-
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
Paul Curreri
Tin Angel Records
Paul Curreri’s latest album follows a throat injury that forced him to stop performing for a couple years but didn’t stop him from producing numerous records, including Don’t Hurry for Heaven, by his…
Ted Leo
The Hanged Man
Critically acclaimed East Coast songwriter Ted Leo’s press clippings are filled with references to the Canon of British Bands Whose Names Are Collective Nouns: The Who, The Jam, The Clash. Fair enough; after…
Domino Kings – The Back of Your Mind
The Domino Kings are back for another set of rollicking country. I do mean country, by the way. The stuff with twangy guitars, lyrics that range from the weepy to raising hell, and…
-
Chris Walz
All I Got and Gone
This traditional folk singer/guitarist’s solo debut is impressive. He’s been an educator at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music for three decades, but his approach is by no means academic. He not only reveals the influence of folk and blues legends such as Doc and Merle Watson, Elizabeth Cotten, Etta Baker, Dave Van Ronk,
-
Nels Cline
Consentrik Quartet
ls Cline long ago established a parallel career as an eclectic instrumentalist and contemporary jazz virtuoso. His fourth Blue Note album is an extended set that unveils Consentrik Quartet, his new band with acoustic bassist Chris Lightcap, drummer Tom Rainey, and tenor/soprano saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock. Their concepts are ambitious and their sound is free, Cline
-
Charlie Musselwhite
Lookout Highway
John Mayall is invariably cited for the succession of guitar greats who passed through his band. But Charlie Musselwhite just might be the American equivalent. In a 60-year career, his six-stringers have included Harvey Mandel, Luther Tucker, Louis Myers, Tim Kaihatsu, Robben Ford, Fenton Robinson, Johnny Heartsman, Junior Watson, Andrew “Jr. Boy” Jones, John Wedemeyer,
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…
Charles Shaar Murray – Boogie Man – The Adventures of John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen” may well have been the first million-selling blues hit when it came out in 1948. It was a song unlike anything most folk had ever heard: the chanted…
Roy Buchanan – American Axe – Live In 1974
It’s not too far of a stretch to say Roy Buchanan was one of the most unique guitar players in the past 40 years. This recording, done at two shows in 1974, does…
Jimi Hendrix – Live at Monterey
Experience Hendrix/Geffen/Ume
Forty years after the fact, some people (people who weren’t around at the time) might say that Jimi Hendrix wasn’t all that revolutionary. These people would be wrong. There had been sonic experimentation…
Tommy Castro – Hard Believer
Top Contender
Tommy Castro makes the move to Chicago’s Alligator Records, and fittingly serves up one of the most focused and toughest records of his considerable career. Contributing no doubt to the great guitar sounds,…
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…
-
Popa Chubby
I Love Freddie King
The latest from blues dynamo Popa Chubby is a star-studded tribute to the late great Freddie King. Produced by Mr. Chubby and Mike Zito, I Love Freddie King is a blues guitar love-fest covering some of King’s most potent and popular songs. With Popa fronting the band on guitar and vocals, guests include Eric Gales,
-
Rush
Rush 50
The goal of any anthology is to capture the broad scope of an artist’s career. Rush 50 is a strong attempt, starting with their first singles (previously unreleased) all the way to their final live recordings in 2015. In between are reams of epic studio and stage recordings, summing up the band’s career in one
-
Rik Emmett
Ten Telecaster Tales
At the risk of starting a brawl, Rik Emmett’s guitar work was arguably too good for Triumph. As evidence, his latest project centers on a custom-built Loucin that inspired both a book and accompanying music. “Magic Power” this is not. On Ten Telecaster Tunes, Emmett delivers 10 solo performances on the instrument he calls Babs,
-
Check This Action: Up Jumped Elmore
When someone recently asked me to recommend the most essential Elmore James album, I answered, “Any and all.” I’ve never heard a bad Elmore cut, and I’ve heard nearly everything he recorded. Everybody knows that he set the standard for slide guitar in electric blues, but he was also a fantastic singer and wrote some
-
Greg Koch
Blues
The Gristle Master returns with scintillating blues and the influences that made him the six-string slayer he is today. On this live recording, Koch uses an array of guitars including his signature Reverend, a Deluxe Tele, Custom Shop Les Paul, and a Custom Shop Strat while sharing stages with Larry McCray, Jimmy Hall, Malford Milligan,
-
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
Chet Atkins: Me and My Guitars – Chet Atkins and Russ Cochran
Chet Atkins has a deserved reputation as a great guitar player and all-around nice guy. So it’s a pleasure to see a book that is part biography and part history of his personal…
Dwight Yoakam
Dwight Yoakam’s 1986 Guitars, Cadillacs… etc. etc. infused Bakersfieldstyle twang into the New Traditionalist trend then sweeping a country scene weary of frothy country pop. Two years later, he revived the career of…
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,…
Mark Erelli – Delivered
Fearing negative comparison, some singer/songwriters shy away from covering other writer’s material. Some, boring people by the dozens in coffeehouses across the country, feel it’s everyone else who comes up short. Mark Erelli…
Various artists
Eagle Records
These two CDs almost couldn’t help but be hodgepodges, since they’re compilations culled from compilations – the tribute albums Rattlesnake Guitar (from 1995, dedicated to Peter Green) and 2002’s From Clarksdale To Heaven…
Simon Phillips
Protocol 4
Simon Phillips is a tremendous drummer who has paid his dues with Frank Zappa, The Who, Jeff Beck, Toto, and even Judas Priest. He’s also a talented engineer, producer, and composer who’s been…
Johnny Winter – Pieces and Bits
The long-awaited authorized video from blues/rock guitar icon Johnny Winter has finally arrived. Compiled in part by Winter’s manager, Teddy Slatus, who asked fans to send video clips, the set includes TV clips…
Tommy Castro – Hard Believer
Top Contender
Tommy Castro makes the move to Chicago’s Alligator Records, and fittingly serves up one of the most focused and toughest records of his considerable career. Contributing no doubt to the great guitar sounds,…
Dave Alvin – West of the West
The Great American Music Galaxy
Dave Alvin is one of America’s best songwriters, and as such runs the risk of alienating casual fans when he does an album of covers. But then again, maybe not… The idea with…
Willie Nelson – Willie & The Wheel
Willie, The Wheel, and Wexler
Aside from Jerry Wexler’s standing as a titan of R&B, soul and rock, his musical range extended far beyond. A lifelong country fan, Wexler enjoyed Hank Williams and Bob Wills when they were…
Big Lazy
The guitar universe has been inundated with all things “retro” for the past decade, but the all-instrumental trio Big Lazy gives it a fresh spin. Old-school twang meets gritty Hollywood-soundtrack music here, with…
Nancy Wilson
You and Me
The Heart legend has finally made her first solo album. Armed with a ’63 Telecaster for rhythm, signature Martin HD-35, and Gibson mandolin, Wilson mostly recorded in her home studio, working remotely with…
Albert Collins – Live at Montreux 1992
Eagle Rock Entertainment
James Brown – I Got the Feellin’
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…
Mark Cook – An Evening With The Blues
An Evening With The Blues
It’s obvious this Terre Haute-based guitarist is a talented individual. He’s got the chops and did all the writing and arranging on this disc. Not only the instrumental portions, but the vocal melodies,…
Derek and the Dominos
Polydor
Many supergroups lack true superpowers, but Derek and the Dominos was the real deal. Burned out on the supergroup phenom after his troubled times in Cream and Blind Faith, Eric Clapton sought anonymity…
Walter Trout
Walter Trout’s guitar skills are unquestioned. In fact, his playing often turns mediocre songs into decent songs. At times, though, his music has lacked urgency. That’s not the case with Common Ground, where…
Tommy Emmanuel
Accomplice Two
On this rich, diverse collection of duets, Emmanuel and Billy Strings get right to it with an exuberant medley of Doc Watson’s “Doc’s Guitar/Black Mountain Rag.” Emmanuel’s free-flowing fingerstyle kicks things off, followed…
Sly and the Family Stone
Groovalicious Glory
Long before short attention spans and the need to record an experience on your iPhone became more important than the experience itself, there was Sly and the Family Stone. It was a time…
Charlie Musselwhite – One Night In America
One Night In America
Anyone who’s surprised at the stylistic diversity of the latest offering from Charlie Musselwhite hasn’t been paying close attention to the blues icon’s path. On Rough News, from ’97, he slipped in some…
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…
Gurf Morlix – Cut ‘N Shoot
Is Gurf his real name? I don’t know. What I do know is he’s produced excellent records in the past few years for other artists, and in the past couple has started putting…
