• 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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Pat Martino – Remember: A Tribute to Wes Montgomery

Pat Martino – Remember: A Tribute to Wes Montgomery This is not the first time legendary guitarist Martino has paid tribute to the man credited with driving jazz guitar to its current heights.…

Dale Watson and his Lonestars

On Sundays, when he’s not on the road, Dale Watson and his band play the Texas Big T Roadhouse and host their Chicken S#!t Bingo game. This record captures the fun. It showcases…

Janis Ian – Hunger

An album just short of brilliant from a name I had’t heard in awhile. Killer songs, great delivery, and amazing use of an acoustic guitar. Highly recommended. This review originally appeared in VG‘s…

Johnny Winter And

Collectors’ Choice Music Live

If a 22-minute slow blues strikes you as self-indulgent (which there’s no denying it is 90 percent of the time), you have to transport yourself back to the dawn of the Guitar Hero,…

Shannon McNally and Hot Sauce

Self-distributed

Shannon McNally still prefers to write narratives that favor punch lines over actual choruses or refrains, but on Coldwater, her songwriting is tighter and more disciplined than ever. Lyrically (“Lonesome, Ornery And Mean”)…

Sons of Adam

Saturday’s Sons: The Complete Recordings, 1964-1966

Whatever claim to fame the Sons of Adam have is thanks to guitarist Randy Holden, who later joined Blue Cheer (replacing Leigh Stephens) after a stop with the under-recorded Other Half. The Sons…

Montrose

I Got the Fire: Complete Recordings 1973-1976

This six-CD box set compiles the groundbreaking recordings – four studio albums, demos, live radio sessions, and more – by visionary guitarist Ronnie Montrose’s band, which influenced everyone from Van Halen to Iron…

Todd Snider – Peace, Love, Anarchy

Todd Snider is one of the finest songwriters to come down the pike in the past 15 years, and this set offers a chance to look at the writer as his songs develop.…

SRV – Box Set

With every boxed retrospective that hits the changer, I’m reminded of the words of my old friend, Cub Koda. Quote: “All compilations suck except the ones you compile yourself” (an image of Roger…

Judas Priest and Deep Purple

Metal-Morphosis

This 30th-anniversary reissue of Judas Priest’s 1986 album is above average, but not for the reason you might think. Turbo itself was slick ’80s metal, festooned with guitar synthesizers and that ubiquitous “gated”…

JD McPherson

On A Roll

JD McPherson was a middle-school teacher in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, with a rock and roll band on the side. Then he lost his job and decided to make a record. He cut Signs…

Chuck Berry: An American LifE

R.J. Smith

In this probing biography, R.J. Smith writes, “Chuck Berry was an African-American astronaut on an extended solo flight to violate established practices in business, culture, social mores, and laws.” Berry, who published his…

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Sweetheart Of The Rodeo – Live!

Roger McGuinn & Chris Hillman with Marty Stuart

A premier folk-rock band morphing into psychedelia in the mid ’60s, the Byrds pioneered country-rock with 1968’s Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Personnel upheavals had seen David Crosby fired, Gene Clark going solo, and…

The Grateful Dead

Every true Deadhead had the bootleg tape: a cassette too many generations removed from the original recording, notated innocently enough as “Kesey’s Ranch ’72.” That show – played as a benefit for author…

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.…

Grateful Dead

Road Trips, Vol. 1 No.4: From Egypt With Love

In 1978, the Dead played a series of shows at a venue many Deadheads swear was just built for the band – The Great Pyramid of Giza. Still high from the shows, the…

Dustin Hofsess

After years of performing in myriad musical arrangements, Dustin Hofsess debuts his first solo album, offering a window into the mind of a very talented guitarist. With an assist from keyboardist Lovell Bradford,…

Mike Stern

Echoes and Other Songs

Mike Stern’s smokin’ new album is the last with longtime keyboardist and producer Jim Beard (Steely Dan), who died in March. Thus, Echoes becomes the capstone to a near-40-year collaboration. Then there’s the…

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble – Live At Montreux 1982 & 1985

By now, every guitar fan worth his salt knows the story behind these two concerts by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble at the legendary Montreux Jazz Festival. Appearing in 1982, the boys…

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…

Cadillac Sky – Gravity’s Our Enemy

Though they call their music “outlaw acoustic” and they include Radiohead and Gnarles Barkley along with Earl Scruggs and Alison Krauss as inspirations, Cadillac Sky’s music is far closer to roots bluegrass than…

Sons Of Apollo

Psychotic Symphony

As eyes roll at the thought of yet another project album by virtuosos on a break from touring, one can’t help but be curious about Sons Of Apollo. Keyboardist Derek Sherinian (Planet X,…

Rick Nelson – Legacy

Rick Nelson was blessed in many ways, but some of those blessings also could be a curse. I’m talking about his great looks and his luck of having a national showcase in television…

Love – Out Here, False Start

Some consider these albums minor releases in the Love canon. But neither might have been considered so if the magnificent Forever Changes hadn’t set the bar so high. While they may not meet…

Pink Floyd

Have You Got It Yet? – The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd

It’s understandable that fans warily approach the flood of pseudo-documentaries and biopics. Add the fact that the late Syd Barrett, Floyd’s original guitarist/leader, suffered from mental illness, and exploitation alarms are sure to…

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…

Joan Osborne

Songs Of Bob Dylan

Osborne could sing a dictionary and make it sound good, and though she’s written much of her best material, she’s proven to be a stellar interpreter – be it Motown, blues, Americana, or…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

Eric Krasno

Funk Soul Brother

Smart guitar players discover early on that if they want to control their musical destiny, it doesn’t hurt to learn how to sing. Even at the subterranean depths of the neighborhood blues jam…

Too Slim and the Taildraggers

Too Slim is Tim Langford and he’s been around a while now, playing roots rock and displaying grit, taste, and great chops through his entire discography. Backed by bassist Jeff “Shakey” Fowlkes and…

Junior Wells & the Aces

Delmark

Junior Wells released enough mediocre product in his lifetime that it’s easy to forget what a great stylist and showman the Chicago bluesman was. This hour-plus live set, recorded at Club 47 in…