• 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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Pokey LaFarge

In The Blossom of Their Shade

The 2020 pandemic left an impact on Pokey LaFarge, who was about to tour behind his newly released Rock Bottom Rhapsody. During the ample downtime, he wrote an album’s worth of new tunes,…

Brother Red – Kickin’ It

Kickin' It

Let’s get down to bizness. B3 bizzness, that is. That’s what Brother Red be all about. Three piece. Sho-nuf! But now we got monstrous left hand and pedal B3 bass. No frills. “Cut…

Jack Knife and the Sharps – Ace Cafe

Jack Knife and the Sharps are a staple on the bar scene in Minneapolis-St. Paul. They have a reputation of serving up good old-fashioned rock and roll spiced by rockabilly, country, and ’50s-style…

The Libertines

Up The Bracket 20th Anniversary Edition

This Super Deluxe Edition arrives smack dab on time – 20 years to the day after the original album’s 2002 debut and spot on for the nostalgia wave. Following on from the Sex…

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Box Set

This four-CD box set illustrates again how the seed planted by Hendrix created a whole tree of rock guitar that still flourishes, although not at the level of creativity it did with Jimi.…

Cherryholmes – Black and White

Skaggs Family Records

From mandolin playing mom, Sandy, and bass player pop, Jere, to 14-year-old Molly, the six-person Cherryholmes family band picks and sings like they were born to it. Was it the air or water…

Don Latarski & Rue D’ Acoustic

Don Latarski is a fine guitarist who has produced recordings to go along with his wonderful live work. His work with Rue de Blues was a great mix of R&B and soul. Here,…

Bruce Molsky – Soon Be Time

Bruce Molsky proves that you can be scholarly about American roots music without being boring. On Soon Be Time he entertains his listeners on fiddle, banjo, and finger-picked guitar. All solo, no overdubbing,…

Viva

Guitarist and singer Viva DeConcini’s last record, Rock and Roll Lover, was a stunning collection of eclectic songs that fit together perfectly even though stylistically they ran the gamut from loud rock and…

Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters

On this latest album, Ronnie Earl and his band freely and unabashedly mourn and honor the late David Maxwell, the Broadcasters pianist who died in 2015 at age 71. While Earl and his…

John McTigue III

It’s About Time

Drummer/composer McTigue has a long history as a roots-music sideman. Yet on this solo effort co-produced with Kenny Vaughan, he takes unexpected turns as he pairs his percussion with other top roots musicians.…

Bryan Sutton – Not Too Far From The Tree

Imagine creating an album where you play duets with all of your guitar heroes. On Not Too Far From The Tree, Bryan Sutton does exactly that. Now, if you or I tried this…

Eric Bibb – Diamond Days

Bibb is a fine guitarist and singer, and here proves a very capable songwriter. It’s hard to pin him down – you could call him a folk singer, but his blues and pop…

Rory Gallagher

Rory Gallagher 50th Anniversary Edition

Rising appreciation for the late Irish guitar wizard continues with a 50th anniversary/five-disc box of his 1971 solo debut. With pristine sound quality, the collection includes a new mix of the original album;…

Greg Nagy

Blues rocker Greg Nagy makes the Northern industrial equivalent to Southern country of the 1950s and ’60s. He melds ’70s West Coast R&B, British blues rock, Albert King tones, dollops of Steely Dan,…

Scott Lindsey

Grey Trailer Music

From the first raucous notes of “You Only Call Me (When You’re Drunk)” it’s obvious Scott Lindsey is invoking the spirit (and spirits!) of the late Gary Stewart. There are certainly worse musical…

Roine Stolt – Wall Street Voodoo

Roine Stolt – Wall Street Voodoo Roine Stolt is best known for fronting the acclaimed progressive band The Flower Kings. But in the back of his mind, the Swedish guitarist has long wanted…

Josh Preston – Exit Sounds

A few years ago, Josh Preston laid down his electric guitar for the life of singer/songwriter. Once past the slightly offensive notion that this move speaks of contempt for the music that changed…

George Harrison – Brainwashed

It’s become cliché to say a particular guitarist is recognizable after just one note, but in the case of George Harrison, it’s true. Because along with his many hats and talents – singer,…

The Allman Brothers Band

Live at the Atlanta International Pop Festival

The Allman Brothers Band is one of those groups guitarists identify after just a handful of notes.  First released in 2003, this reissue was recorded during ABB’s two performances at the 1970 festival,…

Guy Forsythe

Call this music “Americana,” if you have to put a label on it. The opener, “Red Dirt,” establishes straight away the muscular Midwestern quality that reflects Guy Forsythe’s musical coming of age in…

Darrell Scott

Appleseed Recordings

Darrell Scott’s latest CD highlights his performing prowess rather than his songwriting chops – all 12 cuts are covers. This isn’t the first album on which Scott has displayed his interpretive abilities, but…

Frank Zappa

Apostrophe (’) 50th Anniversary

Great googly-moogly! Frank Zappa’s potty-mouth masterpiece is a half-century old and now fêted with a 75-track box set. The original LP has been expertly remastered to increase separation between tracks without sacrificing analog…

Bruce Pavitt

Before Sub Pop the label there was Sub Pop the music ’zine and later the column in Seattle weekly The Rocket. This expansive anthology compiled by Sub Pop founder Pavitt is a fantastic…

Tony Green – Gypsy Jazz

New Orleans artist/guitarist Tony Green has crafted a masterpiece of swinging gypsy jazz with this CD. He covers three Django Reinhardt tunes, as well as songs by Sidney Bechet, a variety of traditional…

Slightly Stoopid & Friends

Slightly Stoopid is a group of friends who have been making music since their teenage days, mixing reggae, funk, R&B, and punk. They also play acoustic rock that lets two front men, Miles…

Thin Lizzy

Vagabonds of the Western World 50th Anniversary

Long before “The Boys Are Back in Town,” Thin Lizzy was a pugnacious Dublin trio with bassist Phil Lynott and guitarist Eric Bell. Vagabonds was their third album and there’s nothing else like…

Lincoln Durham

Minimalist begins to describe Durham’s music and approach, but it doesn’t capture everything that is involved. All 11 of the songs here feature pretty much some form of guitar and percussion and not…

Gene Bertoncini – Concerti

Bertoncini hits the jackpot; the nylon-string guitar whiz is joined by a string quartet for a set of music that is both challenging and exquisite to hear. Familiar tunes like “East of the…

The Anderson Ponty Band

It took 30 years but Jon Anderson of Yes and violinist Jean-Luc Ponty have finally cleared their schedules long enough to work on an album together. This collection fuses Anderson’s vocal style with…