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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
The Grateful Dead
The hubbub over the Dead’s final runs of shows has finally quieted down, only to be replaced by the expected array of video and sound recordings of the events. And the various packages…
Shawn Camp – Fireball
Shawn Camp’s latest record features his songwriting skills presented in a live acoustic and bluegrass context, framed with electric honkytonk flare. Even though the milieu may be different, the overall impression remains the…
Steve Forbert – Any Old Time: Songs of Jimmy Rodgers
Steve Forbert’s voice and style have become so distinctive that he sounds great on this tribute to country pioneer Jimmy Rodgers, even as he rasps out yodels. Forbert has always been a stylist…
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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,
Jorma Kaukonen
In a career that spans a large portion of modern rock and roll history, Jorma Kaukonen has always had the patience and taste that make this one of the most aptly titled records…
Little Feat – Hotcakes and Outtakes
I’ve always been amazed that Little Feat wasn’t a huge band with many hits. They don’t come much snappier than “Dixie Chicken.” And especially in the ’70s heyday of FM radio, how could…
Tony Gilkyson
Avenging Angel
You know an album is promising when its sidemen include Buck Owens pedal-steeler Jay Dee Maness and Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band drummer James Gadson. Tony Gilkyson delivers on that promise. Not surprisingly,…
Vinnie Moore
Double Exposure
Neoclassical shredder Vinnie Moore’s latest features vocals for the first time. Double Exposure is a heavy-rock record saturated with funky overtones and a high degree of guitarmanship. Joined by vocalists Keith Slack, Ed…
The Surf Box – Cowabunga!
Here it is, the history of surf music on four hot CDs that no self-respecting rocker could live without. Starting with 1960s sides by The Fireballs, The Gamblers, and, of course, Dick Dale…
Various Artists
Bill Frisell and Thomas Morgan and Dominic Miller
Bill Frisell is a living jazz icon, famed for his ethereal tone and snaking post-bop lines. Here, he partners with Thomas Morgan for a live set – just guitar and standup bass –…
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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
Cadillac Sky – Gravity’s Our Enemy
Though they call their music “outlaw acoustic” and they include Radiohead and Gnarles Barkley along with Earl Scruggs and Alison Krauss as inspirations, Cadillac Sky’s music is far closer to roots bluegrass than…
Gary Clark Jr.
Live North America 2016
Gary Clark Jr. has brought back the soaring psychedelic blues-rock guitar solo. After a backlash of post-Hendrix overkill, replaced with severely articulate blues Nazi-approved Chicago and West Coast swing vocabulary, the pendulum is…
Cedric Burnside
Be Trying
One of 35 grandchildren of the late R.L. Burnside, Cedric grew up in the rundown Holly Springs, Mississippi, home that housed four generations of Burnsides. An award-winning drummer, he was behind a kit…
Sonny Landreth
Supernatural Slide
Even guitarists who don’t play slide know scary supernatural slide mastery when they hear it. Some guitarists won’t go down that rabbit hole, realizing they’ll never reach the level of Elmore James, Son…
The Isley Brothers & Santana
Love, Peace – And Soul!
Ernie Isley was a hero to a generation of young, bell-bottom-clad guitarists who wore afros and enveloped themselves in soul crooners and the funkiness that caused involuntary dancing. Positioned in one of the…
Greg Douglass and the Accomplices
For years, Greg Douglass was San Francisco’s best-kept guitar secret. At the dawn of psychedelia, his band, Country Weather, made a demo to get bookings, and it got substantial airplay on underground radio.…
Chris Hillman
Flying High
To understand this album’s significance, it’s worth recounting the highlights of Chris Hillman’s distinguished career. An admired West Coast bluegrass musician, in 1964 he picked up an electric bass and joined the original…
The Band – Rock of Ages: The Band in Concert
Rock of Ages: The Band in Concert
This late album by The Band needs little introduction. By the time it was originally released – Rock of Ages in ’72 – The Band had made its mark both on its own…
Foley, Coleman, Potvin – Time Bomb
From the first notes of the title-track opener, this trio of guitarists leaves no doubt that this album is going to rock and roll. Sue Foley and Deborah Coleman need no introduction to…
The Slambovian Circus of Dreams
Here is a “best of” album by a band that’s not exactly a household name, nor does it have any hit songs. But don’t let that dissuade you. They’re a tight ensemble that…
Sarah Harmer – You Were Here
Canadian musicians have long found it necessary to come south to the US of A if they want to make it big. Sarah Harmer is one of a long line of Canadians lured…
Neil Young
In more ways than one, Journey Through The Past – the title of Neil Young’s 1972 directorial film debut – would have been a better title for A Letter Home, the latest from…
Asleep at the Wheel
Half a Hundred Years
Fifty years, hundreds of personnel changes, and multiple Grammys later, the “hippie country band” Ray Benson and steel guitarist Lucky Oceans organized in rural West Virginia in 1970 is now a beloved American…
Neil Barnes, Ron Thompson, and others and Bettye LaVette
This Blues Has Soul
Blues harpist Neil Barnes is one of the greater San Francisco area’s best-kept secrets. His 2007 CD, This Was Then, Now, is a compilation of a 45 and an EP he released in…
The Atomic Bitchwax – II
Ed Mundell – my choice for Guitar God 2001. Although Mundell, lead guitarist for Monster Magnet (his day gig) and the Atomic Bitchwax (his side gig), might lack name recognition, he certainly doesn’t…
Soulive – Turn It Out
There are so many things to love about this group. Two of the most endearing qualities that draw me back to this CD daily are still dominant after about 50 listenings! Yeah, they…
Bob Brozman – Blues Reflex
Bob Brozman has made his name playing everything from the blues to Hawaiian music, old-timey Americana to Hot Club sounds. But above all, Brozman is a performer. His concerts are rowdy and alive…
Mike Bloomfield – I’m Cuttin’ Out
When the late Mike Bloomfield burst onto the guitar scene in 1965 – on the Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s self-titled debut and Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan – it was like nothing…
Wes Montgomery- In Paris: The Definitive ORTF Recording
Wes is Back!
In broad strokes, jazz guitar can be split into two schools, deriving from arguably the greatest guitarists in the genre’s history: Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt. But if there’s a third fork in…
Fabulous Thunderbirds – Live
Live
Greasy vocals and harp, on-the-money blues guitar, great tunes, and an audience just waiting to be entertained. That’s what this CD is. Put it in the player and try not to move around.…
Dykes & Vaughan – On the Jimmy Reed Highway
Kent “Omar” Dykes is best known for fronting Omar and the Howlers, and though this disc was planned a solo effort paying homage to fellow Mississippi blues man Jimmy Reed, as word got…
