• 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 Replacements – Tim, Pleased To Meet Me, Don’t Tell A Soul, All Shook Down

The final four Replacements LPs are back in deluxe style, thanks to Rhino. Accompanying the label’s re-release of the band’s first four albums and EPs earlier this year, the band has finally been…

Willie Nelson

Rounder Records

Willie Nelson’s strongest effort in some time, this disc was produced by T-Bone Burnett, who helped Nelson choose songs that work incredibly well in part because they’re simply great  -“Man With the Blues,”…

Snarky Puppy

Empire Central

The latest from the Texas-based 19-piece jazz-funk orchestra pays homage to the city of Dallas. Recorded live in front of a studio audience, Empire Central was captured over eight days and delivers 16…

Eric Johnson and Mike Stern

Two iconic players joining forces can soar or falter depending on material, the players’ adaptability, the number of guest performers, and many other factors. Eric Johnson and Mike Stern certainly arrived at the…

Howard Roberts – Various Albums

Mention “the ’60s,” and the sounds that invariably spring to mind (along with images of the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement, and the moon landing) are psychedelia and the British Invasion –…

Jellyroll – Hep Cats Holiday

Jump blues are like licorice: if you like it, you can’t get enough. Jellyroll satisfies the craving with a cool selection of 12 classic tunes, from “Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t…

Jimi Hendrix – Voodoo Child: The Jimi Hendrix Collection

Voodoo Child: The Jimi Hendrix Collection

The latest release from Experience Hendrix, Voodoo Child: The Jimi Hendrix Collection, is a two-CD set of the master at work. In his four-year career as a celebrity, Hendrix produced only three studio…

Rush

Grab your hankies, Rush fans – this DVD doc captures moments from the trio’s R40 farewell tour, along with reminiscences on their four-decade career. There are interviews with Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee, and…

Mark Chesnutt

Saguaro Road

In the ’90s, Mark Chesnutt had a string of 21 Top 10 singles, eight of them topping Billboard’s country chart. He played George Jones (hailing from the Possum’s hometown of Beaumont, Texas) on…

Tommy McLain

I Ran Down Every Dream

Louisiana is all about food and music, sporting New Orleans jazz, zydeco, and Cajun music. But another indigenous style combines R&B, country, and rock and roll. It’s called swamp pop, and Tommy McLain…

Swississippi Chris Harp

Swississippi Records

It’s not often the man who starts a record label is featured on one of its first releases, but that’s the case with Chris Harper. And when you’re backed by players like Jimmy…

John Mellencamp – Freedom’s Road

This release was surrounded by a scary amount of hype. And the Chevy commercials on TV that forced “Our Country” down our throats seemed a harbinger of bad things. Mellencamp, of course, can…

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…

Justin Johnsoné

The Biscuit House

His online videos are hard to cruise past. There’s his wide stylistic range, but also the guitars he built out of cigar boxes, whiskey barrels, and shovels. It amounts to a cottage industry…

Creedence Clearwater Revival

At The Royal Albert Hall

Stop the presses! New CCR is big news, and for one big reason – rarity. Beyond the band’s seven studio albums from 1968 to ’72, and three previous live albums, there’s nothing else…

Joe Pass – The Best of Joe Pass

Here’s a set of music from the early ’60s from the brilliant Joe Pass. It starts with some tunes recorded with fellow musicians from the drug rehab center Synanon House and carries through…

Sam Phillips – Fan Dance

Fan Dance

Sam Phillips has reinvented herself. Her big star pop persona is gone, replaced by a starkly gothic singer/songwriter with an album that screams to be heard. Phillips has moved from Virgin Records and…

Thin Lizzy

The Acoustic Sessions

Thin Lizzy’s first studio release in decades, this album reimagines tracks recorded 50+ years ago by the trio of vocalist/bassist Phil Lynott, guitarist Eric Bell, and drummer Brian Downey. The songs are from…

The Del McCoury Band – Del and the Boys

Anyone who thinks bluegrass music is just about doing songs performed by dead guys – but doing 'em faster, hasn't heard the Del McCoury band. Their latest album on Ricky Skaggs' Celli Music…

Blues Unseen But Thriving

This is a fascinating, albeit incomplete, documentary about a segment of the blues seldom seen by devotees, let alone lay people. Director Daniel Cross uses Bobby Rush as his focal point and ad…

Alex Woodard – Alex Woodard

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…

Tom Walsh and John King

C.F. Martin’s ukuleles have long been the standard by which all others were judged. Though bookcases brim with books about Martin guitars, the merest mention of the company’s extraordinary ukes has been largely…

Various artists – Henry Mancini: Pink Guitar

Here’s a capital idea executed brilliantly: 13 inventive acoustic guitar arrangements of Mancini classics – 12 solo and one bonus duet – by a dozen top-flight pickers. Even though this already won the…

Greg V – Tailgate Troubadour

Greg V has played and toured with acts like Double Trouble and Buddy Miles. But that won’t prepare you for this album of instrumentals that contains more tasty, atmospheric guitars than you’re likely…

Walter Trout and the Radicals – Relentless

Relentless

I’ve always put Walter Trout in with a batch of players who exist out there who just go out and play blazing blues-rock with great intensity, and have a small following that adores…

Lee Roy Parnell- Midnight Believer

Remember the days when Lee Roy Parnell was seen as a country artist? His last album – 11 years ago! – was a blues-based affair. This latest puts him squarely in the corner…

Strange Angels: In Flight With Elmore James

Dusting Off Elmo

In an essay for Guitar Player magazine in 1977, Frank Zappa said of Elmore James, “Even though Elmore tended to play the same famous lick on every record, I got the feeling that…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

La Guitara – Gender Bending Strings Anthology of Women Guitaris

When I was young and someone said “You play like a chick guitar player,” they’d be either smiling or ducking. After hearing this anthology, it could only be construed as a compliment. Produced…

Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard

Whatever’s changed in the 32 years since their duet album Pancho & Lefty, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard continue to share vast musical common ground. The proof lies in this blend of new…

Check This Action: Everybody Gone Surfing?

My favorite quote about the demise of surf music is not the oft-repeated Hendrix line in “Third Stone From The Sun” (“And you’ll never hear surf music again”); it came at the 2018…