Royal Tea


Royal Tea is the fourteenth solo studio album by American blues rock musician Joe Bonamassa. It was released on October 23, 2020, via J&R Adventures. It was recorded in January 2020 at Abbey Road Studios in London and produced by Kevin Shirley.
At the 64th Annual Grammy Awards held in 2022, the album has been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album, but lost to Christone "Kingfish" Ingram's 662.
The album was followed by a twelve-track live release, Now Serving: Royal Tea Live from the Ryman, which includes all songs from Royal Tea except "Savannah".

Critical reception

Royal Tea was met with generally favorable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 75, based on four reviews.
AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the album, stating: "Bonamassa has plenty of opportunity to show his facility with synthesizing different classic guitarists -- there's a bit of Rory Gallagher and Peter Green to offset his Claptonisms -- but the best moment on Royal Tea is "A Conversation with Alice", a chiming bit of soul-pop where he channels the best moments of Steve Marriott". Hal Horowitz of American Songwriter wrote: "nothing quite tops those two selections but there is enough strong Bonamassa playing and diverse material, to make this album a highlight of his bulging, and ever expanding, catalog". Hugh Fielder of Classic Rock determined: "the best thing about Royal Tea is that every track could easily drop into Bonamassa's live show – which is more than you can say for Redemption. Back on track in every sense".

Accolades

Track listing

Personnel