Although we’d of course heard of him by then, it wasn’t until quite a few years into blues-rocker Joe Bonamassa‘s career that he really caught our ear for the first time, when, in June 2010, we were fortunate enough to see him accompany Robert Randolph and his Family Band on a few songs during Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival, starting with “Further On Up the Road” before the group welcomed Italian guitarist Pino Daniele to the mix for a rousing take on Freddie King’s “Going Down”. Since then, we’ve covered much of what Joe has done, through varying degrees of bluesiness (including a revisiting of that latter tune as well as the instrumental “Hide Away” with fellow guitarists Derek Trucks and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill during King’s 2012 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame), but you can imagine our delight when we read that Joe would be following up his Muddy Wolf tribute at Red Rocks with a two-week tour and subsequent recording devoted entirely to the music of the “three Kings of the blues”: Albert King, Freddie King, and B.B. King.
We didn’t get to see any of the 2015 Three Kings tour shows live, but thankfully, Bonamassa and producer Kevin Shirley were shrewd enough to capture the last of these shows in full, with the end result being the exquisite double CD, double DVD/Blu-Ray, or 4-LP Live at the Greek Theatre (J&R Adventures).
