Joanne Shaw Taylor and Joe Bonamassa among British Blues Awards winners

The winners of the 2011 British Blues Awards were announced at the Newark Blues Festival on Sunday, and a couple of Ear of Newt faves took top honours.

Joanne Shaw Taylor--who played the Yale Hotel a couple of months ago--took the Female Vocal prize, as well as the inaugural Kevin Thorpe Songwriting Award for "Same As It Never Was", a track off her 2010 album Diamonds in the Dirt. Apparently the 26-year-old picker's self-described "Telecaster fetish" isn't her only ace in the hole.

Another player we were happy to see among the list of BBA winners was Joe Bonamassa. The primo American solo artist and Black Country Communion member beat out hotshot Strat-slingers Walter Trout and former Bluesbreaker Buddy Whittington to score the Overseas Artist prize. (Local guitar freaks who missed Bonamassa when he played the Commodore back in 2008 can check him out at the Orpheum on December 17.)

The winner of the British Blues Award in the Guitar category was a guy named Matt Schofield, who we've never even heard of. But we'll be googling him shortly, since he must be shit-hot. How else could he have beaten out the godlike Robin Trower, who wound up in second place?

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