YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The Joe Bonamassa-Gov’t Mule concert Sunday promises to be the most savory rock show of the year at Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre.
Blues legend Bonamassa has played Youngstown multiple times – most recently at Covelli Centre in 2024 – and his signature guitar solos remain sharp and soulful. He released his 17th solo studio album, “Breakthrough,” last year.
Gov’t Mule will be making its first trip to the city, and it seems overdue. Led by Warren Haynes, the Southern-flavored jam-centric act has delivered outstanding studio and live albums for three decades.
Haynes’ résumé also includes two stints as lead guitarist and singer with the Allman Brothers Band, and he also performed extensively with Grateful Dead offshoots The Dead and Phil Lesh and Friends.
Sunday’s concert at The Amp will start at 7 p.m. For tickets, click HERE.
Haynes has been exceptionally active in recent years.
Gov’t Mule’s latest studio album, the acclaimed “Peace … Like a River,” was released in 2023. It’s the band’s 12th studio release.
“Time of the Signs,” a bluesy five-song EP that was initially included with the “Peace” album, got its own release in 2024.
Haynes also released his fourth solo album, “Million Dollar Whisper,” in 2024 and followed it with “The Whisper Sessions,” a stripped-down companion album, in 2025.
He issued a remixed and remastered version of his 1993 debut solo studio album, “Tales of the Ordinary Madness,” in January.
And to put an exclamation point on this flurry of activity, Haynes will release his long-awaited “Dreams & Songs” live symphonic album Sept. 18. The songs were recorded with a full orchestra during a 2019 concert in his hometown of Asheville, N.C. The first single, “Raven Black Night,” exemplifies how Haynes’ band and the orchestra seamlessly combined their sounds.
“Peace … Like a River” opens with “Same as It Ever Was,” an instant classic that alternates between sentimental segments and Allmans-like electric riffs.
The album was preceded by a whirlwind of songwriting by Haynes that came before and during the Covid pandemic.
“I had a long time to write, and I’d written more than I had written in decades,” Haynes said in a video documentary he made about the making of the release.
Danny Louis, who plays multiple instruments in Gov’t Mule and co-writes with Haynes, said putting this group of songs together was different from the usual process.
“Warren and I have a history of writing together often before a record,” he said. “We’d get together and show each other some stuff, and next thing you know we’d have a song. In this situation, because of the travel restriction, we didn’t have that opportunity to do that. The songs generated themselves out of cool stuff that came out of when we were jamming together. Warren had bucketloads of material that he had been writing.”
Haynes agreed that all of the songs grew in the studio, often in unpredictable ways.
“We didn’t have time to play them at sound check like we normally would,” he said. “We went into the studio with all this material that we had never played or arranged, so it was all done in a time capsule. It was interesting to see the songs change because of different suggestions that people made.”
The record sounds like Gov’t Mule, Haynes said, but not like anything the band had done in the past.
“It sounds like where we are as a band right now, which in a lot of ways is the healthiest we’ve ever been,” he said.
Haynes brought in several guest artists for the album, handpicking them for specific songs that match their style.
“They all fit the songs so well that it doesn’t feel like anything is being forced into the music,” Haynes said in the documentary. “It was like, who would be great for this one? Yeah, that person is wonderful.”
Ivan Neville and Ruthie Foster, who have worked with Haynes in the past, sing on “Dreaming Out Loud.”
On “The River Only Flows One Way,” Haynes tapped his old friend Billie Bob Thornton. “I had thought about him singing verses and called him up to see if he was interested,” he recalled. “He did it at his studio, and it was like, yeah, that’s exactly what this song needed.”
The most interesting choice might be Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, who lends his own personal touch to “Shake Our Way Out.” The song is a humorous take on a fictitious character picking up someone in a bar during the Covid pandemic.
“Once I wrote it, there was all this ZZ Top in the music, so I said let me see if Billy Gibbons wants to get involved,” Haynes said. “I thought about him singing that hook and the chorus. He added the charm and humor to the song even more than it already had.”
Celisse lends her powerful voice to “Just Across the River,” adding the soulful female voice that Haynes wanted as a counter to his own.
“I had recently discovered Celise, and she knocked me out,” he said. “She has this untamed spirit that comes out with so much fire and passion and emotion.”
Pictured at top: Gov’t Mule, shown in a concert earlier this year, will come to Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre on Sunday.