"Anyone reading this who hasn't experienced Joe live really must try and catch a gig... Joe is the real deal, - someone who actually CAN do the business on a stage - and you can trust me on that one! Others may have had amps with volume knobs going to 11, but Joe will show you that 12 is certainly attainable - whilst still being able to play exquisitely at a level where you could hear a pin drop. I am sick of artistes who can't do it and don't mean it faking it up, - which is why I am more than happy to fly the flag now for someone who can cut it live in the classic fashion.....Go see him!"
Gwyn Mathias, Sound Engineer
Blues Joe X was born in 1965 in the industrial suburbs of Naples (Italy). He met The Blues for the first time when he was just 11.
John Lee Hooker's warm and sensual sound captivated and lead him towards what would become the meaning of his life: The Guitar.
In 1984, he attends clinics at Umbria Jazz and plays with Curtis Fuller, George Adams and Dannie Richmond. The following year, he’s chosen for playing in the Umbria Jazz Clinics Big Band, opening concerts for Art Blakey and Jazz Messengers and Stevie Ray Vaughan. He also wins a scholarship in the USA at the Berklee College Of Music (Boston).
Thanks to teachers like Kevin Eubanks, Jim Kelly, Al De Fino, Larry Monroe and Orville Wright, Joe X develops a fine instrumental technique and more importantly knowledge of the theory. Above all, he realizes that music is the expression of the mind.
Back in Italy in 1988 and 2 years later, the Hell's Cobra Blues Band, his own band, is ready to tour...
In 1997, after a long tour throughout Italy, he produces his first album Living On The Road that contains re-arranged and original tracks that show the various collaborations that Joe X has enjoyed in Italy and during his multiple trips to the States. World class musicians have wanted him to play with them, which them: Buddy Miles, Otis Rush, Junior Wells, Michael Coleman (Muddy Water's guitarist), Sugar Blue (harmonica player in Rolling Stones' "Miss you"), Shirley King (B. B. King's daughter), Sammy Fender and Sharon Clarke (Albert King and Tina Turner's choir member). He also opens concerts for Canned Heat, Charlie Musselwhite and Tommy Castro.
Year 2000: the second album In The Name Of Love contains only original tracks with the exception of a tribute dedicated to one of his greatest idols ... Jimi Hendrix.
Joe X has recently moved to London (UK) where he is getting ready for new concerts and gigs throughout the UK and all over the world.
Stay Free and Tuned!!!
How I made my profile:
I used Dave & Jay's amazing myspace editor .
Live at the Marquee Club, London, 2008
Live in Rome, 2001
Live at the 55, London, 2007