Royal Tea

While I write this, the album is happily spinning around in my recently purchased Panasonic SC-DM502 resultant of (Still!) working from home (a review for which I will shortly undertake)Now I have followed JB for many years, in fact since 2006 when I came across Blues Deluxe which blew me away with it's sheer drive! Since which time I have pretty much purchased everything the man has recorded some good, some not so good, but none indifferent. I have banged on about the fact JB has put out so many live albums that it was beginning to be a little embarrassing, but with me always being the completist, I always got around to buying the albums (usually at Amazon knocked down prices) even though it meant that within my JB collection I had numerous versions of the same song and I have always railed against doing such!However, this is not a live one, but a studio recording following on from Redemption which I did like. So, Royal Tea emblazoned with Made In England....does it match up? Well, as it happens, it most certainly does! Joe has always come up with the goodies by and large and on this outing, his love of the British slant on the blues and blues rock is certainly to the fore. Although I have to say that the first two openers When One Door Opens and the title track Royal Tea) did catch me a little unawares with the use of the girl backing singers and strings , but once I had taken that on board, I was in the groove and able to follow on through to the end of a thoroughly enjoyable and, moreover listenable, album. Maybe not a lot of light and shade here in that only one slow burner appears in the form of Beyond The Silence, the rest is pretty much upbeat.JB's voice continues to improve on this album but one thing you do notice is that the usual incisive and muscular solos are less in evidence than on previous outings - possibly adopting a "less is more" approach, but what appears is still very much as identifiable as one Joe Bonamassa - I really cannot fault this collection even though, for me at least, there is no single standout track.And as per usual, the production is exemplary.I look forward with interest to see the direction that will now ensue (and hopefully without a dozen live albums in between :) )

I've read other reviews that have said Joe has gone to far by adding other instruments to his guitar/bass/drum/vocal basic band but this album shows his delight in the the British blues rock explosion of the 1960s/70s and other instrumentation or not this album reflects that time and that music And like it or not this album reflects what was happening with British rock/blues at that time That's probably why so many American artists got British musicians to go to the states, or them to come over here to Blighty to record, was it that we did rock better than the Americans could!! Bonamassa is in 2020/2021 reflecting that All right I'm probably biased because I lived right that time and loved the music produced then, and I still do (and the American musicians were better at other parts of the music explosion of that time, e.g. flower power music, jazz and jazz influenced music(just look at Country Joe, Miles Davies, Chicago etc, boy they were original and good)

I bought this because I love Bonamassa, but was a little disappointed with the content. I'll admit to liking Conversation with Alice and Royal Tea but the rest were a bit lacklustre.... Maybe they will grow on me...?

"Royal Tea" album from Joe Bonamassa is a good one, like most of his albums, and is worth a place in my collection.

As always another excellent album by Joe, fast delivery and well packed