• Smith/Kotzen

    Music

    Smith/Kotzen

    Black Light/White Noise

    This is the third album from rock veterans Adrian Smith (Iron Maiden) and Richie Kotzen (The Winery Dogs). The busy axeslingers – especially Kotzen, who is always involved in solo and band projects – released their full-length debut and an EP in 2021. Smith-Kotzen has happily blossomed into a going concern. What’s interesting about Smith/Kotzen’s

    Read more >>

Sea Level

By today’s standards, Sea Level was a “jam band,” but 35 years ago, they were an eclectic group variously labeled as Southern rock, jazz-fusion, or West Coast funkpop. An offshoot of the Allman…

Little Charlie and the Nightcats – Nine Lives

Little Charlie and the Nightcats – Nine Lives What can you say about Charlie Baty and the boys? This is their ninth record for Alligator since the late ’80s, and the mix of…

Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio- Close But No Cigar

No disrespect to bassists but there’s just something about a funked-up organ trio that sticks to your backbone. Made popular in the cool music joints of the ’50s and ’60s, organists Jimmy McGriff,…

Seth Walker – Leap of Faith

Seth Walker’s latest effort takes a slightly different path, mixing blues with soul and a group-driven R&B feel. Old-school horn charts dominate “Can’t Come With You,” where Walker’s vocals take on the soul/bluesman…

Gonzalo Bergara – Portena Soledad

For years, friends and fans have begged Gonzalo Bergara to record. Finally, he has a debut CD – and it’s been worth the wait. Bergara hails from Argentina but is based in California.…

North Mississippi Allstars

Blues Dance Music

Luther and Cody Dickinson’s latest pushes the boundaries of northern Mississippi blues music by integrating programmed loops and electronic dance beats. The four-song EP injects tinges of soul, gospel, blues, and The Blind…

Tony Gilkyson

Avenging Angel

You know an album is promising when its sidemen include Buck Owens pedal-steeler Jay Dee Maness and Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band drummer James Gadson. Tony Gilkyson delivers on that promise. Not surprisingly,…

Gov’t Mule

Heavy Load Blues

When a successful band of fine musicians is struck by the compulsion to revisit the muses of their youth by recording blues covers, it can go horribly wrong. Fortunately, Gov’t Mule’s first blues…

The Clash

In the far distant past – 1979, to be exact – the Clash were crowned “The Only Band That Matters.” The mantra originally appeared on a promo sticker stuck to their double LP…

Buzzcocks

Late For The Train: Live & In Session (1989-2010)

On the punk-rock timeline, some bands haven’t quite received their just acknowledgment. Two Australian bands, The Saints and Radio Birdman, come to mind, as do groups like Flamin’ Groovies and Dr. Feelgood, which…

Richard Leo Johnson – The Legend Of Vernon McAllister

Richard Leo Johnson – The Legend Of Vernon McAllister A fascinating, unexpected concept album of acoustic steel-string instrumentals. Johnson has been compared to Michael Hedges, and, like that late innovator, his music is…

The Sonics

Sonics Boom Again

Sometimes, your memory of a favorite band is so locked in – and possibly blown out of proportion – that a reunion can’t possibly live up to its former self (or yours). And…

Mississippi John Hurt – Live

It still surprises me, but every once in a while I run into a neophyte who thinks the blues (all blues) is, by definition, depressing – as if there’s but one emotion conveyed…

Thin Lizzy

Vagabonds of the Western World 50th Anniversary

Long before “The Boys Are Back in Town,” Thin Lizzy was a pugnacious Dublin trio with bassist Phil Lynott and guitarist Eric Bell. Vagabonds was their third album and there’s nothing else like…

Carole King and James Taylor

Hear Music/Concord

There have always been singer/songwriters in rock (from Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry to the Beatles and Bob Dylan), but from 1968 to ’75, L.A.’s Troubadour helped launch the “singer/songwriter” as an entity,…

Styx

Crash of the Crown

BreaBreaking While 2017’s concept album The Mission embraced progressive rock, the new Styx album has even higher ambitions. Returning to their guitar/keyboard-fueled ’70s style, the band takes prog’s grandest elements and condenses them…

Neil Larsen – Orbit

A new disc featuring the wonderful keyboardist Larsen and a great band, with Robben Ford on guitar, recorded live to two-track with 12 songs that are memorable for various reasons. Most of this…

Dale Watson

What is there not to love about Dale Watson? He flies the flag for real country music in a day and age when real country isn’t accepted by country radio. His latest is…

Charlie Musselwhite – Sanctuary

With his debut album in 1966, harmonica vanguard Charlie Musselwhite met and set the standard for authenticity and adventurism in blues. But in the past few years,

Paul Brown

A lot of people paint the smooth jazz world with a broad brush that sometimes ignores the players who play with soul, intensity, and smartness. Paul Brown would be one such player. While…

Gregg Wright

Big Dawg Barkin’

Gregg Wright’s pandemic-fueled album displays the pent-up intensity of a virtuoso guitarist unleashed – the former Jacksons’ guitarist and bluesman comes fully loaded with pyrotechnics and sweet runs galore. Tempered by ’70s tours…

The Metallica Blacklist Album

Various artists

Conquering the charts 30 years ago with their “black album,” Metallica has become the global ambassador for heavy metal – and this 52-track tribute set confirms it. Artists from nearly every genre, from…

Blind Pig Records – 20th Anniversary Collection

It’s been 20 years since Blind Pig Records got its start in the humble Blind Pig Café in a basement in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Over the years, the label has released records by…

Slick SL-52 and SL-56

Budget Riff Rockers

Since 2004, Guitarfetish has been selling instruments, parts, pedals, and accessories online. Their Slick guitar line – designed and built with input from guitarist Earl Slick – includes the offset SL-56 and single-cut…

Jimi Hendrix

Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision

It’s astonishing – and fortunate – that so much unreleased Jimi Hendrix material exists, given his brief recording career. It seems every time he picked up his guitar in the studio, the Record…

Moving Pictures: How Rush Created Progressive Hard Rock’s Greatest Record

Will Romano

Rush’s Moving Pictures is often regarded as the band’s masterpiece, and this book unpacks the creative efforts of frontman/bassist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer/lyricist Neil Peart. Examining the 1981 album’s “filmic…

Compiled by Ben Valkoff – Eyewitness: The Illustrated Jimi Hendrix Concerts

The second volume reviewing Hendrix concerts, this one covering the tumultuous period of ’68, when Hendrix worked through a relentless schedule of touring and recording. As noted in our review of the first…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

Eric Johnson

EJ

Renaissance Guitarman Eric Johnson digs deep. Not in the way that guitarists will explode an artery to nail the ultimate epic guitar solo or clone the microscopic nuances of Stevie Ray Vaughan. EJ…

Dudley Connell and Don Rigsby – Another Saturday Night

Musical styles constantly evolve. If you love traditional music, this can be a problem. What is “genuine” and what is a synthesis that only appears to be authentic? Perhaps the best solution to…

The Atomic Bitchwax – II

Ed Mundell – my choice for Guitar God 2001. Although Mundell, lead guitarist for Monster Magnet (his day gig) and the Atomic Bitchwax (his side gig), might lack name recognition, he certainly doesn’t…


Wes Montgomery

Play It Hot

Jimi Hendrix

Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision