• 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

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Tom Feldmann

There’s a good chance the opening licks of “Lone Wolf Blues” will knock you off your chair – or at least give you whiplash as you seek the source of such a wondrous…

The Deadlies

Self-distributed

Though its song titles imply this is “surf music,” James Patrick Regan and the Deadlies boast plenty of other inf luences. Yes, there’s plenty of reverb-drenched guitar from Regan, and bassist Bob St.…

Carl Verheyen – Solo Guitar Improvisations

I guess Carl is mostly known for his soaring electric work that shows off terrific chops and great compositional skills. Here, things are a bit different. It’s mostly just him and an acoustic…

Young Rascals – Collections

Originally released over a five-year period, these seven albums show a band that knew what would work on the radio, and also how to stretch things a bit. As you’d expect, the early…

Rosie Flores – Speed Of Sound

With her seventh solo release – having tried Bakersfield country, rockabilly bop, L.A. troubador, and even cowpunk – Rosie Flores has finally found an identity that was always there; the extraneous trappings just…

Psychedelic Breakfast – Deuce

Deuce

Okay, I’m not sure how to approach this one… The band is a trippy mix of jazz, rock, folk, and everything in between. There’s a definite Grateful Dead vibe, and that’s part of…

Albert King with Stevie Ray Vaughan

In Session (Deluxe Edition)

Talk about a summit – this session was a Luke Skywalker-meets-Yoda moment. The live album, originally released in 1999, is finally available in its entirety on LP, CD, and high-resolution digital formats. Backed…

Poco

Collector’s Choice Music

Part of a new series that gathers unreleased live stuff, we find the first-generation country-rock band in transition. Even amidst many personnel changes, Poco’s focus was on harmony vocals and the pedal steel…

Jim and Jesse and the Virginia Boys

Jim and Jesse’s music, with signature tunes like “The Flame Of Love” and Paradise,” never crossed over to pop success. But from their first broadcast on a Virginia radio station in 1947 through…

Led Zeppelin: The Biography

Bob Spitz

Zeppelin has been the subject of countless books, but Spitz delivers a fresh, insightful examination of their saga – both the rock and roll exceptionalism and wretched excesses. There’s an exploration of Jimmy…

The Howlin’ Brothers

Like a long-lost radio show from the ’50s suddenly coming to life on your radio in the late nighttime hours, this hard-driving string trio summons forth the sounds of old-time bluegrass, vintage country,…

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…

Yates McKendree

Buchanan Lane

A Grammy-winning engineer, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter, and already a veteran of some of Nashville’s most-storied stages, the release of 21-year-old Yates McKendree’s debut album mandates the addition of another accolade – top-shelf purveyor…

Sonny Landreth – From the Reach

Sonny Landreth records are typically gems, and this one is no exception. This time out, he has written songs for folks he admires, then invited them to play them with him; Eric Clapton,…

Dave Alvin – Romeo’s Escape

Romeo's Escape

Here’s a reissue of Alvin’s 1986 solo debut that didn’t get nearly the attention it deserved back then. After his stints with the Blasters and X, he cut out on his own, doing…

Donovan – Try For The Sun: The Journey Of Donovan

Donovan Leitch rose from Dylan wannabe to the flower-power embodiment of all things peace and love. He sometimes appeared to be more a hanger-on than his own artist – the wide-eyed clone who…

Redd Volkaert – No Stranger to a Tele

Anybody who’s paid any attention to guitarists in the past decade or so won’t be too surprised when I say what a nice album this is. Redd, as many of you probably already…

Ed DeGenaro – Dog House

Ed DeGenaro is a Seattle-based session cat and bonafide guitar monster with great ideas and chops. His music is a fusion of musical styles and influences that often intermingle within the same composition.…

Hot Tuna

Live at Sweetwater / Live in Japan

Jorma Kaukonen, who started as an acoustic folk-blues guitarist, returned to that style in 1969 when he and bassist Jack Casady formed Hot Tuna. Recordings from their early gigs at Bay Area clubs…

Burnin’ Mike Vernon’s 3 Balls Of Fire

Burnin’ & Churnin’ and Live! (featuring Nokie Edwards, George Tomsco, and Jerry Cole)

Of all the surf-instrumental revivalists, Vernon is one of the most prolific. Since forming Balls Of Fire in 1987, he has also dipped his toe into “crime jazz” and Hollywood soundtrack covers –…

Jack Knife and the Sharps – Ace Cafe

Jack Knife and the Sharps are a staple on the bar scene in Minneapolis-St. Paul. They have a reputation of serving up good old-fashioned rock and roll spiced by rockabilly, country, and ’50s-style…

The Northstar Session

Sometimes it’s jaw-dropping incredible how some ensembles can make music together so well. Witness the acoustic guitar-and-piano trio of guitarists Matt Szlachetka and Kane McGee and keyboard man Dave Basaraba, who offer this…

Indigenous

Vanguard Records

Indigenous is a highenergy blues-rock band fronted by Mato Nanji, disciple of Vaughan and Hendrix; its sound is defined by the chugging rhythms and fat tones squeezed from his Stratocaster. For this album,…

Chris Shiflett

Lost at Sea

Rock icons have made forays into country since the Everly Brothers paved the way in the ’50s, followed by Duane Eddy, Rick Nelson, and (in 2007) Bon Jovi with Lost Highway. Chris Shiflett’s…

J.J. Cale – The Very Best of J.J. Cale

Most folks probably know J.J. Cale best by the covers recorded of his songs, from Eric Clapton’s versions of Cale’s “Cocaine” and “After Midnight” to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Call Me the Breeze.” That’s a…

Steve Earle & the Dukes 

J.T.

When acclaimed singer/songwriter Justin Townes Earle died unexpectedly in August of 2020, his father, Steve Earle, conceived this album to raise money for Justin’s three-year-old daughter. Until the final track, the mood is…

Mark Hummel – Golden State Blues

A great album by a harp virtuoso sums this one up. Mark Hummel is part of that West Coast batch of guys who just have their pulse on the jump-blues and shuffles of…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

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…

Jackson County Line

Self-distributed

Led by acoustic guitarist/singer/ songwriter Kevin Jackson, Jackson County Line has a California countrysoul with elements of War and Santana and plenty of Buffalo Springfield with an emphasis on Neil Young. “Easy To…

Moondi & Gaudreau – 2:10 Train

Jimmy Gaudreau and Moondi Klein have been playing together for more than 10 years. They first met when T. Michael Coleman, Mike Auldridge, and Klein asked Gaudreau to join them in Chesapeake. When…