Laurie Morvan – Cures What Ails Ya

Few standard blues records by non-major artists offer any surprises. But Laurie Morvan adds a bit to the blues genre. Her songs aren’t all that different, but the playing is unique enough to…

The Coal Men

The Coal Men – guitarist Dave Coleman and drummer Dave Ray – boast a cowboy romanticism that comes alive on their fourth album, Escalator. Coleman wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on…

ZZ Top – Eliminator

For its 25th anniversary, the most iconic of all ZZ records (one of the first albums to “go diamond,” signifying sales of 10 million copies) gets a much-deserved deluxe treatment, with the original…

The Sandro Albert Quartet

Daywood Drive Records

Played well, guitars and f lutes make an excellent combination. Such is the case in Sandro Albert’s quartet. Albert is a gifted guitarist whose soloing swings, and his knowledge of the harmonic structure…

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…

Rene Mailhes Trio – Chtildo

René Mailhes is a holdout. On any night in Paris, you can hear young Gypsy tyros tearing up the fretboards playing hot Gypsy jazz in emulation of Django Reinhardt’s early classics. Mailhes, on…

Santana IV

Describing Carlos Santana’s guitar playing, Greg Rolie, the Santana band’s original keyboardist, declares, “It’s real music; it’s not just a bunch of notes put together.” Truer words were never spoken. They’re just part…

Anthony Wilson – Adult Themes

Here’s the third album from guitarist, arranger, and leader of his own big band, Anthony Wilson. He’s young, but he definitely can look backward to the likes of his father, Gerald, and other…

Jim Lauderdale – Honey Songs

Yep Roc Records

When Gram Parsons, Mike Nesmith, and Gene Clark were making their best music, major country radio stations ignored them. It wasn’t much of a jump from Hank Williams Jr. and Charlie Daniels to…

Stephane Wrembel

Django New Orleans

The concept is simple enough: a mashup of Django Reinhardt’s gypsy swing with the buoyant sounds of Louis Armstrong and New Orleans jazz. Could easily become marketing hokum, but in the trustworthy hands…

Erik Halbig – Balancing Act

Wow! Here’s one of those records that comes out of nowhere and really grabs ya’. I’m not familiar with Erik, but from the liner notes and some of the guests, he’s obviously associated…

Dan Tyminski – Wheels

Even if you haven’t heard of Dan Tyminski, you’ve likely heard his music. His Grammy-winning version of “I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow” from the soundtrack O Brother Where Art Thou? garnered…

Johnny Winter – The Best of Johnny Winter

The Best of Johnny Winter

Johnny Winter was such an important guitarist when he hit the national scene in 1969, it’s a shame his discography has become so littered with bootlegs and “best of”‘s that don’t do justice…

Heart

Heart is beating hard again. It’s been four years since Ann and Nancy Wilson’s last release, but the sisters are back – and with a vengeance. Along with Heart’s 16th album, Ann has…

Tom Rush – How I Play My Favorite Songs

On this vid, Tom Rush demonstrates what makes his playing so special. His teaching style is perfect for beginning acoustic guitarists who haven’t had much experience with capos. He knows how to break…

CCR – Bayou Country

Creedence Clearwater Revival Bayou Country Green River Willy And The Poor Boys Cosmo’s Factory Pendulum It’s hard to imagine that anyone isn’t intimately familiar with Creedence’s catalog of seven albums, but that string…

Riptones – Slant 6

Slant 6

You know, deep down, this is what it’s all about. The Riptones are, according to their press material, guys who, like most of us approaching middle age, still just love to get up…

Tony Joe White – The Heroines

For his latest album, the “Swamp Fox” came up with a cool concept: half solo vocals, half duets with five of his favorite female singers, on a collection of new originals and collaborations,…

Various artists

Think I’m Going Weird: Original Artefacts from the British Psychedelic Scene 1966-68

Do you crave fuzzed-out guitars, trippy pop, and all things Carnaby Street? If so, this five-CD/book set is a magical mystery tour of British psychedelia. You’ll hear groovy singles from The Who and…

The Aristocrats

Duck

Featuring Guthrie Govan on guitar and Bryan Beller on bass plus über-drummer Marco Minnemann, this terrifying trio blows minds every other bar. Like a modern-day Dixie Dregs or fusiony Satch/Vai project, they attack…

Fletcher Bright and Bill Evans with Norman and Nancy Blake

  This jam session recorded in veteran fiddler Fletcher Bright’s living room in Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, exudes a warmth, passion, and joyfulness that’s right in line with the old-time music, fiddle tunes, and…

Jimmie Rodgers, Tommy Johnson, and Various Artists

The Roots of Popular Music: The Ralph S. Peer Story

Steve Howe – Elements

Elements

Blues Traveler

Jimi Hendrix Experience – The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Basily – Swing for the Gipsies

Supersonic Blues Machine

Lance Lopez is a pentatonic-playing guitar monster who deserves a higher profile in the music world. His sinewy blues-rock tone and phrasing will leave you dazed and humble. He’s joined forces with bassist…

Adrian Raso – Clean Up The Mess

Black Mamba Records

Adrian Raso understands that, just as a guitar solo is not just a place-holder between lyric lines, an instrumental is not just a bunch of notes that sound good together. Guitarists may have…

Paul Burch

Blue Yodelin'

Meridian, Mississippi, was Jimmie Rodgers’ birthplace and the starting point for Paul Burch’s “imagined musical autobiography” of the Father of Country Music. In these 20 songs and musical interludes, he draws a rich,…

Calexico

El Mirador

Calexico has long crisscrossed the border between American (blues, country, rock and roll) and Latin-American sounds, but the band’s latest is a borderless exploration of shimmering, luminous music. Vocalist/guitarist/accordionist Joey Burns and drummer…

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…

Santana

Blessings and Miracles

While many of Carlos Santana’s peers coast on their catalog of hits, the guitar legend follows his muse and actually creates new music. Blessings and Miracles, like most of his albums since 1999’s…

New Orleans Suspects

When you combine some of the finest musicians from the Louisiana area in one band, there will be extreme funkiness. So it’s no surprise that the New Orleans Suspects’ third full-length album is…

Allison Moorer

Ryko

Allison Moorer couples a pitch-perfect voice with an edge you rarely find in commercial country music. Her first recordings displayed a rustic rock-and-roll leaning you’d expect from someone with her looks and vocal…

Crown Lands

Fearless

This Canadian duo doesn’t disguise its Rush fanaticism. The obvious parallel is Greta Van Fleet, and what that quartet did for Led Zeppelin, Crown Lands does for Rush. On the 18-minute “Starlifter: Fearless…

Amazing Rhythm Aces – Stacked Deck and Too Stuffed to Jump

Various Artists

Burton Gaar – Mighty Long Road

Johnny Cash – Ride This Train

Bruce Brown

Self-distributed