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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
Sloan- Parallel Play
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…
Joey DeFrancesco with Larry Coryell and Jimmy Cobb
Wonderful is right! This organ trio, featuring guitarist Larry Coryell, is pure joy with its bright and lively charge through a songlist of jazz classics and originals. The ensemble is led by Joey…
Tommy Castro and the Painkillers
R&B stalwart Castro comes out with guns blazing on his latest, adding some raucous rock and roll to his usual helping of soul and blues. There’s an added edge to songs like the…
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Chris Walz
All I Got and Gone
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,
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Nels Cline
Consentrik Quartet
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
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Charlie Musselwhite
Lookout Highway
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,
Jay McShann – Goin’ to Kansas City
The story of Jay “Hootie” McShann is legend. Born in 1916, he got his start as a youth tickling the ivories in the infamous wide-open Kansas City barrooms and ballrooms. His Jay McShann…
Roy Buchanan – The Best of the Millennium Collection
I don’t suppose there’s a whole lot more that can be said about Mr. Buchanan. And some might argue that we really didn’t need another collection. While it’s true the Sweet Dreams: Anthology…
Ron Thompson
Ron Thompson has been a fixture in the San Francisco blues scene for more than 40 years. But rather than gaining visibility and rocketing to stardom like, say, Robben Ford, he patiently paid…
Stéphane Wrembel
Djamming!
There’s plenty of Gypsy jazz guitarists who can play more notes at faster tempos than Django Reinhardt, but few can truly match the master in inventiveness, melody, and sheer swing. Stéphane Wrembel is…
Paul Brown
A lot of people paint the smooth jazz world with a broad brush that sometimes ignores the players who play with soul, intensity, and smartness. Paul Brown would be one such player. While…
Samantha Fish
Faster
Samantha Fish’s latest continues an artful trajectory combining pop and gritty blues; Faster seduces the listener as it showcases empowerment, self-reflection, and taking control of one’s destiny. Under the watchful eye of producer…
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Popa Chubby
I Love Freddie King
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,
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Rush
Rush 50
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
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Rik Emmett
Ten Telecaster Tales
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,
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Check This Action: Up Jumped Elmore
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
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Greg Koch
Blues
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,
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2025 December Issue on Spotify
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
Doug Sahm – San Antonio Rock
It’s no big secret that rock and roll lost one of its real deals when Doug Sahm passed away. His history was long and varied, and he hadn’t had a rock hit in…
Mary Weiss – Dangerous Game
“I always knew I would record again someday,” Weiss writes in the liner notes. But who knew it would take 40 years? In the mid ’60s, Weiss was lead singer of the Shangri-Las…
Lost Planet Airmen
Back from the Ozone
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen were true country-rock and Americana pioneers. Their unique, uncompromising brew of rockabilly, R&B, honky-tonk, Western swing, and Bakersfield twang set them apart and even yielded a…
Melvin Taylor and the Slack Band – Rendevous with the Blues
Rendevous with the Blues
This is Melvin’s fourth record for the Evidence label, and like the rest, it’s a showcase of his dazzling technique and deep soul. This guy is a treasure. Perhaps it’s because he’s hard…
Toy Matinee – Toy Matinee Special Edition
I love this album. I’ve loved it since the original version came out around 1990. Toy Matinee was the work of Patrick Leonard on keyboards, Kevin Gilbert on vocals and various instruments, and…
Justin Cody Fox
New Southern
North Carolina singer/songwriter Justin Cody Fox’s latest involves a ’61 Gibson SG and former Black Crowes guitarist Audley Freed. With Fox and Freed on guitars and sharing production duties with Tommy Brothers, New…
Tony Furtado
Funzalo Records
If you had picked up Golden without hearing one of Tony Furtado’s previous 14 albums, you’d never guess he was once a banjo prodigy. After winning the National Bluegrass Banjo competition at 19,…
California Breed
Big rock crooner/bassist Glenn Hughes has seen it all. From Trapeze and Deep Purple to Black Sabbath, his life is a compelling rock escapade filled with good drugs, great music, and over-the-top excesses.…
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,…
The Duhks – Fast Paced World
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…
Pinnick – Gales – Pridgen
Dug Pinnick, Eric Gales, and Thomas Pridgen have returned with the followup to last year’s Pinnick–Gales–Pridgen. That first album was fueled by superb musicians rising to the occasion to create inspired work in…
Henry Gross – One-Hit Wanderer
Henry Gross’ 2001 release, I’m Hearing Things, was one of the most pleasant musical surprises of the past 10 years. Now he’s back with a set of songs from a one-man show that…
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…
Guy King
Joy Is Coming
On his fifth solo album, King offers 10 originals – cool soul grooves peppered with tasty blues guitar. Israeli-born and Chicago-based, the 43-year-old earned his blues stripes during his six-year stint with the…
Robben Ford – In Concert Revisited
The premise of the Autour Du Blues DVD was to stage a transatlantic blues summit for the 25th anniversary of Paris’ New Morning club in December ’06, teaming the group of France’s studio…
Deep Purple
=1
Fifty-seven years after its debut, Deep Purple keeps on rollin’. The hard-rock pioneers’ 23rd studio album, =1, is the first with new guitarist Simon McBride, who replaced Steve Morse. To hone their chops,…
Live at the Fillmore East 1969
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
A veritable holy grail, this recording from CSNY’s first tour captures their harmonies in amber. Better, the integrity of the audio has been strenuously maintained, as guitarists Neil Young and Stephen Stills helped…
Howard Alden – Take Your Pick
Here’s a good-old-fashioned jazz guitar album from one of Concord’s young lions. Alden’s work always sounds great, whether he’s swinging with single-note runs (“The Gig”), playing chord solos (“I Concentrate on You”), or…
The Winston Brothers
Drift
Germany’s The Winston Brothers intercept, collate, codify, regurgitate, and return the sound of late-’60s instrumental funk to the country from which it spawned. The band’s first full-length LP, Drift, is a time machine…
Swervedriver
The shoegaze revival is peaking, so what better time for one of its leading lights to hop on the wagon while the hopping is hot, right? Not so fast. Swervedriver reunited seven years…
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…
Joseph Spence
Encore
Big Bill Broonzy
Ambassador Of The Blues