• 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

    Read more >>

Little Charlie and the Nightcats – That’s Big

That's Big

Charlie Baty and company come through again. If you’re not familiar with Charlie and the boys, where you been? Since the late ’80s, they’ve put out a batch of excellent blues records that…

Little Walter – The Complete Chess Masters (1950-1967)

Hip-O Select/Geffen

Someday someone will make a great movie about rock and roll, maybe even blues. Until then, we’re stuck with crap like Cadillac Records, which takes more than “artistic license” in telling the story…

J.J. Grey & Mofo

Alligator Records

JJ Grey continues a long line of singer/songwriters who grew up in the South and soaked up everything that makes music from that region so unique. On his second effort for Alligator, Grey…

The John Henrys

9lb Records

The John Henrys would be the last to deny the inf luence of Tom Petty’s music on their work – the clipped vocal phrasing of the opener, “Little One,” (a la Petty’s “The…

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…

Richard Thompson – Industry and Watching the Dark

Richard Thompson has always been an idiosyncratic musician, and the release of this CD finds him at perhaps his most eccentric – and creative. In fact, this CD was too far out for…

Eric Bibb, Rory Block, Maria Muldaur – Sisters and Brothers

Sisters and Brothers

I like this one for a couple of reasons. The first is it’s a perfect example of some vets getting together and just making good music. No ego involved, just three people who…

Deborah Coleman – Livin’ On Love

Groovy is the word for Deborah Coleman. She’s got the hip sensibility of Joan Armatrading blended with the blues groove of B.B. King. The result is music that moves you. When Coleman released…

Chicago – Chicago I, Chicago II, Chicago III

I hear all you naysayers. You’re going, “Wait. This is a guitar mag, and you’re reviewing three albums by a lame pop band?” Well, that may be partially true. But these are the…

Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal plays all sorts of folk, keyboard, and percussion instruments – and just about anything with strings. His deceptively easygoing approach to music – a trot rather than a frenzied gallop –…

Jerry Krahn – No Wires Attached

No Wires Attached

Chances are you haven’t heard of Jerry Krahn. He’s from Milwaukee, but has spent the past 12 years in Nashville. He’s worked with bands like the Titan Hot Seven, the Time Jumpers, and…

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…

Rosie Flores

The first of Flores’ 11 solo albums came out in ’87, but by then she’d run the gamut from singer/songwriter (in sort of an L.A./Ronstadt mold) to punk (including a 1984 LP by…

Roger Waters

Is This the Life We Really Want?

Roger Waters is a prisoner of his own fame since, with rare exception, he has to make new music that sounds like Pink Floyd. On his first solo album in 25 years, he…

Robert Bradley and Blackwater Surprise – Still Lovin’ You

Still Lovin' You

I hate to sound like an old guy, but this band really makes me nostalgic for the old days. Every album by them is solid. Just really good musicians making good music. No…

Forrest Lee, Jr. and Friends

Forrest Lee, Sr. was a country music legend most folks have likely never heard tell of. So why should they care about a tribute to the man and his gospel music? Because his…

Burton Gaar – Mighty Long Road

This is one of those releases that makes it exciting to be a reviewer. Gaar is a blues vet with highly seasoned vocal chops, and I’d be willing to bet (and I’m not…

Undone: A MusicFest Tribute to Robert Earl Keen

Texas-born singer/songwriter Robert Earl Keen has influenced a passel of younger performers during his 30-year career. On Undone, we have an opportunity to hear how these young’uns interpret his material. Recorded live, the…

Alan Jackson

Where Have You Gone

Few have so done more to maintain the sound and spirit of classic country in the face of ever-changing fads than Alan Jackson. Fiddles and pedal steel still frame his warm, earthy voice.…

Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver – Hard Game of Love

Hard Game of Love

For the last six years, if you wanted to hear Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver do secular bluegrass, you had to attend a live concert, since gospel material has been all they’ve recorded. With…

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…

The Replacements – Tim, Pleased To Meet Me, Don’t Tell A Soul, All Shook Down

The final four Replacements LPs are back in deluxe style, thanks to Rhino. Accompanying the label’s re-release of the band’s first four albums and EPs earlier this year, the band has finally been…

Luther Allison – Luther’s Blues

Originally released by Motown in 1973, Luther’s Blues was not a big seller. Not that it’s not a great album. It is. But maybe Motown at that time wasn’t the best place to…

Sam Bush

Radio John: Songs Of John Hartford

One of the greatest bluegrass musicians, singer and multi-instrumentalist Sam Bush – playing mandolin, fiddle, acoustic guitar, electric bass, and banjo here – pushed the genre’s boundaries in the ’70s with the aptly…

Buck Owens

Buck Owens never minced words. I know. I interviewed him and others in his inner circle in 1992, while annotating Rhino’s Buck Owens Collection box set. Detailing his scorn for Nashville’s music industry,…

Bob Dylan

1970

Not yet 30, Bob Dylan had already conquered the world at the beginning of the 1970s. Wisely, he plowed ahead, entering a New York studio with ringers David Bromberg, Charlie Daniels, and another…

Marty Stuart

Sugar Hill Records

Marty Stuart is a musician, cultural historian, collector, photographer, and prodigal son-in-law. All these facets come together on his new album, Ghost Train, a pretty darned brilliant piece of work. For those unfamiliar,…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

The Peacemakers

The Peacemakers

Mike Keller has played lead with, among others, the post-SRV Double Trouble, Doyle Bramhall, Sr., Marcia Ball, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds – in other words, the elite of the Austin blues scene. He…

Janis Ian – Billie’s Bones

Billie's Bones

My fondness for Janis Ian comes as no surprise to longtime VG readers. My monthly column is named after one of her songs, and I have followed her career since I bought my…

Cherryholmes – Black and White

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…


Michael Nesmith

Infinite Tuesday: Autobiographical Riffs

The Fleshtones

It’s Getting Late (…and More Songs About Werewolves)