• 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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The Clash – The Singles

Rarely in the history of music has so much been packaged so beautifully for so many. The Clash The Singles box is a glorious collection of the band’s original 19 singles, reissued on…

Danielle Nicole

As bassist and vocalist of the sibling group, Trampled Under Foot, Danielle Nicole helped her brothers play stomping blues and R&B that was authentic and rollicking. On her solo debut she leans more…

Eric Clapton

Six-String Stories

Mr. Clapton has a vast guitar collection – okay, shocker. But within this book, you can drool over Eric’s greatest axes, many auctioned to support his Crossroads Centre for recovering addicts. Some instruments…

Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion

Ninth Street Opus

It’s been five years since Guthrie and Irion’s Exploration album showcased their knack for navigating country, pop, folk, and rock – and their ability to write engaging songs with gorgeous sounds. The duo’s…

Chris Whitley – Dirt Floor

Dirt Floor

Chris Whitley’s music is primal. On his amazing debut album, Living With the Law, and the followup limited-run live promotional EP, Poison Girl, he created a desolate landscape of ghosts rising out of…

Chuck Mead – Journeyman’s Wager

The BR549 co-founder’s new disc is loaded with great stuff, including his guitar work. In the band, Mead split lead duties with Chris Scruggs and Gary Bennett, but was more than capable of…

The Marcus King Band

It’s easy to see why Warren Haynes has so much respect for young Marcus King. The 20-year-old guitarist, vocalist, and bandleader shows on his second record a command of pretty much all the…

Corb Lund

Songs my Friends Wrote

Lund, the Canadian singer/songwriter known for powerful, rocking originals, departs from form to honor eight of his favorite songwriters. He isn’t simply covering signature tunes, but lesser-known compositions he admires. The Hurtin’ Albertans,…

Rival Sons

Bands that sound like they just walked out of a recording studio 40 years ago are practically a genre nowadays. While it can be argued that the Black Crowes have been doing this…

Bearfoot Bluegrass – Follow Me

Bluegrass bands are often male-only affairs. But the women in Bearfoot Bluegrass are in a majority position. Annalisa Tornfelt plays fiddle, sings lead, and is responsible for seven of the songs. Kate Hamre…

Shooter Jennings, Ryan Bingham, and Various Artists

Outlaw: Celebrating The Music Of Waylon Jennings

Waylon Jennings, who died in 2002, would have turned 80 in 2017. He and compadre Willie Nelson still personify country’s early-’70s Outlaw movement, focused on gaining creative control of their records after years…

Duke Robillard – Blue Mood

An album like this should come as no surprise. Duke Robillard paying tribute to T-Bone Walker is about as natural as it gets. Anyone familiar with Duke’s background knows that T-Bone’s music is…

The Subdudes

At its core, the Subdudes’ character sound is Tommy Malone’s sophisticated acoustic guitar blended with John Magnie’s keyboards, their soulful vocalizing, and Steve Amadee’s stripped-to-the-bone percussion. At times Malone’s playing is so impressive…

Jools Holland & his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra – Jools Holland’s Big Band Rhythm & Blues

If the term “big band,” especially tied to a pop star, conjures the dreaded image of one of those zoot-suited groups with the word “Daddy” in its name, fear not. Ex-Squeeze keyboardist Holland’s…

Greg Douglass and the Accomplices

For years, Greg Douglass was San Francisco’s best-kept guitar secret. At the dawn of psychedelia, his band, Country Weather, made a demo to get bookings, and it got substantial airplay on underground radio.…

The Rolling Stones

Rolling In The Blues

Mick Jagger’s famous 1968 statement – “What’s the point in listening to us doing ‘I’m A King Bee’ when you can hear Slim Harpo do it?” – has been a (sometimes) credo for…

The Country Gentlemen – The Complete Vanguard Recordings

The Complete Vanguard Recordings

If you listen to vintage Bill Monroe recordings, then to current bluegrass from the likes of Allison Krauss, it’s hard to see how we got from there to here. But once you listen…

Robert Cray Band

On the heels of the live release from a 1987 concert, this is a fascinating study that shows how Robert Cray has grown as an artist, working up soul/pop tunes the likes of…

Bruce Cockburn

True North

In more ways than one, American audiences are still catching up with this Canadian singer/songwriter. In fact, that tag illustrates how those of us south of the border are largely familiar with only…

Gustav Lundgren

Gustav Lundgren is boldly going where few other Gypsy jazz guitarists dare: the daunting and little-known world of Django Reinhardt’s later bebop music. Swede Lundgren is prolific in both the worlds of standard…

The Clash – The Singles

Rarely in the history of music has so much been packaged so beautifully for so many. The Clash The Singles box is a glorious collection of the band’s original 19 singles, reissued on…

Tumbledown

End Sounds

From punk to rockabilly – it feels like a perfectly natural progression for Mike Herrera. Part of the 1990s punk trio MxPx, Herrera has stepped back in, with his group Tumbledown. Tumbledown marked…

Walter Trout – Deep Trout

Walter Trout has had not one, but two, successful recording careers. There are the 10 discs he has released in the U.S., but like many American musical artists including Luther Allison, he is…

Iggy and The Stooges

MVD Audio

In 1973, the Stooges were newly reformed yet seemingly on their last legs. Their early attempts at Raw Power, their third and last album before breaking up again, were rejected by management, although…

Shakti

This Moment

Now a half-century since their earliest adventures, Shakti is back with age-defying guitarist John McLaughlin (who’s now 81) and tabla master Zakir Hussain, plus a new violinist and vocalist. The results are brimming…

Sloan – Parallel Play

Beyond "Just" Hooks

Every song on this latest album by the Canadian quartet Sloan has a great hook; the simple “woo-oows” in “Witch’s Wand” are impossible to forget while “Down In the Basement” speaks like some…

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…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

John Lee Hooker & the Coast to Coast Blues Band

Live at Montreux 1983 & 1990

The early ’80s weren’t a high point of John Lee Hooker’s career. Demand for all blues – including his Mississippi hill-country music – had eroded and record deals were scarce. None of that…

Captain Beefheart

Ahead of His – or Anyone’s – Time

“Lick My Decals Off, Baby,” “Woe-Is-Uh-Me-Bop,” “My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains.” That’s right – we’re talking about Don Van Vliet, a.k.a. Captain Beefheart, and his Magic Band. Beefheart and…

Vance Gilbert – Up On Rockfield

Vance Gilbert is a true student of the art of songwriting, and his latest CD demonstrates his fervor for composing is as powerful as a Colorado thunderstorm. Although Up On Rockfield isn’t a…