• Popa Chubby

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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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Paul Asbell

On Chicago’s south side, Paul Asbell recorded and played with Howlin’ Wolf, Lightning Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, and other legendary greats, including holding down the rhythm guitar chair for the studio side of…

Amy Black

If Will Kimbrough’s name does not come up the next time you’re discussing great guitar players, then you ain’t saying nothin’. Kimbrough is always on the money whether putting a delicately strong acoustic…

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…

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…

Joecephus & the George Jonestown Massacre

Heirs of the Dog: A Tribute to Nazareth

Nazareth rarely gets credit as an influential hard-rock band, though original guitarist Manny Charlton laid down killer riffs. This tribute features the loose collective Joecephus & the George Jonestown Massacre – led by…

Celeste Krenz – My Mother & Me

Celeste Krenz has never shied from writing intimate songs, and here she explores the relationship between herself and her mother, Jean, by having her co-write most of the 12 songs; armed with a…

Faces – Five Guys Walk Into A Bar…

I ran into a guitarist and fellow Faces fan recently and mentioned the new boxed set, and he marveled, “Isn’t Woody amazing on there?” I agreed. But if I’d run into a bassist,…

Bob Dunn

Origin Jazz Library

Bob Dunn was the amplified steel guitar’s first stylist. More than 75 years after his first appearances on record, Dunn still amazes those who have never heard early music on electric-steel guitar. This…

Jim Hall – Storyteller

Storyteller

I guess a review of this could just say “He’s the master,” and leave it at that. But that wouldn’t be fair to you, the reader, or the publishers of VG, who wouldn’t…

Johnny Bush – Kashmere Gardens Mud

Johnny Bush is a true Texas original and one of the best living examples of real honky-tonk music. Looking back on all aspects of his 50-year career, he cut much of Kashmere Gardens,…

Joe Louis Walker – Pasa Tiempo

Pasa Tiempo

Joe Louis Walker has long been one of the best-kept secrets of the blues. That might be a fine thing for blues fans, but for a musician, being a secret is not where…

J.J. Grey & Mofo – Orange Blossoms

JJ Grey continues a long line of singer/songwriters who grew up in the South and soaked up everything that makes music from that region so unique. On his second effort for Alligator, Grey…

Nancy Wilson

You and Me

The Heart legend has finally made her first solo album. Armed with a ’63 Telecaster for rhythm, signature Martin HD-35, and Gibson mandolin, Wilson mostly recorded in her home studio, working remotely with…

Sam Baker – Pretty World

It’s hard to classify Austin’s Sam Baker as a singer/songwriter. Not because his songs are well-written – they’re often brilliant, invariably memorable. But Baker’s raspy, barking delivery barely qualifies as singing. It may…

Muireann Bradley

I Kept These Old Blue

If you conveyed the soul of a 1930s bluesman into an Irish teenager, you might have Muireann Bradley, who is both a delight and a true phenomenon. Recorded over the past few years,…

Dwight Twilley

Big Oak Records

Dwight Twilley writes perfect power pop songs with hints of the Beatles and other ’60s rock bands. He also has a knack for writing lyrical hooks – try to sing his ’70s hit…

999

A Punk Rock Anthology 1977-2020

When it comes to first-wave U.K. punk, the canon favors a handful of bands while paying cursory attention to worthy contemporaries. Take 999. As this compilation proves, the quartet was the sonic equal…

Dave Specter – Live In Chicago

For some time, Dave Specter has made great music that covers a broad spectrum of genres. Known as a blues guitarist, he has never shied from jazz or soul, and this live record…

Creedence Clearwater Revival – Boxed Set

This arrived just in time for me to program “Graveyard Train” to play over and over on Halloween, scaring (or at least bewildering) unsuspecting trick-or-treaters, wondering, “What’s with that old coot handing out…

Chet Atkins – Me and My Guitars

Chet Atkins has a deserved reputation as a great gui-tar player and all-around nice guy. So it’s a pleasure to see a book that is part biography and part history of his personal…

Buddy Guy

Silvertone

As he did on Guy’s Skin Deep, drummer/producer Tom Hambridge co-wrote all but one song, with Guy or Gary Nicholson; he penned the title track by himself. But whereas the 2008 effort called…

John McLaughlin

Live At Ronnie Scott’s

Johnny Nicholas

Moon And The Stars: A Tribute to Moon Mullican

Molly Miller

St. George

Nate Najar

This Is Nate Najar

Allman Brothers Band – Live at the Atlanta International Pop Festival Jul

I’ve had the argument many times that the original version of the Allman Brothers Band was the best blues-rock band in the history of rock. Many insist it’s Led Zeppelin. Others have their…

Mike Baggetta/Jim Keltner/Mike Watt

Everywhen We Go

Guitarist Mike Baggetta teams up with renowned rock drummer Jim Keltner (Harrison, Dylan, Frisell) and equally legendary punk bassman Mike Watt (Minutemen, Stooges) for the trio’s second album. As one might expect given…

Dave Hole – Outside Looking In

Dave Hole’s new album is a firebreathing slide extravaganza. Armed with a ’72 Gibson ES-345, Hole returns to his fat, bluesy guitar tone. Backed by bass, keyboards and drums, Hole sings lead on…

Pete Levin – Deacon Blues

Levin is a keyboard specialist who for the past few decades has played with the best in the business, including Paul Simon, Miles Davis, John Scofield, Robbie Robertson, David Sanborn, and plenty of…

Jody Williams – Return of a Legend

Return of a Legend

Rarely has an album been more aptly named. Williams was one of the key Chicago sessionmen in the ’50s and ’60s, the musically sophisticated guitarist who added the licks and solos to Chess,…

Croy and the Boys

There’s something about the Telecaster – as well as its forerunners and inspired imitators – that attracts musicians whose music then reflects the guitar’s straightforward character. It’s a guitar that speaks to players…

Nels Cline

Lovers

Nels Cline has quite the musical resumé, and yet has always been hard to pin down. Whether doing some form of fusion, manning the lead-guitar chair in Wilco, or serving up dissonance and…

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…

The Band

50th Anniversary

Released in 1971, Cahoots wasn’t a major hit, but it reaffirmed The Band’s songwriting prowess and gifted vocalists, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, and Richard Manuel. Fifty years later, guitarist Robbie Robertson asked legendary…


Paul Reed Smith

Lions Roaring in Quicksand

Tim Mahoney

Self-distributed