like: ‘Woah!’ First of all, Rory wasn’t that popular so that had my attention, and he was absolutely killing it.
“We became friends from then on. My band Monkey Beat would do shows with Joe whenever he came through Texas or Oklahoma. He came down to Dallas and played the guitar show with me a few times. He’s a good friend and a good man.”
Keep an eye on Guitar World for our full interview with Jim Suhler, in which he also discusses the first time he met Stevie Ray Vaughan.
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