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Artists
Joey Molland
The word “underrated” is belabored in music journalism, but Joey Molland was just that. As co-guitarist in Badfinger, he was part of a quartet signed to the Beatles’ Apple Records, yielding glorious AM hits like “Come and Get It,” “Day After Day,” and “No Matter What.” The foursome fell into obscurity and tragedy a few
Rob Fleming
From Bowie to KillerStar
KillerStar is no David Bowie cover band. Instead, it’s an uncanny project from U.K. guitarist Rob Fleming and drummer James Sedge, who brought in musicians from many of Bowie’s bands…
Freddie Green
Artistry in Rhythm
Fellow musicians called him “Pep” or “Pepperhead.” He was also known as “Mr. Rhythm,” and he could drive a band like no other guitarist. His was a subtle yet unmistakable…
Richard Williams
Kansas’ Team Player
Unleashing pent-up creativity is a gratifying experience for a band, as Kansas guitarist Richard Williams can attest. The band known for the prog-/hard-rock hybrid exemplified by “Carry On Wayward Son”…
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Duke Robillard – Lowdown
Vintage Guitar is happy to offer the premier of the new music video by Grammy nominee Duke Robillard. “Lowdown” is the first single from his upcoming album, Blast Off!, set for release February 20 on Nola Blue Records. “When thinking about a powerful song to launch the album, I chose a hard-rocking Tom Waits tune
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David Bowie’s Young Americans
David Bowie was always creatively restless. The English musician decided to step away from the glam rock he’d recorded for a few albums concluding with 1974’s Diamond Dogs, which included a few songs with tinges of soul, R&B, and funk. On tour promoting the album, he played a handful of soul covers. Bowie had long
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Fretprints: Cream’s Disraeli Gears
Supergroup Alpha
Jack Bruce claimed Cream was two bands – live trio and studio group. Live, bassist Bruce, guitarist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker were renowned for their highly improvisatory, powerful performance that was unprecedented in rock. Moreover, they were actually a jazz group (“…we just didn’t tell Eric,” Bruce said), as exemplified by their excursions
Jesse Johnson
Quad City Funk
In the early 1980s, Jesse Johnson traveled from Rock Island, Illinois, to Minneapolis and found fame with The Time and Prince to help define the sound of a generation. Since…
Kelly Joe Phelps
Kelly Joe Phelps, blues guitarist/singer/songwriter, passed away May 31. He was 62. Phelps grew up in a Washington farming town, hearing country and folk songs. As a youngster in a…
Molly Miller
Dr. J(azz)
Molly Miller is on a quest to bring instrumental music back to storytelling. Her new album, St. George, fuses jazz, rock and roll, and echoes of tantalizing guitar film music…
George Lynch
New Roads
A lynch pin is a narrow shaft of metal that keeps a wheel from falling off – without it, the whole thing collapses. Same holds true for George Lynch, the…
Rick Derringer
Six-String Knight
Photos courtesy Rick Derringer. Rick Derringer’s latest record, Knighted by the Blues, is an amazingly varied album from a guitarist who has been in the music industry for more than…
Duane Betts
Father to Son
It’s understandable if you detect a certain Southern-rock flare in the music of singer/guitarist Duane Betts. After all, his father is longtime Allman Brothers guitarist Dickey Betts and he shares…
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Check This Action: Up Jumped Elmore
When someone recently asked me to recommend the most essential Elmore James album, I answered, “Any and all.” I’ve never heard a bad Elmore cut, and I’ve heard nearly everything he recorded. Everybody knows that he set the standard for slide guitar in electric blues, but he was also a fantastic singer and wrote some
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Javier Batiz
Mexican guitarist Javier Batiz, a teacher and inspiration to Carlos Santana and other musicians, passed away December 14 at his home in Tijuana, Baja California. He was 80. Known as the “Godfather of Mexican Rock,” “La Layenda” (The Legend) and other sobriquets, Batiz came to appreciate American blues guitarists such as B.B. King and John
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Josh Meader
Jazz Evolution
Josh Meader is a jazz and fusion player who breaks ground with virtuosity that’s never flashy for its own sake. On his new album, Tide of Times, the young Aussie ace blends styles on a dime, hybridizing music before our eyes; videos online include an especially stunning non-album rendition of “Misty.” It’s fascinating, seeing Meader
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Chris Walz
Debut, Long Time Coming
Chris Walz has done his share of performing. He played young Woody in the stage production of Woody Guthrie’s American Song. From the late ’90s to 2001, Walz toured and recorded with banjo player Greg Cahill’s Special Consensus bluegrass band. And for 10 years he took the role of guitarist Fred Hellerman in Weavermania, a
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Greg Koch
Way Of The Gristle
On Blues, Greg Koch reaches the outskirts of infinity with an album that showcases his wicked guitar skills and love for Muddy Waters. Flying V blues master Larry McCray drops by with the Memphis Horns, and the result is a passionate pentatonic party with soul and fireworks. How did this album come about?Devon Allman had
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Rik Emmett
Canadian Custom
Rik Emmett is a master of many guitar styles and other artistic endeavors. As co-lead vocalist/guitarist in the hard-rock trio Triumph from 1975 to ’88, he experienced life as a rock star, then released a string of solo albums, a book of poetry, and an autobiography. His latest project, Ten Telecaster Tales, is a book
Geezer Butler
Sab Aside
Known for holding down the low-end for Black Sabbath, Terence “Geezer” Butler is usually busy with his band GZR whenever the Sabs go into stasis. A quartet with a sound…
Jim McCarty
Detroit Rock Royalty
Playing Detroit in 2013, Joe Bonamassa had a special treat in store for the crowd. “The best, most badass guitar legend that ever came out of this town,” he declared.…
Classics: June 2022
David Hood’s Alembic Bass
Like the engineers and musicians who, in the ’60s and ’70s, helped create legendary songs at FAME Studios and its offshoot, Muscle Shoals Sound, Frank Manno is a diehard music…
Howard Roberts
Howard Roberts and the Black Guitar
Webster’s Dictionary defines genius as “…a person gifted with extraordinary powers of intellect, imagination or invention.” The definition could as easily be applied to describe Howard Roberts – virtuoso guitarist,…
Jon Butcher
Back to Barefootin'
Photos courtesy Jon Butcher. A little more than a decade ago, guitarist/vocalist Jon Butcher described his affiliation with the then-new quartet Barefoot Servants as, “The best thing I ever did.”…
Chris Poland
Metal Fusion Equinox
Chris Poland’s signature legato was born from tragedy. As a teen, his left hand accidentally punched through a plate-glass window and cut tendons in his fingers. He lost the ability…
Dave Mustainen
Alive and Shredding
One of the most rugged, resilient rock musicians ever, Megadeth founder Dave Mustaine is a thrash-metal pioneer who has weathered band turnover, addiction, and throat cancer. Megadeth’s new studio album,…
Andy Powell
The Wishbone Forges on
Wishbone Ash guitarist Andy Powell isn’t caught in a time warp. True, he’s the sole remaining member of the English foursome that proffered a twin-lead guitar sound that took the…
Jeff Hanna
Decades of Dirt
One’s taste in music usually starts in the home, where immersion can fuel the subconscious. Jeff Hanna’s parents loved Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, which helped embed great music deep…
Ace Frehley dies at 74
As Kiss reached its apex in the mid/late ’70s, “Space Ace” Frehley became the quintessential guitar hero. Supremely influential to a generation of rock players who followed, he died unexpectedly…
Blackberry Smoke Unplugs
Ds and LGs
By sound and association, Blackberry Smoke walks a fine stylistic line. A good ol’ rock band when it started rollin’ in Atlanta 15 years ago, its following has more recently…
GA-20 blends R&B, Blues, Hendrix, and much more
VG Exclusive “Dry Run” GA-20 blends influences from Hendrix to the guitar Kings to East Coast Family cassettes. Here, Matt Stubbs and Pat Faherty do an exclusive take on “Dry…
Jock Bartley
The Return of Firefall
If you listened to pop radio in the late ’70s, it was hard to miss Firefall, whose soft-rock hits were plastered all over AM airwaves, notably “You Are the Woman,”…
Heaven and Hell
Neon Knights Reunite
In 1979, Black Sabbath was at a crossroads after the departure of original frontman Ozzy Osbourne.…
Don Leady’s Stylish Instro!
Roots-rock doyen does “Blue Cumbia 3” LeRoi Brothers co-founder (and Tail Gators head honcho) Don Leady used his real-deal vintage Danelectro U-2 to accompany himself oh-so-stylishly for this exclusive take…
Steve Hill
One-Man Band
Canadian guitarist Steve Hill is a flat-out rocker, smashing blues into rock and roll with terrifying force, as heard on his latest, Dear Illusion. Often playing as a genuine one-man…
Zac Sokolow
LA LA Land
LA LOM rekindles of the sound of “psychedelic chicha” – a south-of-the-border reaction to the electrified 1960s. Picture the Ventures or Belairs with the hippest Latin percussion known to mankind.…
Molly Miller
Dr. J(azz)
Molly Miller is on a quest to bring instrumental music back to storytelling. Her new album, St. George, fuses jazz, rock and roll, and echoes of tantalizing guitar film music…
Collection of Jonathan Kellerman
Talent for mysteries, passion for guitars, best-selling Novelist Jonathan Kellerman is a lifelong lover of the guitar. A player for 46 years, to him, the guitar is not only a…
Alex Skolnick
Bit of Metal, Bit of Jazz
The worlds of metal and jazz guitar couldn’t be more opposite – one specializes in volume and riffing, the other on restraint and strumming. As guitarist for thrash metallists Testament…
Bill Kirchen
Seeds, Stems, and a Tele-fied Legacy
There’s ample revisiting in Seeds and Stems, Telecaster slinger Bill Kirchen’s third album for Proper America. Five of the 13 songs hearken back to his late-’60s/mid-’70s days with pioneer country-rockers…
