Joe Bonamassa is on a creative burst and is playing guitar like a speeding, out of control, freight train. Music is pouring out of his soul. He has a rock band called Black Country Communion with Glenn Hughes and he continues his string of # 1 charting blues albums with the release of Dust Bowl, his most mature and adventurous album to date.

Joe, a guitar prodigy as a child, has found his inner bluesman and the result is an album that is destined to be remembered as one of the greats of the genre. Beginning with “Slow Train,” a tune that warms the listener up to what it coming next, Joe is at one with the universe and his fingers effortlessly blast out solo after solo. John Hiatt and Vince Gill guest on Hiatt’s “Tennessee Plates,” a country-ish tune that allows Joe to break out of the traditional blues box.

“Black Lung Heartache,” “The Last Matador of Bayonne” and “The Whale That Swallowed Jonah” are living proof that true blues is an art form and, as long as there are masters like Bonamassa alive, the genre will remain alive and thriving. Glenn Hughes drops by for an amazing rendition of the Paul Rodgers’ penned “Heartbreaker,” another in a long line of high points for Dust Bowl, as is the anthem “The Prisoner.”

There are albums that simply must be experienced, as a whole collection of music, and Dust Bowl is one of them. This is more than music, it is musical perfection, or as close to perfection as a mortal can achieve. All I can really say is, “Wow!”