• 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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Nickel Creek – Nickel Creek

Nickel Creek is a of (primarily) musical whiz kids. Three of its four members are under 23. Two are siblings, Sara Watkins (19) on fiddle and vocals, and Sean Watkins (22) on guitar,…

The Time Jumpers

Time Machine

The Time Jumpers formed in ’98 as a lark for a group of A-list Nashville sidemen who loved Western swing. Eighteen years later, they’ve become a local institution, energetically presenting the vintage music…

Arlen Roth – Tooling Around Woodstock

Roth’s “Hot Licks” instructional series has helped many a player. But he’s criminally overlooked to the general public. Toolin’ Around puts him in the limelight with wonderful songs that exhibit his mastery. Most…

Tommy Castro – Soul Shaker

It’s time to give Tommy Castro his due. And with this new record, he might actually get it. For years, he has played the blues circuit, doing his thing – singing about as…

Jackson County Line

Self-distributed

Led by acoustic guitarist/singer/ songwriter Kevin Jackson, Jackson County Line has a California countrysoul with elements of War and Santana and plenty of Buffalo Springfield with an emphasis on Neil Young. “Easy To…

Joshua Hedley

Neon Blue

Country tradition remains the center of Joshua Hedley’s universe. His 2018 debut, Mr. Jukebox, reflected his mastery of the ’50s and ’60s honky-tonk of Ray Price, George Jones, Merle Haggard, and Faron Young,…

Jamey Johnson

Like earlier country outlaws, Jamey Johnson forges his own paths while never forgetting his forebears. One is singer-composer Hank Cochran, who died in 2010. A giant among Nashville writers, Cochran wrote many tunes…

Eric Gales – That’s What I Am

What happens when guitar prodigies grow up? They lapse into mediocrity, like everyone else. But not Eric Gales. After being signed by Elektra records at the tender age of 15, completing two LPs…

The Routes

Mesmerised

Color the Routes’ mastermind Chris Jack’s music how you like: vintage-y, psychedelia, joyfully and unapologetically garage. But be sure to color it outside the lines. Jack is a musical mad scientist. Each release…

Ian Date & Robin Nolan – Go Ahead

Take an Aussie living in Ireland and a Londoner living in Amsterdam, stick them in a studio, and what do you get? Gypsy swing, of course. Date, the ex-Aussie, has played with George…

Nathan East

Nathan East’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing in 40 years. Offered gigs with Quincy Jones, Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, and Daft Punk, he’s crisscrossed genres from pop to jazz. His smooth yet percolating…

Lucinda Williams

Ghost Stories

From Bobby Troup’s “(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66” to Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited” and more, the roads we’ve traveled have inspired our music. Enter U.S. Highway 20, stretching 1,500 miles across…

Long Train Runnin’: Our Story of the Doobie Brothers

Tom Johnston, Pat Simmons, Chris Epting

For 50 years, the Doobie Brothers’ feel-good hits have been radio staples. In these pages, vocalists/guitarists Tom Johnston and Pat Simmons share memories and insights such as how the much-hyped psychedelic band Moby…

Gregg Wright

Big Dawg Barkin’

Gregg Wright’s pandemic-fueled album displays the pent-up intensity of a virtuoso guitarist unleashed – the former Jacksons’ guitarist and bluesman comes fully loaded with pyrotechnics and sweet runs galore. Tempered by ’70s tours…

Buzzcocks

Late For The Train: Live & In Session (1989-2010)

On the punk-rock timeline, some bands haven’t quite received their just acknowledgment. Two Australian bands, The Saints and Radio Birdman, come to mind, as do groups like Flamin’ Groovies and Dr. Feelgood, which…

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble

The Good, The Bad, and The Troubling

One of the greatest blues guitarists of any era, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s recorded output with his band, Double Trouble, consisted of only five albums (four studio, one live) during his lifetime. And though…

Florence Dore – Perfect City

Like her stablemates, the Star Room Boys, Florence Dore creates songs with a visceral organic link to traditional American music. Perfect City, Dore’s first release, displays the sort of literary verve you might…

Check This Action: Kathy Valentine: HoF Bassist

In the highly recommended documentary, 2020’s The Go-Go’s, Police drummer Stewart Copeland is incredulous to learn that the band had yet to be inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “What…

Pat Metheny – Metheny with Mehldau

Guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Brad Mehldau need little introduction, thus the near-cryptic titling of this new duet collection of jazz originals. The meeting of minds here brings back memories of guitarist Jim…

Black Sabbath

Live Evil 40th Anniversary

Four decades on, Ronnie James Dio’s stint in Black Sabbath is revered almost as much as the Ozzy epoch. This was their last Sab album before Dio went solo; now there’s a 2023…

Freddie King

Getting Ready/Texas Cannonball/Woman Across the River

A three-in-one reissue, this Freddie King package encompasses the LPs he recorded for Leon Russell’s Shelter label from 1971 to ’73. On Getting Ready, King dodges sugary arrangements to deliver smoldering licks on…

The Creation

Biff Bang Pow!

Hard as it seems to imagine, there are U.K. bands of the ’60s who’ve remained obscure and unsung despite increasingly enthusiastic digging into that era. Case in point: the Creation. Contemporaries of the…

Sir Clive and the Raging Cartographers – Guitar Safari

An aptly titled collection of songs, if any guitarist was indeed hunting guitar sounds and styles, finding something like this would indeed make for a successful safari. Composed, played, and recorded by VG…

Jo Buddy – Whole Lotta Things

Finnish guitarist/vocalist Jussi “Jo’ Buddy” Raulamo has garnered praise from such kindred blues spirits as Junior Watson, Kim Wilson, Doug McLeod, and Rick Holmstrom, and it’s easy to see why. His blues is…

Eric Clapton

If you read Eric Clapton’s recent autobiography, you know he is very content with his life and were he stands musically. This album conveys that same feeling – laid-back and intimate – though…

Billy Strings

Me/and/Dad

Grammy-winning flatpicking wizard Billy Strings was everywhere in 2022. Rightly seen as part of the vanguard of a new generation of Appalachian-inspired players rooted in the sounds of Doc Watson, Tony Rice, Clarence…

Richie Hart – Blues In the Alley

It’s become obvious to me that a certain style of jazz guitar will never go out of style. Blues-based jazz nuts who can really swing like Wes Montgomery and Grant Green will be…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

Gary Clark Jr.

Postmodern Soul

If listeners haven’t figured out that Gary Clark Jr. is more than a blues revivalist, his second full-length studio album should provide a cold hard slap of reality. This disc shows fans –…

Marah – If You Didn’t Laugh… You’d Cry

Marah – If You Didn’t Laugh… You’d Cry The kids from Philly – Marah brothers Dave and Serge Bielanko – have left home for the big town, New York. And their new city…

Robben Ford – Soul On Ten

Back to the Juice

Robben Ford’s last live album included only acoustic guitar. So, given that eight of the 10 cuts on this new disc feature Ford cutting loose on electric and his choice of material is…