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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…
David Michael Miller
The latest record from David Michael Miller is a mixture of soul, gospel, blues, pop, funk, and everything in between. Sometimes multiple styles of music come together in the same song, as in…
Dusty Springfield – Dusty in Memphis & Dusty in London
Ironically enough, these showed up in my mailbox on the day Dusty succumbed to breast cancer. Certainly one of the best pop/soul singers of the past 30 years, she has remained criminally underexposed.…
Z.Z. Top – Chrome, Smoke, and B. B. Q.
Chrome, Smoke, and B. B. Q.
Well, Z.Z. Top’s music has been released in a lot of forms on CD. I confess, I didn’t scarf up the other releases, even though I grew up on this stuff and love…
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Yes
Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition
Are you a high-fidelity audio geek? If the answer is, well, yes, this Rhino release brings together an HD experience of Close to the Edge in no fewer than four versions, plus rarities and a ’72 concert. For starters, the 2025 remaster sounds as close to the analog 1972 mix as you’re going to get…
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Pink Floyd
Have You Got It Yet? – The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd
It’s understandable that fans warily approach the flood of pseudo-documentaries and biopics. Add the fact that the late Syd Barrett, Floyd’s original guitarist/leader, suffered from mental illness, and exploitation alarms are sure to go off. But this documentary handles the subject with dignity instead of sensationalism. Interviews by longtime Floyd cover artist Storm Thorgerson with…
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The Wildhearts
In the raging ’90s, The Wildhearts blasted out of Newcastle upon Tyne like some unholy melding of Guns ’N Roses, Cheap Trick, and The Replacements. Hard rock, power pop, and punk still make up their secret sauce, heard on this latest effort with original singer/guitarist Ginger Wildheart. Ben Marsden plays lead, while Kavus Torabi adds…
John Basile
By many standards, this shouldn’t work: a group of songs by the Beatles done in jazz arrangements. Not only that, it’s one guitarist, using MIDI technology, playing all the parts – guitar, drums,…
Bill Frisell
Four
Over the course of 40-plus solo albums and countless collaborations, Frisell has established himself as one of the most original and adventurous jazz guitarists. On 10 new originals and three revisited from Good…
Nels Cline
Blues Notes and So Much More
Nels Cline has quite the musical resumé, and yet has always been hard to pin down. Whether doing some form of fusion, manning the lead-guitar chair in Wilco, or serving up dissonance and…
Jethro Tull
Happy Anniversary
Released in 1977, this album was crafted to get Jethro Tell as far as possible from Britain’s punk and New Wave explosion. The result was an enchanting folk-prog outing featuring acoustic guitar, mandolin,…
Scorpions
Only the most jaded rock fan can resist pumping their fist to the hardrockin’ nirvana of Scorpions. Long past their heyday, the German rock institution has decided to cap their career with a…
Eliza Gilkyson – Land of Milk and Honey
Ever since my freshman college film class, when I was forced to sit through Leni Reifenstal’s Triumph of the Will , the cinematic licking of Hitler’s jackboots, I’ve been painfully aware that art…
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Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band
Honeysuckle
Resonator-slide specialist Reverend Peyton returns to his primary influences – early 20th-century African-American music – compelling him to shout from the hollers and the hills. Rootsy, acoustic, inter-war blues is the specific genre, and Peyton doesn’t hold back. With top-tier tutelage from the likes of David “Honeyboy” Edwards, T-Model Ford, and Robert Belfour, he masterfully…
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Mike Campbell with Ari Surdoval
Heartbreaker: A Memoir
In his autobiography, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Campbell admits he’s quiet and shy. Self-doubt plagued him his entire life, and when problems arose in the Heartbreakers, a lack of confidence had him blaming himself first, even when he wasn’t responsible. Perhaps his attitude was psychologically rooted in his impoverished childhood and coming from…
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Alan Gogoll
Lioness Lullabies
Venture online and watch a few videos by Tasmanian guitarist Alan Gogoll and you’ll see he’s nothing short of a phenomenon. On acoustic, he conjures artificial harmonics in a manner that almost defies gravity. Better still, he never shows off these chops – everything on Lioness Lullabies is in the service of the song and…
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Jimmy Vivino
Gonna Be 2 of Those Days
A veteran vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist and purveyor of blues, R&B, and rock’, Jimmy Vivino has an incredible résumé. A longtime fixture in Conan O’Brien’s house band, he has played on movie, radio, and Broadway projects and worked with Levon Helm, Hubert Sumlin, Al Kooper, Jimmie Vaughan, Donald Fagen, Warren Haynes, Laura Nyro, along with innumerable others. He’s…
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Thin Lizzy
The Acoustic Sessions
Thin Lizzy’s first studio release in decades, this album reimagines tracks recorded 50+ years ago by the trio of vocalist/bassist Phil Lynott, guitarist Eric Bell, and drummer Brian Downey. The songs are from Lizzy’s first three albums – 1971’s Thin Lizzy, ’72’s Shades of a Blue Orphanage, and ’73’s Vagabonds of the Western World. Recently,…
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Eve Monsees and Mike Buck
& Their Groovy Orbit
This is not a solo album as much as an anthology of Austin artists and styles – from blues to country to ’60s garage and psych, demonstrating the versatility of singer/guitarist Monsees (Eve & the Exiles, Blue Bonnets) and her husband, drummer Buck (LeRoi Brothers), as producers/organizers. The tracks span three years, but the names…
Various Artists – A Tribute to Doug Sahm
Timely Tribute
When Doug Sahm died in November ’99, the music world (and especially Texas) didn’t just lose a great artist; it was as though it lost several. There was the country and Western swing…
Steve Hillage Band
VoicePrint
An icon of Britain’s famed “Canterbury Scene” of the late ’60s and ’70s, Steve Hillage made his mark mixing psychedelia, pop, and Hendrix-fueled guitar solos with thrilling abandon. Thirty years after his heyday,…
J&B Brothers
Different Mothers
Jeff Hasselberger and Bill Kaman are guitar-industry vets, but also genuine singer/songwriters and players. Like the best Texas music, it’s not easy to categorize their style in one tidy slot – it’s rock,…
Jo Buddy – Whole Lotta Things
Finnish guitarist/vocalist Jussi “Jo’ Buddy” Raulamo has garnered praise from such kindred blues spirits as Junior Watson, Kim Wilson, Doug McLeod, and Rick Holmstrom, and it’s easy to see why. His blues is…
Sierra Hull
No American musical style is as intergenerational as bluegrass. At festival jams you regularly find 10-year-olds playing with 80-year-olds. Sixteen-year-old Sierra Hull is a product of this tradition. By the ripe old age…
Lyle Brewer
Even when Lyle Brewer covers standards, he makes the song his own. His last couple albums have been filled with familiar songs given the Brewer treatment. With his latest, we get a record…
Crowsong – Shelter
Crowsong offers a couple of atmospheric new records that feature founder Randy Clark’s guitar playing and interaction with bandmates Joshua Zucker (bass) and Vince Littleton (drums). Here, they use one disc to highlight…
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Shout Factory
Coinciding with ELP’s recent reunion show is this quadruple-CD box set containing 40 years of unreleased live tracks. The anthology is nicely arranged and annotated with one distinct era per disc – early-’70s,…
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…
Elvis Presley
Before the Crown
The beginnings of Elvis Presley’s professional career during July, 1954, through late 1955 long ago acquired a mystique that has grown over the decades. During this time, the unknown Memphis singer, recording at…
Charlie Apicella
Organ-ized
The organ trio – or in the case of the Charlie Apicella album, the organ quartet – is alive and well. Each of these new releases features organ and guitar, and to anyone…
Steve Lowenthal and James Cullingham
John Fahey’s Blues
John Fahey is to the solo acoustic guitar what Jimi Hendrix was to the electric. Endlessly inventive, pioneering, and genre-defining, he was the player whom all subsequent guitarists had to listen to. Many…
Jules Shear – More
Jules Mark Shear is living proof that talented pop musicians who prefer to remain on the fringes can maintain a successful career without cowtowing to the winds of fad and fashion. On his…
Cody Canada and the Departed
Cody Canada and company have delivered a record that adds to his work with his former band, Cross Canadian Ragweed, mixing country and rock with lyrics that deal with real life. Seth James,…
Robert Plant & the Strange Sensation – Soundstage
Robert Plant & the Strange Sensation, Soundstage. Robert Plant and his band, The Strange Sensation, play 11 songs; covers, old Zep songs, and newer Plant tunes. The band is the perfect complement, anchored…
Check This Action: Real Gone for a Change
“Hold it, fellas.” After languidly singing the first line of “Milk Cow Blues,” Elvis Presley halted the proceedings. “That don’t move me,” he exhorted his sidemen. “Let’s get real, real gone for a…
Various Artists
It’s not unusual to see compilations defined by region or style; this one focuses on players who share the same brand of guitar: Hallmark. The Hallmark company was launched in 1966 by Joe…
Vince Gill and Paul Franklin
Vince Gill emerged in the mid ’80s as part of country’s New Traditionalist movement. The style was partly built on Bakersfield’s twang-heavy honkytonk, especially the music of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard. Coincidentally,…
Jerry Granelli
Dance Hall
The artists that drummer Granelli has recorded with range from Vince Guaraldi to Earl “Fatha” Hines to the Kingston Trio. He’s also released more than a dozen solo albums, including 1992’s A Song…
Scotty Moore/D.J. Fontana – and Various Others
Here’s a CD featuring a couple of members of Elvis’ original band – the legendary Scotty Moore on guitar and drummer D.J. Fontana – along with guests like Levon Helm, the Mavericks, the…
Willie J. Campbell
Be Cool
In the months before his passing in December ’22, blues bassist Willie Campbell (James Harman Band, Fabulous Thunderbirds, Mannish Boys) recorded his only album as leader – aware that amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)…
