Music

Hear the amazing blues-rock guitar of Eric Gales in Medford

Joe Bonamassa describes Gales as “One of the best if not the best guitarist in the world today.”

Eric Gales Courtesy Photo

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In 2013, guitarist Joe Bonamassa described Eric Gales to his tens of thousands of Twitter followers as “One of the best if not the best guitarist in the world today.”

Gales was a teenager when he recorded two albums with The Eric Gales Band in the early 1990s. He has since recorded nine more studio albums under his own name, most recently 2019’s “The Bookends.”

The Memphis native has also appeared on albums that have paid tribute to Chuck Berry, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Robert Johnson, Nina Simone, The Allman Brothers Band, and Carlos Santana. Furthermore, he has been a guest on recordings by Bootsy Collins, Robert Randolph, Gary Hoey, Joe Louis Walker, and Billy Cox and Buddy Miles, who comprised the rhythm section of Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys.

Gales’s connection to Jimi Hendrix runs deep. Like Hendrix, Gales plays a right-handed guitar with his left hand. Unlike him, Gales is actually right-handed, but he learned the instrument as a child from his southpaw older brother, Eugene (who was a member of The Eric Gales Band). But as the 47-year-old said in a recent interview with Blues Blast Magazine, “Having my name and his name in the same sentence is the highest compliment in the world. But at the same time, I’m not trying to be the next Jimi Hendrix, I’m trying to be the first Eric Gales.”

His Oct. 19 appearance at The Porch Southern Fare and Juke Joint will likely preview material from the forthcoming “I Want My Crown,” which is slated for release in January 2022.