Back with a brand-new project, you have to ask yourself if Joe Bonamassa ever sleeps, let alone stops. Not content with playing on the album, the blues legend also produced it, bringing his star-stuffed live band (Anton Fig, Michael Rhodes, Reese Wynans, Lee Thornburg, Paulie Cerra, Jade MacRae and Juanita Tippins) and adding Jimmy Hall (Harmonica) and John Jorgenson to the ensemble. A record that pays tribute to Joe’s mentor, Danny Gatton, Easy To Buy, Hard To Sell offers up instrumental versions of favourites from the likes of Frank Sinatra, Tony Joe White, King Curtis and more, taking in a mix of genres from jazz to bluegrass along the way. It’s a good time record and, under Joe’s guidance, the band swing hard across the album’s short, sweet, thirty-minute run time.
Opening with the big band glory of Danny Gatton’s Fun House, you can picture the whole band decked out in their typically elegant threads, huge smiles on their faces as the audience dances, and such is the sense of spontaneity, you can almost feel the vibrancy of the room as the music swirls around you. Joe’s playing here is loose, driven by the vibe of the band, and the spontaneity of it all is electrifying. The twitchy Move (Hank Garland) is aptly titled, played like the soundtrack to some long-lost cartoon from the 50s, Anton Fig offering up a sweet drum solo as a counterpoint to the interplay between Joe and Reese. Having got things off to a flying start, Joe pays tribute to a different set of influences as he unleashes a storm of fuzzed up riffola on a storming cover of Link Wray’s Ace Of Spades. A fast-paced track with a surf-rock vibe, Ace Of Spades hurtles past in the blink of an eye and the album neatly lands on a delightfully tongue-in-cheek cover of Jimmy Bryant’s Ha So, complete with backing vocals and a slinky guitar lines. The first half of the album concludes with Hawaiian Eye, an unattributed TV theme from the late 50s / early 60s that obviously caught Joe’s attention somehow, and which is given new life here thanks to a sparkling performance from the man himself and indeed the whole band, who clearly enjoy a mid-track break that moves from hard rock into smooth jazz pastiche.
An absolute album highlight is Joe’s take on John Barry’s immortal On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The theme has already been subject of a big beat make over, courtesy of Propellerheads, and it is, without doubt, one of John Barry’s most powerful compositions. Giving it the big rock makeover, Joe adopts a gargantuan guitar tone as Anton Fig nails the piece with a rock-solid half-time beat, with power to spare. It is an exhilarating listen that makes you want to leap from your seat out of sheer excitement, and you can sense the electricity in the performance. While Tony Joe White’s Polk Salad Annie could never compete in terms of raw energy, it swings hard with sweet backing vocals and that wonderful brass section of Lee Thornburg and Paulie Cerra joined here by Jimmy Hall, front and centre, on the Harmonica. It’s a bold, brassy song that is filled with light and laughter and it can’t help but brighten the darkest of days. Next up, Joe and his band slow the pace with a dusky take on King Curtis’ Blue Nocturne. With the album’s second side having been played at a breathless pace, it provides a much-needed moment of calm before Frank Sinatra’s It Was A Very Good Year sees the album out. Played dead straight on an acoustic guitar, with only the lightest of string backings, it is a hauntingly beautiful piece of music that is poignant and evocative in equal measure, and it brings the curtain down gently on this very special album.
Joe’s career to date has been startlingly consistent in terms of quality. Part of the reason for that, however, is that Joe has refused to remain static. Although his solo career remains his priority, his digressions into funk (Rock Candy Funk Party), hard rock (Black Country Communion) and soul (Beth Hart) have helped to revitalise the material he puts out under his own name and where, for some artists, ennui might set in, Joe just keeps on keeping on, honing his skills and taking great delight in every outing. The SLeep EAZYs is a case in point – it’s a passion project and just one listen tells you the band enjoyed the hell out of playing these songs. Yet, such a relaxed attitude only comes with experience so, while the atmosphere is light and breezy, the playing remains exquisite throughout. Put simply, Easy To Buy, Hard To Sell is another triumph from a guitarist whose enthusiasm for his art is wholly infectious. 9.5
