• 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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Tedeschi Trucks Band

The husband-wife team of singer/guitarist Susan Tedeschi and slide savant Derek Trucks continue their gospel-inflected roots-meets-blues journey with Made Up My Mind. It’s their second studio album since 2011’s Revelator, and comes hot…

John Del Toro Richardson

With this Tex-Mex flavored blues album co-produced with Anson Funderburgh, another fine Texas blues guitarist, John Del Toro Richardson hits his stride. Think Los Lobos with the blues to Latino style ratio in…

Eric Clapton & Electric Light Orchestra

It’s become fashionable, especially among younger players, to diss Eric Clapton and write him off as a minor player who stood in Jimi Hendrix’s shadow. Of course, nothing could be further from the…

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…

Paul Priest – The Keeley Effect

The title references the “impact” of the guitar effects pedals made by Robert Keeley in making the album. That’s all fine and good, but more important is the fine music, propelled by the…

Ray Bonneville

The latest from Ray Bonneville features 10 songs that seem to work together as one large body of music. The tunes here revel in a minimalist yet swampy vibe. Bonneville’s guitar and harp…

Shawn Mullins – Honeydew

Shawn Mullins hit the big time in the ’90s with the sleepy folk tune “Lullaby.” Since then he has jumped around a bit and now finds himself recording for Vanguard, which has a…

Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials – Rattleshake

It’s tough to find a guy who sounds like he’s having as much fun making a record as does Lil’ Ed. His sixth Alligator effort kicks off with “Leaving Here,” and the old…

Guy King

Two words describe these two records from Chicago guitarist Guy King: mature and eclectic. That holds especially true for the double record, I Am Who I Am And It Is What It Is.…

Low Rats

Year Of The Rat MMXX

From the Trashmen to the Replacements, Minneapolis has an improbable legacy of untethered garage-rock and punk. Add Low Rats to that lineage. On their debut LP, the quartet distills seedy psychobilly, Heartbreakers hooks,…

Guy Davis

Actor and guitarist Guy Davis is all about the blues. His new two-CD set combines his talents to create an audio play, blending storytelling with music. The result is a musical odyssey of…

Carol King – Tapestry

Epic/Ode/Legacy

Tapestry is one of those albums that pushes everyone’s nostalgia button. Released in 1971, it became such a monster hit (six million copies sold, four Grammys, and six years on the Billboard Pop…

James McMurtry – Just Us Kids

James McMurtry has always been a fine songwriter, but he has matured in many ways since the late ’80s, when John Mellencamp produced his first record. His playing, especially on electric guitar, is…

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…

Jim Colegrove & the New Rough Riders of the Dirty Age

Jim Colegrove’s talent is as big as his résumé is long. His session work includes albums by Todd Rundgren, John Hall, Bobby Charles, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, and even Allen Ginsberg. Most of…

Vince Gill & Paul Franklin

Sweet Memories: The Music of Ray Price and the Cherokee Cowboys

Ray Price (1926-2013) created a distinctive hard-country sound in the ’50s, combining his powerful vocals with the iconic Cherokee Cowboys, a fiddle/pedal-steel band echoing the honky-tonk and Western swing of Price’s native Texas.…

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…

The Domino Kings – Some Kind of Sign

Despite personnel changes, The Domino Kings continue to offer some of the finest traditional country music you’ll hear. Stevie Newman, Les Gallier, and Richie Rebuth all play guitars here, while David Sowers handles…

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…

Roomful of Blues – The Blues’ll Make You Happy, Too

The Blues'll Make You Happy, Too

Rounder has launched a new Heritage Series that kicks off in righteous fashion with this retrospective of Roomful of Blues’ seven Rounder albums. In guitar terms, this collection covers Roomful of Blues from…

Ruby Dee and the Snakehandlers

Full-Throttle Rockabilly

Ruby Dee, guitarman Jorge Harada, and crew serve up 200-proof rockabilly. Their brand of music is not Stray Cats glitz or Reverend Horton Heat psychobilly; instead, this is traditional rockabilly – a little…

Albert King with Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stax Records

Every blues fan – and especially every Stevie Ray Vaughan fan – knows of this famous studio summit, which has long been available in various audio formats. Now, with a DVD, the package…

Sleepy John Estes – Newport Blues

Culled from a recently unearthed set of tapes originally recorded at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964, Sleepy John is obviously comfortable sharing the spotlight with Yank Rachell and Hammie Nixon. This representation…

Rickenbacker Guitars: Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fireglo

Martin Kelly and Paul Kelly

At long last, Rickenbacker gets the treatment it deserves, with this glorious large, comprehensive, and colorful history of the guitars, basses, amps, players, and more. Richard R. Smith’s groundbreaking work set the scene…

Stephen Bruton – Spirit World

A CD of personal or autobiographical songs can be tricky. The music can wind up meaning far more to its creator than it does to its audience. That’s bad. Luckily for everyone, Stephen…

Toto: 40 Trips Around the Sun

Toto is one of those love ’em or hate ’em bands – you’re a fan of their intricate pop-rock, or not. Just out, this solid greatest hits package is spiced with three new…

Was (Not Was) – Boo

The brothers Was (okay, they’re not really brothers) are back after a layoff of almost 20 years. Not much has changed, and that’s a good thing. The 10 cuts here all “reek” of…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

Joe Satriani

Joe Satriani’s 15th studio record is a concept album that continues to advance the idea that virtuoso instrumental guitar music can be accessible to non-guitarists. Utilizing strategically placed grit and throaty attention to…

Doyle Bramhall – Is It News?

Yes, it is! Any re-lease by Texas blues stalwart Doyle Bramhall is something to get hot and bothered about. But from the first big bang of his bass drum to the last reverberations…

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…


Frank Meyers

Impossibly Cool Guitars

Nancy Wright

Play Date!

Chris Cain

Raisin’ Cain

Ace Frehley

10,000 Volts