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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
Dwight Yoakam
Brighter Days
Nearly 40 years ago, as audiences wearied of frothy ’80s country-pop, Dwight Yoakam was in the vanguard of country’s New Traditional movement. His stripped-down spin on the twang-driven Bakersfield sound of the ’60s…
Gil Parris – Gil Parris and Friends Live
We’ve discussed Gil’s playing in these pages several times, and this DVD reinforces that use of ink. Shot at the Irvington Town Hall Theater in Irvington, New York, it’s obvious Parris is among…
Pops Staples
Roebuck “Pops” Staples learned his chops at the elbows of Son House and Robert Johnson. When he passed away in 2000, American culture lost perhaps the last direct link to rock and roll’s…
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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,
Rick Derringer – Guitars and Women
I was quite enamored in the ’70s with Derringer’s All-American Boy. It was a heady mixture of all the kinds of music I liked. For some reason, I thought most of the stuff…
Ed DeGenaro – Dog House
Ed DeGenaro is a Seattle-based session cat and bonafide guitar monster with great ideas and chops. His music is a fusion of musical styles and influences that often intermingle within the same composition.…
Barney Kessel with Shelly Manne & Ray Brown
The Poll Winners
Kessel, bassist Brown, and drummer Manne – pillars of West Coast jazz – had already topped reader polls in Playboy and two jazz publications before teaming for this 1957 collaboration. Using the rarely-employed…
Lost Planet Airmen
Back from the Ozone
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen were true country-rock and Americana pioneers. Their unique, uncompromising brew of rockabilly, R&B, honky-tonk, Western swing, and Bakersfield twang set them apart and even yielded a…
Newport Folk Festival – Best of Bluegrass 1959-1966
Before Farm Aid, Telluride, or even Woodstock, there was the Newport Folk Festival. Begun in the late ’50s, this yearly gathering molded and defined a generation’s tastes in music. It was the all-star…
George Clinton
Let’s get it out of the way. That title… one of the best in recent memory. Then again, what else should we expect from the man who arrived in the Mothership to bestow…
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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
Andy Timmons
Electric Truth
Is there life after success in a glam-metal band? Many guitarists were asking themselves that question after the scene fizzled in the ’90s. Most blamed grunge. Danger Danger’s Andy Timmons never had to…
Toronzo Cannon
Mo' Better Blues
You can’t take anything away from Toronzo Cannon. He’s toiled non-stop on the super-competitive Chicago blues circuit, sharing the stage with some of the greatest musicians in the genre. He’s taken his lumps,…
Drew Zingg
Best known for stints with Steely Dan, Donald Fagen’s New York Rock and Soul Revue, and Boz Scaggs, Drew Zingg is a complete guitarist. And he has gone a unique route with this…
Van Morrison
Wild Nights
In the history of live recordings, there are a handful widely considered to be all-time classics: B.B. King’s Live at the Regal is one, James Brown’s Live at the Apollo 1962 is another.…
Pink Floyd in North America 1966-1983
Glenn Povey
David Gilmour playing a rare Stratocaster doubleneck? You’ll see that 1972 photo and others in this reference book documenting Floyd’s many North American tours (FYI, one Strat neck was set up for slide).…
Roy Buchanan – The Best of the Millennium Collection
I don’t suppose there’s a whole lot more that can be said about Mr. Buchanan. And some might argue that we really didn’t need another collection. While it’s true the Sweet Dreams: Anthology…
David Bowie
Reinventing Bowie
Shedding his Ziggy Stardust glam persona, David Bowie took a hard turn in the mid ’70s and embraced European minimalism and electronica, covered here across nine CDs. The resulting “Berlin Trilogy” of Heroes,…
B.B. King & Friends – 80
B.B. King & Friends – 80 To mark his 80th birthday, the King of the Blues has cut an album of duets with friends old and new. The gimmick is nothing new, but…
Joe Pass
As Concord Music continues its Original Jazz Classics Remasters, we get three records recorded for Pablo Records from the ’70s that feature Joe Pass on guitar. He’s normally remembered for the solo work…
Johnny Winter – Deluxe Edition
When you think about it, Johnny Winter has had quite a career. And here, from Alligator Records, just to let you know it continues strong, is a set of cuts from his stint…
Luther Allison – Underground
When Luther Allison died in 1997, he was 57 years old – and just hitting his stride. Allison grew up in Mississippi and Chicago, playing the blues with many of the greats. He…
David Michael Miller
This makes it two in a row for David Michael Miller. His Poisons Sipped was one of last year’s surprise albums, introducing us to a songwriter, guitarist, and singer who is the whole…
Jake Andrews
In The Shadows
Twenty-three years ago, a guitarist who shall remain nameless was booked to play SXSW only to discover his slot was right after Jake Andrews, better known as 13-year-old “Guitar Jake” at the time.…
Check This Action: Back Aboard
Despite (or because of) the huge Folk Boom of the late ’50s and early ’60s, these days “folk” is almost a dirty word in some circles. It’s replaced with “singer/songwriter,” as if that’s…
James Burton, Albert Lee,Amos Garrett, David Wilcox
Recorded live in 2013, this album is exactly what you’d think given the players: an onslaught of guitar playing that would make even the most cynical music fan smile. All four players are…
Sweet
Self-distributed
Sweet – the ’70s glam-pop act that’s almost as famous for its hairdos as its music – is today actually two bands touring under the name. The U.S. version that recorded this disc…
Mike + Ruthy
Humble Abode Music
Michael Merenda and Ruth Ungar formed The Mammals early this decade, and in 2008 put the band on hiatus so members could pursue other projects. For Michael and Ruth, that side project is…
Steve Gunn
Drawing inspiration from a decade on the road, guitarist-singer-songwriter Steve Gunn’s debut for Matador Records chugs along like a handsome old train, ending up in a spot perhaps best described as an Americana…
Antiseen
Antiseen celebrates 30 years of raw, southern punk-and-roll with their latest CD. It’s an impressive milestone for any band, much less a rag-tag group of fringe-dwellers. Is that part of the reason New…
Paul Priest – The Keeley Effect
The title references the “impact” of the guitar effects pedals made by Robert Keeley in making the album. That’s all fine and good, but more important is the fine music, propelled by the…
Bobby Broom – Song and Dance
When he was 25, Bobby Broom was picked by jazz legend Kenny Burrell to be part of his Jazz Guitar Band, whose stint at New York’s Village Vanguard resulted in two albums. By…
