Oz Noy masterminds an inspired jazz sequel with spectacular feel and blues embellishments. Amidst Noy’s quirky, energetic, funk-charged compositions is gutbucket slide. “You Dig” features slide player Greg Leisz, who offsets Noy’s intervallic bop with the raw and the nasty. Chick Corea and Allen Toussaint are featured on “Rumba Tumba” and “Slow Grease” with swampy […]
The latest record from David Michael Miller is a mixture of soul, gospel, blues, pop, funk, and everything in between. Sometimes multiple styles of music come together in the same song, as in the transcendent “Hope Finds A Way.” The song starts as though you’re going to be listening to a loud country blues, but […]
Here is a coffeetable book and then some! It’s a 224-page hardcover, with 400-plus exquisite photographs chronicling the rise and fall – and rise again – of the Gibson Les Paul. All its permutations are displayed in this detailed history, along with technical information and photos of some of the most celebrated “star guitars” in […]
Yes fans have long been waiting for the legendary prog band to deliver a comeback album. Rest assured, this is not it. Even with platinum producer Roy Thomas Baker and a Jon Anderson knock-off on vocals, this soft-pop collection barely resembles Yes’ thundering progressive rock from 40 years ago. Heaven & Earth kicks off with […]
Mike Mattison is a veteran of the music wars, having for the past decade or so been the lead singer with the Derek Trucks Band and then moving to backup vocals when Trucks formed the Tedeschi Trucks Band with his wife. Here, on his first solo record, the emphasis is on soul music, with a […]
Tackling the long and winding history of the Dopyera brothers – John, Rudy, Emil, Robert, and Louis – has proved daunting for guitar historians. Mark Makin does it in style with this huge tome, chronicling the wares of National, Dobro, Supro, Airline, Custom Kraft, DB Originals, OMI, and Valco from the 1920s through the ’60s. […]
Irish chanteuse Imelda May proved she could sing on her first discs of retro rockabilly originals. Her new album shows she can also rock. May is backed as usual by her husband, guitarman Darrel Higham. And again as usual, his playing is twang perfect. This album stretches the band’s repertoire. From classic rockabilly and jazz, […]
Three decades, umpteen records, and several stellar bands into his career, and Brian Setzer still makes rockabilly sound fresh and exciting. This album has much of the verve of his debut, 1981’s Stray Cats, and his so-called “’68 Comeback Special,” Ignition. For a musician this far along in his career, that’s saying something about his […]
Like a long-lost radio show from the ’50s suddenly coming to life on your radio in the late nighttime hours, this hard-driving string trio summons forth the sounds of old-time bluegrass, vintage country, and roaring rockabilly. The Howlin’ Brothers have one foot tapping time in tradition, the other kicking down the doors. The howling here […]
Dug Pinnick, Eric Gales, and Thomas Pridgen have returned with the followup to last year’s Pinnick–Gales–Pridgen. That first album was fueled by superb musicians rising to the occasion to create inspired work in just 13 days. Now, PGP offers detuned heaviosity, incendiary guitar work, and frenetic drumming. Minus the novelty, our attention is focused squarely […]
