• 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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Jimi Hendrix Experience

Hollywood Bowl: August 18, 1967

 Imagine a Jimi Hendrix Experience concert where the audience actually disliked the band. That’s the scenario here, a secretly recorded gig opening for The Mamas & the Papas, a week before the U.S.…

Jonny Lang

Jonny Lang’s career has taken a turn that should befuddle the folks who saw him as a pretender to the Blues King throne. He started young, playing biting lead guitar and spitting gravelly…

Gretchen Menn

Magnum Opus

Gretchen Menn stands alone. One might argue that she’s the female counterpart to Steve Morse. Both are aviators, both play ungodly guitar, and both are ersed in the European traditions of the Classical…

John Pizzarelli

His 1998 mash-up album John Pizzarelli Meets The Beatles staked his claim as a hardcore fan, and he was subsequently invited to play on Paul McCartney’s 2012 pop standards album Kisses On The…

David Clayton and Todd K. Smith – Free: Heavy Load

Free: Heavy Load

This epic chronicles the story of the seminal British blues/rock band Free. Leaving no stone unturned, and with the help of more than 400 photos, authors David Clayton and Todd K. Smith have…

Big Time Sarah – A Million Of You

A 70-something sassy songstress, Big Time Sarah has been on the Chicago blues scene for over 25 years, and it’s obvious she can belt with the best of them. Of perhaps greater interest…

Billy Strings

Live, Volume 1

Billy Strings has travelled far from his days as bluegrass flatpicking prodigy, though that style remains a linchpin of his sound as he’s kept moving, developing greater depth and range. Strings’ ability to…

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…

Led Zeppelin

Zep Deluxe

Jimmy Page has been actively promoting these fresh reissues of the Led Zeppelin catalog and, in fact, they are rather impressive. There are CD and vinyl versions, each with a remastered original album…

Circle Jerks

Wild In The Streets 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

Early L.A. punk was a many-headed monster, birthing everything from the glammy Runaways to the more prototypical Germs, as well as rootsy outfits like X and the Blasters. Even the Go-Go’s broke in…

Robert Randolph & the Family Band

The latest album by sacred steel giant Randolph and his band is a non-stop, foot-stomping mix of R&B, soul, rock and roll, and gospel that is as invigorating as it is smart. Randolph’s…

Bill Kirchen – King of Dieselbilly

Bill Kirchen – King of Dieselbilly You can smell the diesel as soon as the music starts pouring out of the speakers! Kirchen is a master guitarist who spent time with Commander Cody,…

Seks Bomba – Somewhere In This Town

This is one of the most fun, most clever, and downright best CDs I’ve heard in a long time. I can’t even begin to describe what this Boston band does. Let’s say you…

Monte Montgomery

That guitar players will ever stop reinterpreting Jimi Hendrix’ “Little Wing” is neither likely nor necessary. The song is so rich and inviting, so mesmerizing to play, its beautiful chord structure and melody…

James McMurtry – Childish Things

James McMurtry – Childish Things McMurtry’s Too Long In the Wasteland, from 1989, was an auspicious debut in more ways than one. Among its 11 original tracks were a few that instantly sounded…

Tonechaser – Understanding Edward: My 26-Year Journey with Edward Van Halen

Steve Rosen

Imagine having Edward Van Halen at your house, playing new Van Halen songs or listening to no-vocals cassettes of in-progress albums in EVH’s cigarette-smoke-filled car. How about jamming with the guitar icon? It…

Buzzcocks

Late For The Train: Live & In Session (1989-2010)

On the punk-rock timeline, some bands haven’t quite received their just acknowledgment. Two Australian bands, The Saints and Radio Birdman, come to mind, as do groups like Flamin’ Groovies and Dr. Feelgood, which…

Abby and Norm Group – Volume 1: The Book of Norman

This band is led by Norman Zocher and Abby Aronson, both professors at the Berklee College of Music. The style is jazz, and it’s a fine mix of different modern styles. Abby is…

M. Taylor, M. Simpson, M. Carthy, J. Martin – The Valley & Martins 4

M. Taylor, M. Simpson, M. Carthy, J. Martin – The Valley & Martins 4 The London Times called Martin Taylor “the finest British guitarist of his generation” – which is, if anything, an…

Lionize

Maryland’s Lionize has concocted an appealing blend of Deep Purple-style heavy rock, reggae, and sci-fi imagery. With a musical vision that began on 2005’s Danger My Dear and reaching a creative peak on…

Dale Watson

Dale Watson is a country-music traditionalist, and while he mines familiar veins on Carryin’ On, he also throws in a dash of the pop/country style that dominated both charts in the late ’60s…

John Lee Hooker

Mr. Boogie

Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet & Mike Neer

Savvy Show Stoppers Dim The Lights, Chill The Ham Sport Fishin’: The Lure Of The Bait, The Luck Of The Hook Steelonious

Hayes Carll

You Get It All

Cory Wong

Striped

Mitch Seidman, Jamie MacDonald, Claire Arenius

Kyran Music

The set, recorded live at the Open Music Collective, in Vermont, perfectly captures the workings of this trio and the inherent quirkiness in the playing of Mitch Seidman, who surprises on pretty much…

Cow Bop

Picture yourself in a smoky cowboy-jazz joint around 1952, and you’ll get the picture on where Cow Bop is coming from. The combo’s music is tantalizing postwar bop, but with ample heaps of…

Peter Case – Who’s Gonna Go Your Crooked Mile? Selected Tracks

Peter Case is one of those “folky” types who deserve more than a trite description. Yes, he plays acoustic guitar, occasional harmonica, and writes great songs. But he shows a background that encompasses…

Wes Montgomery – Live in ’65

Jazz guitar was forever split into two schools early in its development, each defined by a stylistic genius – the bop-anticipating, electric lines of Charlie Christian and the acoustic swing of Gypsy Django…

Kentucky Thunder

Self-distributed

First, this Kentucky Thunder has nothing to do with Rickey Skaggs’ band. And instead of bluegrass, they serve up hot-buttered white Southern soul, a la Delaney and Bonnie. Since the band has four…

Living Colour

Black-Rock Renaissance

Beating the odds with the Grammy-approved album Vivid in 1988, Living Colour ascended victoriously amidst a heaping handful of black rock bands sent packing by record companies for not playing blues, dance music,…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

Mark Knopfler

The Studio Albums, 2009-2018

  It’s not a sin to prefer Mark Knopfler’s solo albums to his mega-band, Dire Straits. While the latter grew into a stadium-filling phenomenon, Knopfler’s solo records are more-intimate affairs, blending Celtic folk,…

Dan Summer & Kathryn Hobgood Ray l

Snoozer Quinn: Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar Pioneer

Legend has it that Ed “Snoozer” Quinn could shake your hand while playing guitar – and never miss a beat. A pioneering fingerstyle-jazz picker, he was famous in the late 1920s and ’30s,…

Joe Goldmark

Blue Steel

Along with his work with Jim Campilongo and others, San Francisco-based pedal steel guitarist Joe Goldmark has produced eight solo CDs (and three earlier vinyl albums) covering broad swaths of popular music, among…