Joanna Connor Part 2 ‘Stepping Into The Fire’

By Joanna Connor
Modern blues/rock guitarist, singer, songwriter

For Part 1 ‘Stepping Into The Fire’ by Joanna Connor see Here

Go time. Show time. Dig deep inside time. I am a person that feels most at ease alone. Seems strange huh? A performer. A recording artist whose refuge is literally being somewhere in solitude as often as possible. And there I was after the day at Joe Bonamassa’s place. And the dinner. In my hotel room, absolute silence, trying my best to conjure up the necessary magic to stand in the shoes of the blues mothers and fathers before me, led there by a virtuoso guitarist and astute businessman, to record a personal testament.

I dealt with practicality first, spending a few hours writing out the lyrics to the songs we would be recording that Tuesday morning at 10am sharp. Sleep came and I left my guitar in its case, hoping that the lightning would be channeled through my lovely blue Les Paul the next day. I started that day with a hotel breakfast, on an overcast February morning, a lot warmer than Chicago.

In the car on the way to a famed Nashville studio, I was in a familiar state of emotional neutrality and a fairly quiet thought pattern, the mental space I go into before bigger gigs. And this was one of the biggest ever in my life as a musician. Joe and Josh had assembled a stellar lineup of musicians.

Joe started the session by announcing that we would cut the tunes no more than twice, and if the spark and grease weren’t there, we would move on. He wanted a live and fresh feel, a spontaneous combustion. I was situated between famed keyboardist Reese Wynans and guitarist Josh Smith. Directly across from me was the drummer (the instrument that is paramount to my creative process as I lock in on rhythmic patterns. Groove must be in everything I play.)

We breezed through the songs. It’s all kind of a blur to me now, but it was pure joy. At one point Reese’s playing on the organ brought me to tears as he was the keyboardist for Stevie Ray Vaughan. The one and only show of SRV’s that I attended turned out to be his last. I had backstage passes courtesy of a mutual producer, Jim Gaines. My son and his father were with me. They went backstage after Stevie’s powerful and emotive set. I bowed out, saying that I knew someday we would be on a show together and those would be the circumstances of how I wanted us to meet. His death shook me for years to come.

There I was playing next to Stevie’s keyboard player, a titan, a living legend. Reese said to me, “Oh girl, why are you crying, I’m not that good!” Tears of gratitude and sadness came. I didn’t want to bring up the details of those tears.

We recorded all of the tracks in two days. Session Nashville Horns came in the next day and that night I stayed to lay vocals. I was in the control room with Joe, Josh and the engineers. JJ Blair, head engineer (a man with a lengthy list of incredible credentials) had told me he grew up near the Kingston Mines in Chicago, where my first band that I led played every Tuesday night and that he would sneak out of his house to see us ( he was still in high school) and that he loved my band. He remembered much of our repertoire and said we were very influential on his musical development. Kismet.

Herbal tea was consumed as I gathered myself to track vocals, the most intimidating task for me on any recording. Joe pushed me hard. He wanted me to match the intensity of my guitar playing with my voice. He sang me passages that I had difficulty with. I was pushing my voice to its absolute limits, while trying to remain soulful. I was greeted with enthusiasm and encouragement by all there. Joe’s sarcasm was a delight and kept the mood lighter. He apologized profusely for being so hard on me, saying he was a “benevolent dictator.” I said to him that I had come up through the Chicago blues school, I could take it!

I recorded all of the vocal tracks in two nights. Joe lavished praise on me. He said, “We delivered a real Chicago blues record” and asked me to name some of the hallowed south side blues meccas I had played in when I first came to Chicago. The original Theresa’s Lounge address was chosen as the title to our record. A tentative release in May of 2020 was planned. As we all can woefully recall, it was the year that the plague as I called it, brought the world to its knees.

It was decided in February of 2021, (all of us staring down an uncertain future for the music business and our own respective careers ) that a year has passed and it was time to unleash 4801 South Indiana Avenue.
I treasure that time making the record. I learned so much from Joe and I learned how to reach deep inside myself, unabashedly allowing memories and passions to come out. I hope the listeners still feel as positively about that album as all of us there making that recording did.

Part 1 ‘Stepping Into The Fire’ see here

For more information on Joanna Connor see her website Here