Beth Hart

Beth Hart commands attention as a commanding vocalist and composer within today’s blues landscape. Her trajectory shifted after claiming victory on Star Search in 1993 and issuing pop-focused albums shortly afterward, when she joined forces with blues guitar hero Joe Bonamassa on the 2011 album Don't Explain, a partnership that revived her momentum. Moving between joint releases with Bonamassa and independent outings, Hart built esteem for her sharp, emotionally rich songcraft and her commanding delivery. She embraced creative chances by rotating supporting players and enlisting superstar producer Rob Cavallo for the raw, close-up 2019 album War in My Mind, which Cavallo also guided for her 2022 A Tribute to Led Zeppelin. She mined her own encounters with existence and romance to shape 2024’s You Still Got Me.

Hart displayed prodigious talent from an early age. Piano lessons began at four, leading her to the High School for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles, where she concentrated on voice and cello. Blues soon drew her in. During her late teens she worked the L.A. club circuit, yet her initial breakthrough came with the Female Vocalist win on Star Search in 1993. The victory supplied no immediate lift; instead she cultivated notice through club performances, frequently alongside guitarist Jimmy Khoury, bassist Tal Herzberg, and drummer Sergio Gonzalez. That unit became the Beth Hart Band, which secured a deal with Atlantic’s Lava imprint and issued its first album, Immortal, in 1996. Even after securing several slots on the 1996 Lollapalooza tour, Immortal failed to register commercially, prompting the Beth Hart Group to dissolve.

She remained with Atlantic for the solo debut Screamin' for My Supper in 1999. The single “L.A. Song (Out of This Town)” gained traction on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart, while Hart also drew notice for portraying Janis Joplin in the off-Broadway show Love, Janis.

Addiction and other personal struggles hampered progress through the early 2000s. After departing Atlantic she joined Koch and released Leave the Light On in 2003. The album found audiences in multiple international markets, most notably New Zealand and Europe. “Learning to Live” reached number one in Denmark, and Hart maintained her European following with the 2005 live set Live at the Paradiso in Amsterdam and the 2007 studio album 37 Days issued across the continent.

Having completed her major-label obligations with 37 Days, Hart moved to Provogue in 2010 and delivered My California that same year. Television placements over the ensuing period prompted a delayed U.S. release in 2012. In those same years she expanded her network of collaborators, appearing on Slash’s self-titled 2010 album and joining Jeff Beck at the Kennedy Center in 2006. The most productive alliance formed with Joe Bonamassa, the rising blues guitarist boasting a devoted audience. Their 2011 duet album Don't Explain became a blues success and markedly elevated her visibility.

That heightened profile propelled her 2012 album Bang Bang Boom Boom—likewise produced by Kevin Shirley—to her first solo entry on the Billboard Blues Album chart. A return to Bonamassa yielded Seesaw in 2013, which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Blues Album. The pair documented their partnership with the concert recording Live in Amsterdam in 2014, which ascended to the top of the Billboard Blues chart. Solo releases followed with Better Than Home in 2015 and Fire on the Floor in 2016, the latter reaching American stores in 2017.

Hart and Bonamassa issued the covers collection Black Coffee in 2018, another Blues chart leader. That year also saw two live packages, Front and Center: Live from New York and Live at the Royal Albert Hall, yet her subsequent centerpiece arrived with War in My Mind, a reflective, ballad-centered album produced by Rob Cavallo and released in September 2019.

While tracking War in My Mind, Hart spontaneously performed Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” during a pause. Impressed, Cavallo proposed a complete Zeppelin tribute, which materialized as the 2022 album A Tribute to Led Zeppelin, again under Cavallo’s guidance. In 2024 Hart supplied guest vocals on blues guitar hero Walter Trout’s Broken and on Guns n’ Roses icon Slash’s Orgy of the Damned. Slash reciprocated by adding guitar to Hart’s 2024 album You Still Got Me. Drawing from her own emotional highs and lows, You Still Got Me further featured Eric Gales, another blues artist admired by Joe Bonamassa.