On Money & Power, Ally Venable wields the power of wisdom and emotional connection. It’s an album about empowerment and comeuppance, but there’s plenty of playtime with guest stars Shemekia Copeland and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram. An audio bluesfest, it’s songwriting brings substance carried by guitarists swinging for the fences. What does the albums title represent?What

Social D Guitarist Does ’70s Cali Rock
Best known as the Les Paul Junior-slinging guitarist stage left of Mike Ness in Social Distortion, Jonny “Two Bags” Wickersham speaks with a laid-back SoCal drawl and peppers his conversation…
Texas Guitar Makes a Comeback
Chris Duarte photo courtesy Carol Howell/Loophole Entertainment. Blue Velocity, the latest record from the Chris Duarte Group, is a rarity in today’s music world – a knock-down, drag-out, “crank ‘er…

Sun Shine
Steve Lukather has been a busy professional guitarist for 45 of his 63 years, as a founding member of Toto, revered session musician who played on countless hits, and solo…
When Hubert Sumlin sideman Sean Chambers played a gig with Savoy Brown bassist Pat DeSalvo and drummer Garnet Grimm, the result was blues-rock ecstasy. Live From Daryl’s House Club is the next best thing to being there. Fans of incendiary slide playing and Rory Gallagher, look no further. How did you meet Pat and Garnet?I
On Lari Basilio’s latest record, Redemption, art and life collide to make beautiful music. Effortless instrumental guitar techniques merge with rib-sticking melodies to captivate and astonish. Bassist Leland Sklar and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta are back to add rhythmic fire, but Basilio’s muse is life’s challenges and, of course, super cool gear. You became a mother.
A songwriting blues-rocker in the purist sense, Dudley Taft is succeeding in an era when nothing comes easy for his ilk. His new album, The Speed of Life, required a departure from the norm; while his previous three were recorded at his own studio in Cincinnati, this one used down time during a European tour

Rock-and-Roll Guitar Pioneer
In the 1950s, “rock” music was a melange of blues, country, and hillbilly that also snared elements from boogie-woogie, gospel, Western swing, doo-wop, and prototype R&B. Called “rockabilly,” its emissaries…

Different Flavors, Different Way
Guitarist Mick Mars’ long-discussed solo album is finally done. The Other Side of Mars is crushing modern metal with gothic touches, violins and violas, prog-like soundscapes, and more. If you’re…

Sunburst Finnish
There’s a vibrant instro-guitar scene in Finland and among its chief architects is Jussi Jaakonaho. Well known as a producer and engineer, his first solo album, Ghost Riot, is a…

From Bond to the Beatles
The music world lost session legend Vic Flick on November 17, at age 87. While not a household name, Flick’s soundtrack riff in James Bond movies became one of the…

Beyond Southern Musical Borders
Comparisons between Blackberry Smoke and earlier Southern-rock bands may be inevitable, but the Atlanta-based quintet takes such observations in stride. “That’s way better than being compared to the Bay City…

Dishing Out More Twisted Blues
Oz Noy is talented enough to pay the bills not only as a first-call New York session cat, but also as a prolific creative force in contemporary fusion. His current…
Acclaimed as bassist for The Flower Kings, Jonas Reingold is a master four-stringer. He’s recorded with many artists, including Jon Anderson (of Yes), and has become an integral part of Steve Hackett’s band, re-creating the complex bottom of early Genesis. Twenty years ago, Reingold started the prog group Karmakanic (repeat it slowly a few times),
Tommy Emmanuel is a real guitarist in its truest sense. On Live At The Sydney Opera House, he stands onstage with only an acoustic guitar, and mesmerizes a packed house. His virtuosity employs country, Celtic, and folk fingerpicking styles that lift the spirit. The set is loaded with fan favorites, but a song suggestion from
After landing on American shores in 2002 to study bluegrass, then shifting into a career as a country singer/songwriter/picker, Jedd Hughes has spent 20 years on an alternate – but rewarding – path as A-list session player and touring sideman. While being busy tempered his flow of original music, in 2014, he returned to songwriting.
As a teenager who just wanted to play music, Norm Harris lived with the reality that he and his band weren’t going to be millionaires anytime soon. So he did what musicians do – side-hustled. But when most were manning the counter at a music shop or serving tables, Harris was up at the crack
If you’re making a list of beloved bands with a long string of hook-heavy hits, the Doobie Brothers will surely be on it. Their new album, Walk This Road, features the creative core of vocalist/guitarist Patrick Simmons, vocalist/guitarist Tom Johnston, multi-instrumentalist John McFee, and vocalist/keyboardist Michael McDonald. The news of Walk This Road generated significant
Season 03 Episode 10 In Episode 3.10 of “Buy That Guitar,” host Ram Tuli is joined by Robb Lawrence and Kim Shaheen. Robb’s experience in the vintage market spans from the golden age of electric-guitar innovation to the modern world. Beyond simply studying the history, he lived it, documented it, and played alongside giants who

Tasty licks On A Vintage Kay An alumnus of country-rock’s Lone Justice and punk-rockers X, Tony Gilkyson plugged his vintage Kay Sizzler into a ’64 Fender Princeton Reverb for a…

The Sacred Steel, Family, and SRV
Living testament to the versatility of the pedal-steel guitar and a rarity in pop music, Robert Randolph adroitly addresses the challenge of acting as front man of the Family Band…

Midwest Expressive
Befitting a guitarist from America’s heartland, Charlie Ballantine’s mixes jazz, folk-rock, surf/instro, blues, pop, and country into a simmering pot of guitar sound and style. His instrumental work is beautiful…

Bass Convergence
Most music fans who learn that the eclectic trio 3Below is all bass players will react with, “You gotta be kiddin’!” However, musicians who appreciate the unusual will stay for…

Fifty Years and Counting
As a young musician, Ralph Towner wrote “Icarus,” a revolutionary jazz piece that became a crossover hit for the Paul Winter Consort. Later, the classically trained guitarist (also a fine…

Royal Handyman, Jazz Legend
Long before becoming Handyman Negri on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” he had already been a teen guitar prodigy, first-generation bopper, and a peer of the giants of jazz guitar. Though New…

Fully Engaged
I did a lot of disappearing acts in my career. And when I disappear, I disappear,” Aldo Nova says with a chuckle. “You don’t hear anything about me.” The Canadian…
Back to Hands-On at Hamer
Jol Dantzig with a Hamer Monaco III. Photos courtesy Jol Dantzig. When the Hamer Standard first appeared in an unassuming black-and-white ad in a guitar magazine in the mid 1970s,…

Stripped Down BLS for Unblackened
When Zakk Wylde was asked to record a new DVD/CD package, he decided to give his Black Label Society fans something different – Unblackened, a live acoustic/electric performance featuring Wylde…
Satch's Surfin' Turns 20
Photo: Lisa Sharken. It’s been 20 years since the release of Joe Satriani’s landmark album, Surfin’ with the Alien , the instrumental platter that put “shred guitar” on the map…

Rocking Reunion
Michael Schenker has been part of many live releases over the years, and one of the most intriguing is his latest, Michael Schenker Fest Tokyo, which sees the man known…

The Legend Returns
Jake E. Lee found fame replacing Randy Rhoads to co-write two of Ozzy Osborne’s most popular albums – Bark At The Moon and Ultimate Sin. It cemented his place in…

Return of the Revvvv
Every time Vintage Guitar sets up an interview with the redoubtable Billy F Gibbons, lead guitarist/vocalist of the legendary Texas trio ZZ Top, it’s always a matter of “expect the…

From Finland’s Icy Fjords Hannu Könönen used his home-assembled guitar to play “Lets’s Surf to the Dawn,” a track from “Sound Recycle Machine,” the latest album by his band, The…
The Life and Times of John Fogerty
It would seem that, for decades, John Fogerty has had his finger on the pulse of the record-buying public. After all, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the band he formed as the…

Proactive Perseverance
Philip Sayce is a living, breathing, godmonster beast on the Stratocaster. But his chops, tone, feel, and great songs don’t come out of thin air. The man works hard. His…

Stones’ Side Man, Ron Wood Fan
“Unofficial” Rolling Stones bassist Darryl Jones, who replaced Bill Wyman in 1994, readily admits that playing with the carousing rockers has been a revelation compared to working with stern jazz…

Fresh takes on revered classics Joge Garcia’s “Still Crossing” is a collection of stellar instrumental performances of familiar tunes like “Kashmir,” “Little Wing,” and a classical spin through Joni Mitchell’s…
A Penchant for the Blues
Tommy Castro is known as a hard-working musician with a penchant for the blues. The rep is well-deserved. “One year we had 350 gigs,” Castro notes. But his attitude took…

1951-2017 Guitar Stars Honor a Fallen Hero
On June 22, the musical journey of guitar great Jimmy Nalls ended due to the effects of Parkinson’s Disease and injuries sustained in a fall at his Nashville home. He…

Black Keys’ Road Map Back to Blues, British Rock
Forget about the classic quartet. Forget the power trio. Forget any preconceived shortcomings you may have concerning a rock-and-roll duo. There’s no denying it – the Black Keys crank out…