• Paul Johnson

    Music

    Paul Johnson

    The Hepcats Live at the Ajax Novelty Company

    This isn’t live, there may not be an Ajax Novelty Company, and the three felines known as the Hepcats are actually the brainchild of Paul Johnson, whose Belairs were early-’60s pioneers of surf music. Suspend reality and dig how the “trio” expertly articulates layers of acoustic guitar. Across decades, Johnson has embraced folk-rock, psychedelia, and…

    Read more >>

Ed DeGenaro – Dog House

Ed DeGenaro is a Seattle-based session cat and bonafide guitar monster with great ideas and chops. His music is a fusion of musical styles and influences that often intermingle within the same composition.…

Steve Herberman – Thoughtlines

As I struggle to make it through even one version of a standard without screwing up the chords, it never ceases to amaze me how many really good traditional jazz guitarists are out…

Buddy Guy – Heavy Love & Buddy’s Blues 1979-82

Buddy Guy’s latest CD, Heavy Love, sounds like he’s doing his darndest to wrestle the blues guitarslinger crown back from the late, great Luther Allison. Before his death, Allison proved himself the hardest…

Hot Tuna

Live at Sweetwater / Live in Japan

Jorma Kaukonen, who started as an acoustic folk-blues guitarist, returned to that style in 1969 when he and bassist Jack Casady formed Hot Tuna. Recordings from their early gigs at Bay Area clubs…

Claude Hay

Australian Claude Hay is an intensely spirited one-man band. He works himself into such a frenzy performing his multi-layered songs (“How Can You Live Without Yourself”) they become improvisation-like outpourings of a man…

Rodrigo Y Gabriela

In Between Thoughts, A New World

The Grammy-winning acoustic duo is back with a collection of consciousness-raising musical concepts, textures, and philosophies augmented by electronica and orchestral elements. Rhythm is king as they slap, shred, groove, and showcase effortless…

Michael Powers – Onyx Root

Even for the most hardcore blues fan, things can get a bit “samey” after a point, with so many artists dipping into the same 12-bar well. So as nice as it is to…

Joe Pass

As Concord Music continues its Original Jazz Classics Remasters, we get three records recorded for Pablo Records from the ’70s that feature Joe Pass on guitar. He’s normally remembered for the solo work…

Little Charlie and the Nightcats – Deluxe Edition

Alligator has started a “best of” line that features cuts from various artists. Here’s one of the first, and if future releases are this nice, it’ll be a definite plus for the great…

Muddy Waters – The Blues: Rolling Stone 1941-1950

The Blues: Rolling Stone 1941-1950

This new collection chronicles the rise of Muddy Waters from tractor driver to the king of the blues. It presents 36 of his formative first recordings on two CDs covering his debut years…

Carolyn Sills Combo

On the Draw

Listening to the Carolyn Sills Combo, you might do a double-take: Is this newly fashioned country music, or a long-lost 1950s or ’60s band coming out of the ether? The combo is indeed…

Big Star

Supernova

Big Star’s Third was alternately hailed as one of the darkest albums ever made, a shambling wreck, and an LP that simply should never have been released. Now, four-plus decades after its 1974…

Joey DeFrancesco with Larry Coryell and Jimmy Cobb

Wonderful is right! This organ trio, featuring guitarist Larry Coryell, is pure joy with its bright and lively charge through a songlist of jazz classics and originals. The ensemble is led by Joey…

Sleepy John Estes – Newport Blues

Culled from a recently unearthed set of tapes originally recorded at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964, Sleepy John is obviously comfortable sharing the spotlight with Yank Rachell and Hammie Nixon. This representation…

Steve Howe

It’s been 45 years since Steve Howe joined Yes, but in 1975, he launched a parallel solo career that’s still going strong. For this collection, Howe has picked 33 of his favorite solo…

Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall Hendrix is undoubtedly the greatest rock guitarist who ever lived, and Experience Hendrix LLC is now releasing a vinyl version of this original 2000 collection. The original release consisted of studio…

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…

Ronnie Wood

Eagle Records

This is Wood’s first solo album since 2001, which isn’t surprising, seeing as it’s only his seventh studio album in 36 years – his solo output usually dictated by his schedule with his…

Lukas Nelson & the Promise of the Real

A Few Stars Apart

Lukas Nelson established his identity long ago. Yes, he’s Willie’s son; bits of his dad’s vocal phrasing occasionally surface, but he and this quintet also serve as Neil Young’s band, and their musical…

The Tube Amp Book – Deluxe Revised Edition

Tube amp connoisseurs, your cup runneth over! This new edition of the veritable Tube Amp work distills all the facts and schematics from the first four editions, marries them to a large hardcover…

Sam Baker – Pretty World

It’s hard to classify Austin’s Sam Baker as a singer/songwriter. Not because his songs are well-written – they’re often brilliant, invariably memorable. But Baker’s raspy, barking delivery barely qualifies as singing. It may…

Pink Floyd

Primal Floyd

Priced at more than $500, this 27-disc set is a Floyd-freak’s dream come true. It’s a monster collection of early and unreleased music, track details, DVD and Blu-ray discs, and replicas of concert…

Brian F. Wright

The Bastard Instrument: A Cultural History of the Electric Bass

There isn’t enough serious literature about the electric bass, but this book is a worthy contribution. The author takes us from the moment Leo Fender created the mass-produced Precision Bass in 1951, but…

Pierre Bensusan – Intuite

There are guitarists, and then there are guitarists’ guitarists. Pierre Benusan is the sort of musician who inspires awe among even other musical luminaries. Leo Kotke admits that, “Pierre’s music gives me the…

Jimmy Gaudreau – 2:10 Train

Rebel records

Jimmy Gaudreau and Moondi Klein have been playing together for more than 10 years. They first met when T. Michael Coleman, Mike Auldridge, and Klein asked Gaudreau to join them in Chesapeake. When…

Homemade Jamz Blues Band – Pay Me No MInd

Two of pop music’s finest – Steve Winwood and Alex Chilton – hit the big time while still in their teens; Stevie Wonder even earlier, and Shuggie Otis and Kenny Wayne Shepherd were…

Check This Action: Folk Festival of Blues

I heard blues records earlier than I can remember. My dad had Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee albums, and a family friend had records by Lead Belly and Jesse Fuller. It was the…

Rick Fowler – Back On My Good Foot

The closing, extended version of Savoy Brown’s “Hellbound Train” is this set’s only cover, but it may be the set’s most revealing track. With so many blues guitarists aping the Vaughans, it’s refreshing…

Barney Kessel with Shelly Manne & Ray Brown

The Poll Winners

Kessel, bassist Brown, and drummer Manne – pillars of West Coast jazz – had already topped reader polls in Playboy and two jazz publications before teaming for this 1957 collaboration. Using the rarely-employed…

Fleetwood Mac – Rumors

Considering Fleetwood Mac’s enormous popularity in the 1970s, which can be traced to the moment Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the waning band, Buckingham would have to rank as one of the…