• 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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Bill Frisell

Four

Over the course of 40-plus solo albums and countless collaborations, Frisell has established himself as one of the most original and adventurous jazz guitarists. On 10 new originals and three revisited from Good…

Michael Nesmith

Infinite Tuesday: Autobiographical Riffs

Aside from being in the Monkees, Mike Nesmith was a talented songwriter and key contributor to the birth of country-rock. His new autobiography, Infinite Tuesday, is accompanied by a 14-track CD retrospective and…

Sacred Steel Convention (various artists) – Train Don’t Leave Me

When Arhoolie Records’ Chris Strachwitz stumbled onto Mance Lipscomb, the amazing 65-year-old Texas bluesman and songster who had never recorded, in 1960, it was a bit like an anthropologist coming across a saber-toothed…

Owens and Yoakam

Live From Austin, TX

On October 23, 1988, Buck Owens and his biggest fan, superstar Dwight Yoakam were taping separate “Austin City Limits” performances. A year earlier, they’d met in Bakersfield when Yoakam invited his hero to…

Eric Gales

This is the kind of album only Eric Gales could make. It’s full of fiery lines and repentant testimonials about rebirth and sobriety. He forsakes his adventurous rock personality in favor of the…

The Doors with Albert King

DMC/Rhino

Speaking of his work on David Bowie’s Let’s Dance, Steve Ray Vaughan once admitted that he wanted to see just how many places Albert King’s licks would work. “You know, they always fit,”…

Joe Pass – Resonance

In the history of jazz there have no doubt been numerous creative rolls like the one the late Joe Pass experienced in the early 1970s. But in Pass’ case, his DiMaggio-like streak was…

 Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai

Bass Convergence

Recorded at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles on their 2024 U.S. tour, G3 Reunion Live reunites the virtuosos who started it all. Three sets plus the encore jam capture the energy and…

The Hellecasters – Essential Listening Volume 1

Essential Listening Volume 1

I’m sure it’s the same for everyone. You have certain players and bands that just can do no wrong. It’s that way for me with the Hellecasters. I just don’t know how you…

Neil Young

Harvest 50th Anniversary Edition

Young’s 1972 smash delivered on the promise of CSNY, offering California rock rife with acoustic guitars, piercing lyrics, and cozy West Coast production. “Heart of Gold” was the blockbuster, yet only one of…

The Who

The Who with Orchestra, Live at Wembley

The raw power The Who displayed from their humble beginnings, nearly six decades ago, showed they didn’t need enhancements. But this 2019 show at London’s Wembley Stadium – their first there in four…

Amy Lennard – I Need To Love

Amy Lennard writes with the declarative clarity and unvarnished eloquence of a musical Stephen Crane. But don’t let the literary comparison mislead, she’s no smarty-pants poseur, no distaff Beck. Lennard, a native New…

Rob Blaine

The liner notes for this are on-target when they say Rob Blaine yanks “big chunks” of music from his guitar. But that’s not the whole story. Yes, he can channel Freddie King, Jimi…

Cherryholmes – Black and White

Skaggs Family Records

From mandolin playing mom, Sandy, and bass player pop, Jere, to 14-year-old Molly, the six-person Cherryholmes family band picks and sings like they were born to it. Was it the air or water…

B.B. King & Friends – 80

B.B. King & Friends – 80 To mark his 80th birthday, the King of the Blues has cut an album of duets with friends old and new. The gimmick is nothing new, but…

Steinar Gregertsen

Powerhouse Records

It’s testament to the music of Jimi Hendrix that people still record it, and somewhat amazing that people like Steinar Gregertsen still find new ways to interpret it. This record features Gregertsen mostly…

The Hellecasters – Essential Listening Volume 1

Essential Listening Volume 1

I’m sure it’s the same for everyone. You have certain players and bands that just can do no wrong. It’s that way for me with the Hellecasters. I just don’t know how you…

Jim Campilongo – Loose

This second release from the gang is wonderful. I won’t go into detail because Vintage Guitar‘s own Jim Hilmar will feature Campilongo and the Cats in the “Spotlight” column in September. That said,…

James Brown – I Got the Feelin’

Shout Factory

While a generation may remember James Brown as a soul star who fell on hard times, or as a man whose death has led to a tabloid-ready story of a fight for his…

Various artists – Henry Mancini: Pink Guitar

Here’s a capital idea executed brilliantly: 13 inventive acoustic guitar arrangements of Mancini classics – 12 solo and one bonus duet – by a dozen top-flight pickers. Even though this already won the…

Ronnie Earl & the Broadcasters

Stony Plain Records

Starting like a number of instrumental albums Ronnie Earl has produced over the past 15 years, this one opens with a mid-tempo (Albert Collinspenned) track, then slows for some blues and a cool…

Muireann Bradley

I Kept These Old Blue

If you conveyed the soul of a 1930s bluesman into an Irish teenager, you might have Muireann Bradley, who is both a delight and a true phenomenon. Recorded over the past few years,…

Pink Floyd

Have You Got It Yet? – The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd

It’s understandable that fans warily approach the flood of pseudo-documentaries and biopics. Add the fact that the late Syd Barrett, Floyd’s original guitarist/leader, suffered from mental illness, and exploitation alarms are sure to…

Emmylou Harris – 5 Recording Review

Pieces Of Sky, Elite Hotel, Luxury Liner, Quarter Moon In A Ten Cent Town and Blue Kentucky Girl As huge a star as Emmylou Harris is, and as long and varied as her…

Marcin

Dragon In Harmony

Acoustic/electric sensation Marcin effortlessly traverses the fretboard with a guitar style that embraces the companionable influences of classical, flamenco, and pop music. Lightning-fast intervallic runs dovetail into high-level rhythmic slapping, tapping, and fierce…

Dave Rawlings Machine

Americana fans are no strangers to guitarist Dave Rawlings. Largely building his rep on several releases by his musical partner Gillian Welch, Rawlings and his flatpicked Epiphone Olympic first stepped out as the…

Shawn Camp – Live at the Station Inn

Perhaps you’ve never heard of Shawn Camp, but chances are you’ve heard his songs. He penned number one hits for Garth Brooks and Brooks and Dunn, and wrote songs for George Strait, Kenny…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

Skunk Baxter

Speed of Heat

In no apparent hurry, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter just released his first solo album – at age 73. The guitar flash from Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers brings his six-stringing to the fore,…

Jeff Healey

Famous as a driving, fiery blues guitar virtuoso in the ’90s, the late Jeff Healey’s passion for that music was equaled (at least) by his passion for older blues, vintage swing, and jazz…

John Cipollina – Electric Guitarslinger

Electric Guitarslinger

John Cipollina was probably best-known as the lead guitarist for the Quicksilver Messenger Service. He was also a seminal figure in the San Francisco music scene. He died in 1989 at the age…