Joe Bonamassa holds the record for the most number one albums in blues history, around 30 by 2026, and he opened for B.B. King at age 12. Yet he built that empire while aggressively shunning mainstream trends, never chasing a radio hit and operating outside the conventional label system. This episode traces his path from a 1977 birth in New Hartford, New York and a childhood in Utica surrounded by his family's guitar shop, to picking up a 1972 Fender Stratocaster he named Rosie at age four, mentorship from virtuoso Danny Gatton at 11, weekend gigs in Scranton and Buffalo with Smokin' Joe Bonamassa, and roughly 20 opening slots for B.B. King in 1989.

We explore why a kid sharing stages with American blues purists was actually obsessed with British and Irish interpreters like Eric Clapton, Rory Gallagher and Peter Green, his stint in Bloodlin ...