• 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

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Dailey & Vincent

Dailey and Vincent’s powerful combination of effusive vocals and fiery instrumentals make this debut one of the most impressive bluegrass albums of ’07 – which was an exceptional year for the genre. Jamie…

Justin Currie

The creative team of bassist Justin Currie and guitarist Iain Harvie led the band Del Amitri through several personnel changes over the years. The group was similar to the tough, passionate bantam British…

Zac Harmon – From the Root

Northern Blues Music

When he’s got his groove going, Zac Harmon sings a little like Chuck Jackson and his guitar technique is straight from the Albert King College Of Musical Knowledge; “Keep The Blues Alive” is…

Hiromi’s Sonicbloom – Time Control

Ignore the silly cover photo – this ain’t no pop-diva record. Instead, it could be the jazz-rock CD of the year. Hiromi Uehara is a monster jazz pianist who’s been making a name…

Dave Alvin – Public Domain

Dave Alvin is one of those guys you have to love. He continuously makes great albums that encompass most of the genres that make up “American” music, and he does it without much…

The Stryker/Slagle Band – Latest Outlook

On his latest release, Dave Stryker collaborates once again with saxophonist Steve Slagle, and the two are joined by bassist Jay Anderson and Billy Hart on drums, and Joe Lovano joins on tenor…

The Hadden Sayers Band – Swingin’ From The Fabulous Satellite

If tasteful, solid, rock is your thing, this band is for you. Storming out of Texas and led by guitarist Hadden Sayers, they blend blues, classic rock, country, and good old-fashioned pop music…

Bleeding Hearts

Riches To Rags

In the pantheon of ’80s indie-rock guitar heroes, Bob Stinson has been largely forgotten, except among fans of The Replacements, the band he cofounded in 1978. It hasn’t helped that Stinson was booted…

Pokey LaFarge

In The Blossom of Their Shade

The 2020 pandemic left an impact on Pokey LaFarge, who was about to tour behind his newly released Rock Bottom Rhapsody. During the ample downtime, he wrote an album’s worth of new tunes,…

Courtney Barnett

Courtney Barnett’s sleepy slacker persona might be a put-on, but what this young Aussie may (or may not) lack in what the older folks call “gumption,” she compensates for with droll, witty lyrics…

Reverend Freakchild

Songs Of Beauty For Ashes Of Realization

Though its nine tracks revisit and rearrange originals from his 16 albums, the Reverend’s latest project is as ambitious as it is eclectic. While he typically performs solo (as he does on two…

Jerry Lee Lewis and Rick Bragg

The Killer and His Axemen

(more…)

Peter Frampton

Universal Music

To some, Peter Frampton will always be the good-looking ’70s guitar guy with the live double-album. To others he is a dynamic guitarist, full of great licks that still, 35 years later, makes…

Roky Erickson

Anti-

As front man of the 13th Floor Elevators, Erickson was one of the architects of ’60s psychedelic rock. The 63-year-old Texan’s battles with mental illness are chronicled in the documentary You’re Gonna Miss…

Various Artists – Hittin’ On All Six

If you’re a fan of jazz guitar, especially that from 1920 to 1950, you need to check out Hittin’ On All Six (Proper Records CD Properbox 9), a four-CD set (with a 52-page…

2025 June Issue on Spotify

This month, we feature The Meters’ George Porter, Tommy Emmanuel, Jedd Hughes, Dudley Taft, Lari Basilio, Ally Venable, The Police, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Dave Mason, Kenny Burrell, and more! Spotify is free or…

Shawn Pittman – Full Circle

I enjoyed Shawn’s last record, with its killer mix of rock and roll and blues. This new release takes things a step further, and really satisfies. Shawn spent time playing with Buddy Guy…

Adriana Balboa – Guitar Music From the Rio de la Plata

The tango is a music of melancholy, and Uruguayan Adriana Balboa’s guitar weeps with the sound on this solo album. Based now in Germany, Balboa offers a tribute to the Rio de la…

Drew Emmitt – Long Road

Drew Emmitt has been making music for more than 25 years. His first band, Leftover Salmon, developed a cult following and though it still plays gigs during festival season, its members have moved…

Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie

Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie

When Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac, the group not only had three lead singers in its arsenal (with Christine McVie already onboard), it had three distinctive songwriters. But there was…

Dave Van Ronk and Oscar Isaac, Bob Dylan, Punch Brothers, and others

The 2013 Coen Brothers film, Inside Llewyn Davis, chronicled a week in the life of a Greenwich Village folksinger during 1961, a character loosely based on the late Dave Van Ronk. T-Bone Burnett…

Elana James

For her second solo effort, Elana James, fiddler-vocalist for the western-swing trio Hot Club of Cowtown, ventures afield into other genres. This shouldn’t be surprising, given her 2006 touring work as part of…

The Slambovian Circus of Dreams

Here is a “best of” album by a band that’s not exactly a household name, nor does it have any hit songs. But don’t let that dissuade you. They’re a tight ensemble that…

The Band – Rock of Ages and Islands

Rock of Ages and Islands

These two late albums by The Band need little introduction. By the time they were originally released – Rock of Ages in ’72 and Islands in ’76 – The Band had made its…

Stéphane Wrembel

Djamming!

There’s plenty of Gypsy jazz guitarists who can play more notes at faster tempos than Django Reinhardt, but few can truly match the master in inventiveness, melody, and sheer swing. Stéphane Wrembel is…

Greg “Freddy” Camalier

To the rest of the world, the Swampers are best known from the cryptic verse in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” And while they might have picked up Mr. Van Zant when he…

Sean Costello – Sean Costello

Sean Costello – Sean Costello This is Sean’s first work for Tone Cool/Artemis, and while his past work was very good, he has matured to become one of the major young talents in…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

The Autumn Defense

Wilco’s bassist John Stirratt and multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone steal some time from their day jobs and step out with their appropriately titled fifth long-player under the Autumn Defense moniker. Fifth captures ’70s AM-drenched,…

Donal Clancy – Close to Home

Donal Clancy continues the tradition of the Clancy Brothers, demonstrating that contemporary Celtic music is as vibrant as any musical genre. Clancy grew up surrounded by traditional Irish music, and all 12 cuts…

John Mellencamp

Universal Music

Box sets are too often an excuse to release material that wasn’t deemed good enough in the first place, or they’re a means to repackage an artist’s hits. On the Rural Route 7609…