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
Voices
This is jazz guitarist Mike Stern’s first album featuring vocalists, hence the title. Yet these are not songs of heartfelt, poetic lyrics. Rather, the voices are used as instruments, carrying the melody line,…
It seems new really good Tele players keep poppin’ up. Here’s another one. Jason doesn’t waste any time, getting going with the opener, “Picky, Picky, Picky.” It’s a medium-tempo country tune with cool…
Adrenaline Records
When Alex Woodard was a kid, his sister spoonfed him the music of her favorite rocker, Tom Petty. Five albums later, the effect still holds. Woodard’s arrangements, phrasing, and even the timbre of…
This traditional folk singer/guitarist’s solo debut is impressive. He’s been an educator at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music for three decades, but his approach is by no means academic. He not only reveals the influence of folk and blues legends such as Doc and Merle Watson, Elizabeth Cotten, Etta Baker, Dave Van Ronk,
ls Cline long ago established a parallel career as an eclectic instrumentalist and contemporary jazz virtuoso. His fourth Blue Note album is an extended set that unveils Consentrik Quartet, his new band with acoustic bassist Chris Lightcap, drummer Tom Rainey, and tenor/soprano saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock. Their concepts are ambitious and their sound is free, Cline
John Mayall is invariably cited for the succession of guitar greats who passed through his band. But Charlie Musselwhite just might be the American equivalent. In a 60-year career, his six-stringers have included Harvey Mandel, Luther Tucker, Louis Myers, Tim Kaihatsu, Robben Ford, Fenton Robinson, Johnny Heartsman, Junior Watson, Andrew “Jr. Boy” Jones, John Wedemeyer,
As the soul of the Replacements, Paul Westerberg not only crafted glorious world-weary lyrics, but wielded one mean guitar. Influenced equally by the disparate threads of Kiss, R.E.M., Alex Chilton’s Big Star, and…
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,…
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…

The Pleasure’s All Mine
Vaughan’s 2010 album, Blues, Ballads and Favorites, honored his blues, R&B, country and rock roots, followed a year later by a second volume. This reissue offers both – all 31 exuberant, raw performances,…

This album reunites Mark 1 of the late Ronnie James Dio’s solo band, including Vinny Appice, the late Jimmy Bain, and Vivian Campbell. With the group’s name taken from Dio’s second album released…

Ride
Blues-rock survivor Walter Trout’s 30th album conjures the ghosts from his troubled past. Ride is a rockin’ record with a hard-charging rhythm section saturated with emotion and a buffet of guitar fireworks. The…
The latest from blues dynamo Popa Chubby is a star-studded tribute to the late great Freddie King. Produced by Mr. Chubby and Mike Zito, I Love Freddie King is a blues guitar love-fest covering some of King’s most potent and popular songs. With Popa fronting the band on guitar and vocals, guests include Eric Gales,
The goal of any anthology is to capture the broad scope of an artist’s career. Rush 50 is a strong attempt, starting with their first singles (previously unreleased) all the way to their final live recordings in 2015. In between are reams of epic studio and stage recordings, summing up the band’s career in one
At the risk of starting a brawl, Rik Emmett’s guitar work was arguably too good for Triumph. As evidence, his latest project centers on a custom-built Loucin that inspired both a book and accompanying music. “Magic Power” this is not. On Ten Telecaster Tunes, Emmett delivers 10 solo performances on the instrument he calls Babs,
When someone recently asked me to recommend the most essential Elmore James album, I answered, “Any and all.” I’ve never heard a bad Elmore cut, and I’ve heard nearly everything he recorded. Everybody knows that he set the standard for slide guitar in electric blues, but he was also a fantastic singer and wrote some
The Gristle Master returns with scintillating blues and the influences that made him the six-string slayer he is today. On this live recording, Koch uses an array of guitars including his signature Reverend, a Deluxe Tele, Custom Shop Les Paul, and a Custom Shop Strat while sharing stages with Larry McCray, Jimmy Hall, Malford Milligan,
This month, we feature Rick Derringer, Kid Ramos, Booker T and The M.G.’s, Steve Stevens, Phil Manzanera, Doug Aldrich, Kenny Burrell, Eric Johanson, Gary Moore, and more! Spotify is free or available without ads via a paid subscription. Go to www.spotify.com and search “Vintage Guitar magazine,” or if you already have an account Listen to
Rosenwinkel is a jazz guitarist. That said, this CD proves he’s willing to go anywhere for his musical muse. There’s not much of a chance to pigeonhole him. From killer bop on the…
Kyran Music
The set, recorded live at the Open Music Collective, in Vermont, perfectly captures the workings of this trio and the inherent quirkiness in the playing of Mitch Seidman, who surprises on pretty much…

Strike Like Lightning
Lonnie Mack hadn’t released an album in eight years when this comeback effort arrived in January of 1985. His first of three for Alligator Records, it brought Mack out of obscurity and marked…
Roger and Out/A Trip in the Country, et al
Like Willie Nelson and Mel Tillis, Roger Miller was one of the 1950s-’60s Nashville songwriters who left a lasting mark. He wrote hits for others before “Dang Me” and the 1965 signature song…

Break The Chain
A three-time Blues Music Award winner for Acoustic Artist Of The Year, MacLeod also deserves the B.B. King Entertainer Of The Year conferment. His concerts, with between-song stories as essential as the tunes,…
I ran into a guitarist and fellow Faces fan recently and mentioned the new boxed set, and he marveled, “Isn’t Woody amazing on there?” I agreed. But if I’d run into a bassist,…

He produced wicked imagery, epic theatricality, and wielded an uncanny personal connection to his audience. And then there was the voice. The late Ronnie James Dio was the greatest metal vocalist of his…
Origin Jazz Library
Bob Dunn was the amplified steel guitar’s first stylist. More than 75 years after his first appearances on record, Dunn still amazes those who have never heard early music on electric-steel guitar. This…
If there’s a guitarist working right now who I like more than Robben Ford, I’m not sure who it’d be. He’s done so many interesting projects in the past six or seven years…

Two years back, touring pro and studio ace Jeff Golub’s optic nerves collapsed, leaving him permanently blind. Now he’s back, with a twelfth solo album, getting a little help from jazz-rock keyboard pioneer…

The Roots of Popular Music: The Ralph S. Peer Story
Producer, A&R man, and music publisher Ralph Peer was a critical figure in launching the modern recording industry. He pioneered field recordings after World War I, cut the first blues record (Mamie Smith’s…
31-year-old Jason Williams was born with a right arm that stopped a little below his elbow. Not many in that condition would pick guitar. But pick it up he did, and pick he…

Born in rural Kentucky in 1954, Ricky Skaggs (named for “I Love Lucy’s” Ricky Ricardo) stands today as a supremely versatile musician. With his band Kentucky Thunder and his own record label, he…

Northstar Session songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist Matt Szlachetka is more introspective here than with the Session but his considerable strengths are in full flower – especially his ability to craft a song…
The latest from Dave Specter crosses genres and styles like a car with bad wheels crosses highway lines. But here, the outcome is a good thing. Whether it’s soul, blues, jazz, or rock…

Chicago-based Andy Brown is 40 years old – meaning that some of the songs here were popular decades before he was born, as well as illustrating his maturity, along with the fact that…
The essence of contemporary “roots” music, The Duhks’ music combines instrumental and vocal textures from folk, blues, country, and soul with the rip-roaring energy of rock and roll. On their fourth album, the…
You know how some records just ooze fun? That’d be this one. Nick and his group mix jump blues, boogie, and greasy rock and roll into a perfect stew. And throughout the affair,…

On Sundays, when he’s not on the road, Dale Watson and his band play the Texas Big T Roadhouse and host their Chicken S#!t Bingo game. This record captures the fun. It showcases…
I'm Good Now
Singer/songwriter whose subject matter spans love to hate, happiness to abject despair. While not exactly lighthearted, anyone who likes their music with a bit of meat on it will find plenty to chew…

Wine on Venus
It would be easy to dismiss this 18-year-old as a prefab gimmick, but Grace Bowers’ guitar work ain’t no hype. Armed with a vintage SG Special, she lays down real funk with her…