• 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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Santana IV

Describing Carlos Santana’s guitar playing, Greg Rolie, the Santana band’s original keyboardist, declares, “It’s real music; it’s not just a bunch of notes put together.” Truer words were never spoken. They’re just part…

Undone: A MusicFest Tribute to Robert Earl Keen

Texas-born singer/songwriter Robert Earl Keen has influenced a passel of younger performers during his 30-year career. On Undone, we have an opportunity to hear how these young’uns interpret his material. Recorded live, the…

Shane Lamb

Shane Lamb Music

On his first solo release, Shane Lamb delivers an even dozen bitter-sweet country/rock bon-bons. Though his music shares a genre populated by last-name folk-rock icons such as Dylan and Petty, Lamb’s music vibrates…

Paul McCartney & Wings

As clearly as the “whole is greater than the sum of its parts” adage has been demonstrated by numerous great bands, it will never keep critics from harping on how each of the…

Luther Allison- A Legend Never Dies: Essential Recordings 1976-1997

Soul-Fixin’ Man

Even among blues musicians, Luther Allison’s story was unique.  Born into sharecropping in Arkansas, the 14th of 15 children, he learned to sing gospel and play guitar. After the family moved their roots…

Fu Manchu – Go For It… Live!

Britain’s NME magazine nailed Fu Manchu’s oeuvre when it dubbed them “damn near the most conceptually perfect rock band since the Ramones.” Now comes a damn near perfect double live album. Fu’s concept:…

Robben Ford – In Concert Revisited

The premise of the Autour Du Blues DVD was to stage a transatlantic blues summit for the 25th anniversary of Paris’ New Morning club in December ’06, teaming the group of France’s studio…

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Friends

Years ago, in a BBC documentary about his former bandleader, bassist Noel Redding held up all the albums that Jimi Hendrix released during his lifetime (five, not counting Cry Of Love, which he…

Shooter Jennings & the Werewolves of Los Angeles

Do Zevon

He may not have found a home in a certain institution in Cleveland, despite overwhelming “fan votes,” but the late Warren Zevon was highly respected among fellow artists. Linda Ronstadt, Dwight Yoakam, the…

Check This Action: George Bowen

Luthier George Bowen passed away August 19 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He was 69. In March of 2023, a tribute concert billed as the George Bowen Master Guitar Summit was held in…

Bruce Brown

Self-distributed

Bruce Brown, whose day job is filling the guitar chair for Charlie Daniels, offers up an eclectic mix of music on his new solo disc, Off the Edge. Immediately impressive is the taste…

John McLaughlin

Hip-O-Select

By 1996, when this album was originally released, the English guitar virtuoso had already been a member of Tony Williams’ groundbreaking Lifetime and Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew band, further melded jazz with rock…

Kate Rusby – The Girl Who Couldn’t Fly

When you listen to Kate Rusby, you hear the very essence of Celtic music. Her voice soars over the top of a song without the gross limitations of a human form. Kate Rusby…

Charlie Musselwhite – One Night In America

One Night In America

Anyone who’s surprised at the stylistic diversity of the latest offering from Charlie Musselwhite hasn’t been paying close attention to the blues icon’s path. On Rough News, from ’97, he slipped in some…

The Beatles – Destination Hamburg

The Beatles formative years playing the sleazy clubs of Hamburg was their time in the wilderness. They honed their skills as musicians – as well as with groupies and pill-popping. When they eventually…

Jeff Healey

Famous as a driving, fiery blues guitar virtuoso in the ’90s, the late Jeff Healey’s passion for that music was equaled (at least) by his passion for older blues, vintage swing, and jazz…

Greta Van Fleet

The Battle at Garden’s Gate

Surviving the slings and arrows of Led Zeppelin comparisons, a world tour, and Grammy win, Greta Van Fleet’s second LP delivers some of the most-beloved tropes from ’70s rock. Bassist Sam Kiszka, guitarist…

Taj Mahal – Maestro

While not a great Taj Mahal album, this is a very nice tribute to a guy who’s been serving up great music for as long as most of us have been listening. The…

Check This Action: Walking In Memphis

I first visited Memphis in 1990, and it struck me that radio stations played loads of music from the area. Soul, rockabilly, blues, gospel, country, and jazz – if there was a Memphis…

Check This Action: My Kind of Blues

The great Junior Parker sang, “You will feel like dying when you get these kind of blues.” But he sang it over an infectious rhythm, to an upbeat melody. Such is the ability…

Doug Brod

They Just Seem a Little Weird: How Kiss, Cheap Trick, Aerosmith, and Starz Remade Rock and Roll

This book connects the dots among four bands that emerged in the ’70s, describing how Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen, and Starz’s Richie Ranno played guitar on Kiss vocalist/bassist Gene Simmons’…

The Yardbirds – Ultimate

The Yardbirds: Ultimate

Two fallacies that invariably arise in discussions of the Yardbirds: 1) declaring them the fathers of psychedelic music and/or heavy metal; 2) focusing on their colossal lead guitar lineage at the expense of…

D.A.D. – No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims

On their first major label release, the band formerly known as Disneyland After Dark (changed after a threatened lawsuit by the Disney Co.) was poised for a breakthrough in the U.S. with backing…

Los Lobos

Shout! Factory

It’s been a few years since Los Lobos released original material, but Tin Can Trust is worth the wait. Its music is a mix of rock, R&B, soul, folk, and various Latin styles…

White Stripes – Icky Thump

Jack and Meg White get back to the guitar-and-drum thump their fans know and love, with the six-string up front, loud, and proud. On their new album, Icky Thump, Jack’s guitar is strong…

Norman Blake

Long time gone. It’s been four years since Norman Blake’s last album – and 30 years since he last recorded his own original music. Now 77, he suffered a mini stroke several years…

Mr. Big

Mr. Big has withstood multi-platinum successes, personnel changes, and volatile disputes. Despite the band’s ups and downs, the original line-up remains intact. Paul Gilbert, Billy Sheehan, Eric Martin, and Pat Torpey stay frosty…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

The No Ones

My Evil Best Friend

This latest in decades of collaborations between R.E.M. guitar man Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey is the pair’s third collection with Norwegians Arne Kjelsrud Mathisen and Frode Strømstad. Listeners familiar with Buck and…

Andy Brown

Alone Time

Chicago jazz guitarist Brown has released a steady stream of albums, some accompanying vocalist/wife Petra van Nuis and one co-leading a quartet with Howard Alden. But solo guitar is his favored format, inspired…

Roy Buchanan – The Best of the Millennium Collection

I don’t suppose there’s a whole lot more that can be said about Mr. Buchanan. And some might argue that we really didn’t need another collection. While it’s true the Sweet Dreams: Anthology…