Big Feat: Joe Bonamassa Fires Up Lowell George’s Prized Guitar Amp For 1st Time In 45 Years
Lowell George last played through his Dumble Overdrive Special Reverb at the Lisner Auditorium in Washington D.C. on June 28, 1979.
Joe Bonamassa gave a taste of his latest acquisition, Little Feat guitarist Lowell George’s 1976 Dumble Overdrive Special Reverb. Bonamassa threw up a video on Instagram of the first sounds from the amp since George last played it 45 years ago and also demoed the rig at the renowned Norman’s Rare Guitars in the Los Angeles area.
Lowell George last played through his Dumble Overdrive Special Reverb at the Lisner Auditorium in Washington, D.C. on June 28, 1979. He died tragically the next day. “[T]he best amp I’ve ever played through,” George told Guitar Player in 1977 on the creation by renowned amp builder Howard Alexander Dumble.
Watch Bonamassa fire up the amp for the first time and play around with Feat classic “Dixie Chicken” below:
Joe then brought the amp sans the original cabinet down to his “Uncle” Norman’s Rare Guitars in Tarzana, California not far from where Little Feat formed in 1969. Bonamassa paired the amp with a sunburst 1950s maple neck Fender Stratocaster, as Guitar World noted. Joe and Norm also talked some shop
“Joe brought in something that is a royal piece of history that he just got,” Norm said. “This is something that he’s been after for I don’t know how many years.”
“15, 15 years,” Bonamassa quickly replied. “You don’t get many opportunities to own your guitar hero’s amp, let alone the one and only,” he added.
“This amp is a Strat amp, I determined that off the bat,” Joe continued. “The thing about Dumble stuff. [Is that] he gets headroom and frequency where many other amp builders don’t. They’re polarizing amps, some people don’t get it, but if you cut it with a Fender it really fills a lot of the frequency gaps. It’s about the feeling that you get under the strings, how it twists and turns and articulates and blooms, which you’ll never get on video.”
Bonamassa purchased the Dumble from George’s son. He also noted he plans to take it out on the road with him. “It needs to be played,” he said. Check out the demo video below:
I love Joe Bonamassa for who he is.