“I have the coronavirus,” Joe Bonamassa announces as he shakes hands and sits down barely three feet away. But this is early January; ‘Covid-19’ sounds like the name of a bad prog band, and that whole ‘thing’ seems far, far away, and will probably blow over. We’re oblivious to even the concept of ‘social distancing’, and nobody could anticipate the utter havoc that the C-word is about to wreak across the world.
We’re in the upstairs observation room at Abbey Road’s cavernous, breathtaking Studio One. The largest purpose-built recording room in the world, it easily accommodates the 100-strong orchestras used to soundtrack Hollywood blockbusters. It smells of aged wood, sweet dust and history. It really does. Its high walls are baffled by square and oblong soundproofing panels, seemingly placed at random but clearly not. When you speak in the ‘live’ room your voice sounds sharply present and then evaporates, spirited up and out into the space.