• 2025 December Issue on Spotify

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    2025 December Issue on Spotify

    This month, we feature Rick Derringer, Kid Ramos, Booker T and The M.G.’s, Steve Stevens, Phil Manzanera, Doug Aldrich, Kenny Burrell, Eric Johanson, Gary Moore, and more! Spotify is free or available without ads via a paid subscription. Go to www.spotify.com and search “Vintage Guitar magazine,” or if you already have an account Listen to

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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…

Bob Dylan

What to make of a box set compiling the half-century career of the most towering figure in American popular music? After all, Bob Dylan’s stature ensures that the target market already owns a…

The Sadies – New Season

If you’re at all into guitar tones and cool songs, it’s hard not to love The Sadies, with brothers Dallas and Travis Good, whose feet are firmly in the country and country-rock of…

Tom Wheeler

No, this is not quite an entrée into the Vatican’s secret library, the hush-hush files of the KGB, or the locked vaults of the Pentagon. But for vintage guitar and amp fans, it’s…

Jimi Hendrix Experience – The Jimi Hendrix Experience

This four-CD box set illustrates again how the seed planted by Hendrix’s created a whole tree of rock guitar that still fourishes, although not at the level of creativity it did with Jimi.…

Johnny Nicholas & Friends

Too Many Bad Habits

When Johnny Nicholas was kicking out blues in Austin in the ’70s, between there and Detroit, he recorded his 1977 album Too Many Bad Habits, 14 raw, authentic tracks released on the Blind…

American Masters – Atlantic Records: The House That Ahmet Built

Considering the uncanny accuracy of Jamie Foxx’s Oscar-winning portrayal of Ray Charles in the movie Ray, it’s criminal that writer/director Taylor Hackford chose to depict Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler, and Tom Dowd (three…

The Rolling Stones

Chrome Dreams/MVD

Despite the title, the focus of this “unauthorized” Stones documentary is not directly on Mick Taylor nor his guitar playing, but a general analysis of the band’s heyday. That said, there’s a lot…

Delbert McClinton – Rocking the Boat: A Musical Conversation & Journey

Depicting several of the acts on Delbert McClinton’s Sandy Beaches Cruise from ’06, this film was recognized at a host of film festivals. Both the conversation and music throughout are thoroughly engaging; McClinton…

Mollie O’Brien and Rich Moore

Mollie O’Brien and her husband, Rich Moore, have been fixtures in the Denver music scene for more than 30 years. And though they have released several albums over the years (culled from their…

Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott

Playing seemingly anything with strings (including piano strings), the cumulative session credits of O’Brien and Scott include Suzy Boggus, Steve Earle, Trisha Yearwood, Mark Knopfler, Joan Baez, the Chieftains, and countless others. The…

Jimi Hendrix Experience

Live in Maui

This 1970 performance was contrived for Rainbow Bridge, a hippie movie that flopped. The gig itself was faintly ridiculous, as a hundred or so fans trudged up Hawaii’s dormant Haleakalä volcano. There, the…

Vince Seneri – The Prince’s Groove

Few sounds match that of a B-3 combined with a six-string, and the latest from organist Vince Seneri gives Paul Bollenback, one of today’s best jazz guitarists, a chance to shine. Musically, there…

Robin Trower – Living Out of Time

Living Out of Time

Following up his last work, 2001’s Go My Way, could hardly be easy for Robin Trower. That effort was his best album in 20 years. On his latest, Trower ditched the band from…

Lucinda Williams

Ghost Stories

From Bobby Troup’s “(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66” to Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited” and more, the roads we’ve traveled have inspired our music. Enter U.S. Highway 20, stretching 1,500 miles across…

Kenny Burrell – The Best Of Kenny Burrell

Kenny Burrell – The Best Of Kenny Burrell The good thing about compiling a Kenny Burrell “best of” is, since his 1956 solo debut, it’s hard to find any clinkers; the hard part…

For One Who Waits

Mitch Seidman is a jazz player of impeccable taste and tone. His last record, Triangulation, used the same trio as here: Jamie McDonald on acoustic bass and Claire Arenius on drums. The three…

Elizabeth Moen

Wherever You Aren’t

Moen is a Chicago-based singer/songwriter who does much of her own guitar work on songs that are often deeply personal. This, however, is no pompous, acoustic-driven collection of bland Americana fare; the sound…

Otis Redding

Otis Forever: The Albums & Singles (1968-1970)

Otis Redding’s death in a plane crash in late 1967 created a monumental task for producer and guitarist Steve Cropper – the posthumous presentation of Redding’s unreleased work. Ultimately, four collections were released,…

Louise Kirchen

The Waiting Game

Fans who saw Louise sing harmony to husband Bill Kirchen on gigs or their charming “Cabin Fever Reliever” streams might have had an inkling. More-attentive listeners could have noticed her songwriting credits on…

Eric Gales Trio

Eric Gales is arguably the most underrated guitarist of his generation. Emerging in the early ’90s with a post-Hendrix blueprint that combined a fusion of blues, rock, and gospel, he never sustained the…

Lari Basilio

Your Love

Lari Basilio’s latest recording is a melodic and shred-tastic, yet compassionate, antidote to the effects of lockdown. The Brazilian phenom plays with spellbinding authority, feel, and subtextual themes, reminding listeners that God loves…

Black Crowes

When it comes to meat-and-potatoes rock and roll, the Black Crowes are as good as it gets. The band’s latest release finds it playing a live version of the studio album, Warpaint, along…

Christian Scott

If you’ve been waiting for the future of jazz to arrive, this may well be it. The young trumpeter is creating a beguiling blend of post-bop, dark rock, and hip-hop – try to…

Spirit of Django

The Guitar Label

This Brit’s career has been nothing if not varied. He has backed vocalists from Teresa Brewer to Alison Burns (as the latter’s sole accompaniment on 1 AM); recorded small-group bebop (Freternity), “new acoustic”/Dawg…

Derek Trucks Band – Already Free

Derek Trucks is one of the top guitarists of his generation. He has helped write a new chapter in the history of the Allman Brothers Band, was an integral part of Eric Clapton’s…

Pokey LaFarge

Hamfats-Styled Hot Stuff

Pokey LaFarge’s Rounder Records debut continues his rich, well-established sound. Primarily acoustic, he offers another amalgam of jazz, blues, jug band, and Western swing. At different times, LaFarge and his expanded band conjure…

The Meters – Trick Bag

Sundazed has done it again. This particular release is only one in a large series of CDs released by this fine band. And they did a great job with them all. Original liner…

Otis Redding

Live At The Whisky A Go Go: The Complete Recordings

“Are you ready for star time?” That’s the introduction by emcee Al “Brisco” Clark to the six-CD boxed-set of Otis Redding performances at the Whisky A Go Go club. His three-night residency in…

Junior Wells & the Aces

Delmark

Junior Wells released enough mediocre product in his lifetime that it’s easy to forget what a great stylist and showman the Chicago bluesman was. This hour-plus live set, recorded at Club 47 in…