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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
Bruce Forman
Reunion! With John Clayton and Jeff Hamilton
Bruce Forman had a simple concept in honoring the four 1957-’60 Poll Winners LPs that teamed Barney Kessel, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Shelly Manne to celebrate their wins in various jazz magazine…
Bad Company
Thanks to advances in audio tweaking, studio engineers can now take 40-year-old concert tapes and make them sound thrilling. Case in point, Bad Company’s first-ever live album, culled from a few late ’70s…
Della Mae
Self-distributed
The women of Della Mae kick off their latest with a version of the traditional “Bowling Green” followed by Lester Flatt’s “Head Over Heels,” firmly establishing their commitment to bluegrass and eliminating any…
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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,
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…
Sacred Steel Convention (various artists) – Train Don’t Leave Me
When Arhoolie Records’ Chris Strachwitz stumbled onto Mance Lipscomb, the amazing 65-year-old Texas bluesman and songster who had never recorded, in 1960, it was a bit like an anthropologist coming across a saber-toothed…
Born in Chicago
Various artists
Tweaked and re-cut, this documentary charts the rise of America’s greatest urban blues and its gradual adaptation into rock. There are photos, interviews, and even footage of Maxwell Street, where bluesmen would perform…
Terry Callier – Timepeace
They don’t make many albums like this anymore, and that’s unfortunate. A heady mix of soul, R&B, jazz, and everything in-between, it’s the kind of thing you’d run into often in the late…
Jack Bruce – Can You Follow
Esoteric Recordings
Jack Bruce may be best known as one third of Cream. A brilliant and prolific composer who dabbled in jazz, rock, folk, and world music, Bruce was more known for his busy approach…
Vinnie Moore
Double Exposure
Neoclassical shredder Vinnie Moore’s latest features vocals for the first time. Double Exposure is a heavy-rock record saturated with funky overtones and a high degree of guitarmanship. Joined by vocalists Keith Slack, Ed…
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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
George Van Eps and Marty Grosz Meets the Fat Babies
Great Acoustic Jazz
Marty Grosz is surely one of the last of a breed – a jazz guitarist who plays strictly rhythm and chord-style solos and strictly acoustic. He’s also a fine singer and scholar of…
R.L. Burnside – Well… Well… Well
If you’ve ever heard R.L. Burnside play, you’ll know the significance of this album’s title; “Well… well… well” is one of his pet phrases, a constant punctuation to his conversation. Burnside is a…
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.…
California Guitar Trio
The CGT has been making music for 25 years and is celebrating with this wonderful, back-to-basics recording. Guitarists Paul Richards, Bert Lams, and Hideyo Moriya cut the record au natural with no effects…
Jeff Barone – Open Up
What happens when a classical guitar player goes jazz? If it’s Jeff Barone, the answer is he brings a classical sensibility to the jazz and creates one of the most listenable and accessible…
Alison Brown Quartet – Replay
Replay
Acoustic jazz is one of those “difficult” musical categories that doesn’t get much attention. Most jazz fans won’t take seriously anything that lacks a horn, while folkies are intimidated by music where they…
Rolling Stones
Tattoo You 40th Anniversary
The last consequential Stones album, 1981’s Tattoo You wasn’t technically a new recording. While the band rehearsed for a U.S. tour, co-producer Chris Kimsey discovered semi-finished studio material going back as far as 1972,…
The Sandro Albert Quartet
Daywood Drive Records
Played well, guitars and f lutes make an excellent combination. Such is the case in Sandro Albert’s quartet. Albert is a gifted guitarist whose soloing swings, and his knowledge of the harmonic structure…
Jeffrey P. Ross – My Pleasure
My Pleasure
You gotta love this kind of record. Ross has been around awhile, and probably isn’t real well-known to most folks. And it’s a blues album (for the most part anyway) from a guy…
C’mon Sheryl Crow – America 2003(DVD), Best of (CD)
The latest releases from Sheryl Crow help affirm something I’ve thought for a long time… that she is a “keeper of the flame” for the kind of rock and roll a lot of…
Popa Chubby – Stealing the Devil’s Guitar
Good ol’ Popa Chubby – a.k.a. Ted Horowitz – keeps chuggin’ along and making solid records, especially when it comes to guitarslinging. A couple of tunes here seem like mere excuses to jam…
Rob Blaine
The liner notes for this are on-target when they say Rob Blaine yanks “big chunks” of music from his guitar. But that’s not the whole story. Yes, he can channel Freddie King, Jimi…
Frank Zappa – The Freak-Out List
Sexy Intellectual/MVD
Duke Robillard – A Swing Lesson with Duke Robillard
Duke continues his impressive output with a nod to his swing roots. Among guitarists, Robillard is known as a do-all, as he can be at home in almost any musical style, not only…
GA-20
Live in Loveland
Visceral, raw – and without bass – this live album captures 11 oldies and originals from Plaid Room Records in Loveland, Ohio. Guitarists Pat Faherty and Matthew Stubbs, with drummer Tim Carman, take…
Tom Feldmann And Noah Levy
Brothers in the Mud
Spoiler alert: While it’s early in the year, this album is already a shoe-in as one of the best blues offerings of 2021. Tom Feldmann should need little introduction here, as VG called…
Rodney Jones – Soul Manifesto
Okay, it’s not like Rodney Jones doesn’t have the pedigree. He spent lots of time on the road with Maceo Parker, so it’s not like funk would be foreign to him. But on…
Chip Lamason – All Young
Celtic music is a surefire melodic bromide for those who’ve grown tired of mainstream musical fare. Undulating melodic lines and complicated musical textures define the genre, which at times sounds Middle Eastern because…
Rockabilly Rarities – Volume Two
Rockabilly Rarities Volume Two picks up where Volume One (“Spotlight,” June ’99) left off and features 30 tracks of rockin’, shakin’, foot-stompin’ music. Great/obscure labels like Bakers-field, Sure, Rebel, Cherry, Jan, Fox, Testa,…
The Coal Men
The Coal Men – guitarist Dave Coleman and drummer Dave Ray – boast a cowboy romanticism that comes alive on their fourth album, Escalator. Coleman wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on…
Justin Currie – The Great War
Rykodisc
Justin Currie was bassist, lead singer, primary songwriter, and co-founder of the Scottish band Del Amitri, which didn’t make much of a splash outside their native U.K. circa 1980 because they simply came…
Robben Ford – Keep On Running
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…
The Teskey Brothers
Live at the Forum