Today, one of the world’s most popular guitarists and blues-rock stars Joe Bonamassa and co-host Matt Abramovitz (formerly of Sirius Satellite Radio’s blues channel) debut their brand new weekly radio show The Pickup, an entirely unique and highly entertaining show blending music history, carefully curated songs, an encyclopedic knowledge of guitar facts, and illuminating insights into the world of a musician. Whether it’s unusual knowledge of a vintage Les Paul played on an obscure record from the 70s, or a friendly debate on how to name your guitar, each episode weaves together witty banter, fun facts, and amazing stories from the road and the life of a working musician. The show will be streamed every Friday at www.thepickupradio.com and episodes will be available to stream anytime. Listen to the debut episode now.

Each week, listeners will brought behind the scenes with delicious tidbits on all things music and guitar, with stories and history, discussions of select artists and their best work; specific instruments, and the music those artists play on their instruments. Every episode will be different, and theme shows for major holidays will be peppered in with general topics and regular segments, like Matt’s favorite called “Name That Guitar.” Matt explains: “I’ll bring in three tracks and ask Joe to identify the guitars used on the recordings. Joe will rattle off not only the guitar used, but also the amps, the pedals, the recording engineer and the street address of the studio. It’s what separates the fan from the fanatic!”

After Bonamassa’s weekly radio shows were canceled, first on Sirius Satellite Radio (Daily Cup of Joe) during the merger with XM, and more recently on UK’s Planet Rock, J&R Adventures, the label Bonamassa founded with longtime manager Roy Weisman, looked to other radio networks for a replacement. With over half a million direct fans, they discovered the size of Bonamassa’s social and fan network exceeded the outreach terrestrial radio could provide for them and decided instead to do the show in-house and release it independently.