During an interview with Guitar World, the blues guitarist Larry McCray recently revealed how Joe Bonamassa reignited his career, and it was a great experience to work with him.
Joe Bonamassa has been a prominent figure in the music scene since he initially made many openings for B.B. King while he was only 12. He has released 15 albums, many of which reached number one on the Billboard Blues chart. The guitarist, who collaborated with many significant rockers and blues artists, gained three Grammy nominations.
After watching Beth Hart in several television shows, Bonamassa wanted to make a collaboration with her. The pair released the cover album ‘Don’t Explain’ in 2011. While he has been a member of Rock Candy Funk Party since 2009, he also has appeared with the hard rock supergroup Black Country Communion. During his career, the musician worked with numerous artists and released various collaborative works.
Recently, blues guitarist Larry McCray talked about their collaboration with Bonamassa called ‘Arkansas.’ As McCray revealed, his friends requested him to reach Bonnamassa to make a collaboration. After he sent a text to him to make this offer, the guitarist accepted it.
McCray thought Bonamassa changed his mind because the guitarist did not turn for a while. However, one day Bonamassa called McCray and said he would go to his house to work on their piece. The blues guitarist stated that working with Bonamassa was an unbelievable process.
Larry McCray explained in his words:
“I have some friends that used to tell me that Joe Bonamassa would play my music on his radio program. So, of course, I didn’t believe it. And those same friends had been telling me, ‘Why don’t you reach out to Joe?’ The same friends that told me to reach out put me in touch with musician Larry Mitchell, who had direct contact with Joe.
I got the contact and sent Joe a text saying, ‘Joe, this is bluesman Larry McCray, just reaching out to see if there are any opportunities we might be able to do something together?‘ I know he had just done a record with Joanna Connor the year before, so I knew there was a possibility that it might be something. So when I texted him, he got back to me within the first hour. I got a text back, and he said, ‘We’d love to do a record.'”
McCray continued:
“It was probably nine or ten months before I heard back again, so I thought maybe he’d thought about it and didn’t want to do it. And then he called me and said, ‘Hey, where do you live?’ And I said, ‘I’m based in Michigan,’ and he said, ‘We’ll be there tomorrow,’ at my place.
I was like, ‘Oh my God, they’re coming to the house.‘ I still didn’t believe they would come until they showed up. But the next day they came to my house, and we sat down and started playing music. I started showing them tunes, and it just took off from there.”
You can listen to the song below.
