MODENA, PIAZZA ROMA
Sundau, July 18

Joe Bonamassa was twelve when he opened for B.B. King. The King of the Blues became his friend and mentor, and Bonamassa never forgot his one wish: “Do what you can to keep the blues alive.” For King’s centenary he answered it with B.B. King’s Blues Summit 100, a 32-song tribute with guests ranging from Eric Clapton and Buddy Guy to Slash and Gary Clark Jr. Released in February 2026, it became his 30th No. 1 on the Billboard Blues Albums chart. A few months later The Spirit of Rory: Live From Cork, his homage to Irish guitar hero Rory Gallagher, made it 31, more than any other artist in the chart’s history. Over more than 50 albums the guitarist and singer from upstate New York has moved between solo records such as Breakthrough (2025), soul and blues albums with Beth Hart and hard rock with the supergroup Black Country Communion, earning five Grammy nominations along the way. His Keeping The Blues Alive Foundation supports music education in schools. 

One evening Beth Hart was sitting on the couch in tears, convinced she had nothing left to give. Her husband Scott held her and told her that she still had him. She went downstairs to the piano and turned his words into the title track of her eleventh studio album, You Still Got Me (2024). “If I’ve still got him, I’ve still got everything,” she says. Recorded in Nashville with producer Kevin Shirley and featuring Slash and Eric Gales, it was her first album of new songs in five years. The singer from Los Angeles has been pouring everything she has into her songs since the 1990s. The turning point came in 2012 at the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington: alongside Jeff Beck she sang I’d Rather Go Blind in tribute to Buddy Guy, and President Obama led the standing ovation. Her albums with guitarist Joe Bonamassa brought a Grammy nomination for Seesaw, and she has topped the Billboard Blues Albums chart six times. A Tribute to Led Zeppelin (2022) reached the Top 5 in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands.