Contemporary blues rock owes much to the British musicians of the 1960s who injected rootsy American blues with rock 'n' roll energy and heavy doses of electricity. Bands like Cream, Fleetwood Mac, and the Jeff Beck Band formed their own important heritage; their heavy sounds returned to our shores and have been a crucial influence ever since. It's a pleasure, then, to find a young guitarist and singer like Joe Bonamassa paying explicit homage to his U.K. blues rock bretheren. On his debut recording as a solo artist, this hotshot guitar picker and gritty vocalist -- formerly with Bloodline -- puts a modern spin on still-vital material by such iconic British artists as Rory Gallagher ("Cradle Rock"), Free ("Walk in My Shadows"), and even Jethro Tull ("A New Day Yesterday"). There's also plenty of good old American blues rocking to be found here , à la Johnny Winter, Mountain, and the Allman Brothers. Bonamassa pulls off the vintage material with aplomb and loads of spirit but also devotes energy and intensity to his idiomatic originals. It doesn't hurt to have veteran producer Tom Dowd behind the boards; decades after his vintage work with Derek and the Dominos and the Allman Brothers, Dowd can still extract the maximum juice from a steaming blues rock act. Bonamassa's instrumental and vocal skills are in full flight here, but he knows where his roots can be found -- blues rock heroes Leslie West, Rick Derringer, and Gregg Allman all make special guest appearances alongside the talented upstart.
![Title: Black Butterfly [Reissue]](https://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0846070040924_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg)
