• 2025 December Issue on Spotify

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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

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Nick Lowe – Quiet Please

At Any Age

  Like his longtime associate (as both producer and producee) Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe may have come onto the scene via punk rock, but soon proved he was much more. In hindsight, Costello’s…

Lee Ritenour

In honor of his 40th year of recording, Lee Ritenour blended a bit of new material with journeys in time, revisiting tunes he’d recorded starting with First Course, his 1975 debut. He kicks…

SRV Behind The Scenes

Four Years In Pictures: Offstage With Stevie Ray Vaughan, 1986-1990

The life of blues-rock icon Stevie Ray Vaughan was under a microscope even before his tragic death in a helicopter accident in 1990. Four years prior, a breakdown put him in a hospital…

Craig Chaquico – Shadow and Light

Shadow and Light

Most guitarists know Craig’s story. He was the young hotshot guitarist with the Jefferson Starship in the ’70s and ’80s. After that, he started making atmospheric acoustic records for Higher Octave. On his…

Doc Watson

Doc In NYC

Doc Watson appeared twice at Manhattan’s Bottom Line in 2002, in March and August. With him were guitarists Jack Lawrence, who replaced Watson’s son Merle when he retired from the road in 1983…

Pierre Bensusan

In a career spanning four decades, acoustic virtuoso Pierre Bensusan has created some of the most enchanting guitar music ever heard, much of it in his beloved DADGAD tuning. Oddly enough, even with…

Santana – Moonflower

Moonflower

I was never able to latch on to Carlos Santana’s excursions into jazz in the early/mid-’70s. Sure, there was always something to like in his playing, but I preferred when he mixed the…

Bill Kirchen – Tied to the Wheel

Bill’s no stranger to country music, having anchored the lead guitar slot in Commander Cody’s Lost Planet Airmen way back when. Since the break-up of that band, he’s been around plenty too, and…

Scotty Anderson – Classic Scotty

Alright, here’s the deal. I haven’t played in a band for about three years. It became a deal of the “day job” getting in the way. But I just got some gigs with…

The Misunderstood, Fat Mattress, and others

The 1972 Lenny Kaye-compiled Elektra double-LP Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968 spawned the Pebbles series, Rhino’s various regional Nuggets volumes, and eventually 2001’s Nuggets, Vol. 2: Original Artyfacts From…

Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, Paco de Lucía

Saturday Night in San Francisco

Recorded in December, 1980, Friday Night in San Francisco was a genre-busting album of acoustic guitar, and a surprise best-seller. The following night’s gig at the Warfield Theater is here, resurrected from 16-track…

Albert King with Stevie Ray Vaughan – In Session

Hard to imagine that the only way this album was put back in print was by Concord re-releasing its Stax back-catalog. Shot in late 1983 for a Canadian television show, Vaughan was at…

Check This Action: The Salad Days of British Blues

What springs to mind when you hear the term “British blues movement”? Is it covers of Slim Harpo, Muddy Waters, and John Lee Hooker songs by the early Rolling Stones, Manfred Mann, Yardbirds,…

Jing Chi – Live

Jing Chi Live

Okay, I admit. I’m a bit biased. But how can anyone, with a straight face, say any guitarist is making more, or better music than Robben Ford? I won’t list the stuff he’s…

Matteo Mancuso

The Journey

When guitarists as diverse as Al Di Meola and Joe Bonamassa are singing your praises, something’s up. Sicilian guitar prodigy Matteo Mancuso’s debut record displays effortless facility, charisma, and fresh ideas instead of…

Jeff Golub – Temptation

Lots of folks think Golub’s playing has grown a little too slick and “smooth” for its own good. You might agree, but to me, his playing has such a groove it’s impossible to…

James Blood Ulmer – Bad Blood in the City: The Piety Street Sessions

A collection of songs inspired by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, this is one of the best albums of the year. Vernon Reid returns to produce (and supply guitar in spots), and the…

Steve Smith, George Brooks, Prasanna

Abstract Logix

Before joining Journey in 1978, Steve Smith drummed on jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty’s Enigmatic Ocean, and before he left the band in ’83, he had already formed the fusion group Vital Information. The…

Yarn

UFO

On its third album, this Brooklynbased country/roots band pushes further into the darker side of Americana. Guitarist/lead vocalist Blake Christiana guides the band, with Trevor MacArthur on guitar and vocals, Andrew Hendryx on…

Dick Boak – Martin Guitar Masterpieces

Martin Guitar Masterpieces

Martin guitars are revered, collected, and played by performers, singers, songwriters and by legions of avid collectors and enthusiasts. If there has been a hallmark for Martin guitars over the years, it is…

John Lee Hooker

Mr. Boogie

John Lee Hooker was the bridge between country blues and electric blues, something elegantly captured during a 53-year career. The son of sharecroppers, he melded field hollers, Delta blues, talking blues, and what…

Russell D – One Thing

Russell D is Austin singer/songwriter duo Russell Forsyth and percussionist Arron Michaels, and the “one thing” referenced in the CD title is love – the overriding or underlying theme that runs throughout the…

Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio- Close But No Cigar

No disrespect to bassists but there’s just something about a funked-up organ trio that sticks to your backbone. Made popular in the cool music joints of the ’50s and ’60s, organists Jimmy McGriff,…

The Blues Will Set You Free

We’ve all heard of blues in bars, but what about blues behind bars? That’s what Paul Oscher had in mind in the late ’80s, when he brought a world-class blues band to play…

Sloan – Parallel Play

Beyond "Just" Hooks

Every song on this latest album by the Canadian quartet Sloan has a great hook; the simple “woo-oows” in “Witch’s Wand” are impossible to forget while “Down In the Basement” speaks like some…

Boss DD-200 Digital Delay

Test For Echo

Delay pedals are essential, but there are so many different types – tape, reverse, tap, cascade, shimmer, analog and more. What if you could get all of them in one box, without breaking…

Julius Pittman & the Revival

JPR

Southern soul singer Julius Pittman, whose smooth vocal style brings to mind Al Green or Teddy Pendergrass, is a key performer, songwriter, and vocalist for the band that features Randy Moss on guitar.…

Tomas Janzon

Changes Music

Tomas Janzon is a traditional-jazz guitarist influenced by Wes Montgomery, with hints of Metheny and Scofield. It’s also obvious he has one of the best jazz-guitar tones you’ll hear. Most of the songs…

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…

Rory Block – The Guitar of Robert Johnson

Rory Block has been involved with the music of Robert Johnson most of her life. At a young age, she apprenticed directly with Son House, Skip James, Reverend Gary Davis and other seminal…


David R. Hussong

Comeaux Collection: The Fretted Instruments of Dr. Tommy Comeaux

John Mayall

The Sun Is Shining Down