-
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
Black Sabbath
MVD
Released in the fall of 1970, Black Sabbath’s Paranoid was the shot heard ’round the world. As Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler ref lects, it’s been 40 years since the LP’s release, and metal…
Mississippi John Hurt – Live
It still surprises me, but every once in a while I run into a neophyte who thinks the blues (all blues) is, by definition, depressing – as if there’s but one emotion conveyed…
Check This Action: Monumental Treasures
One of my favorite gospel albums has the mouthful title An Evening With Rev. Louis Overstreet, His Guitar, His Four Sons, and The Congregation of St. Luke Powerhouse Church of God In Christ.…
-
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,
-
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
-
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,
Lonnie Mack
Strike Like Lightning
Lonnie Mack hadn’t released an album in eight years when this comeback effort arrived in January of 1985. His first of three for Alligator Records, it brought Mack out of obscurity and marked…
George Lynch
Seamless
Seamless is George Lynch’s first instrumental album, which is especially surprising when you compare it to catalogs of ’80s shred contemporaries like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. Here, Lynch breaks from perceptions of…
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,…
Joe Negri
Noteworthy Jazz
A regional star, local TV luminary and jazz virtuoso even before beginning his 32-year tenure as Mister Rogers’ favorite handyman, Joe Negri (see feature in the September ’10 issue) was woefully under-recorded until…
Joe Ely – Live Chicago 1987
Texas’ rockin’est troubadour has a reputation for featuring great guitarists – from the late Jesse Taylor in his original lineup to Mitch Watkins (when Joe transformed the fusion band Passenger into his least…
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.…
-
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,
-
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
-
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,
-
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
-
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,
-
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
Calvin Keys
To some, Calvin Keys is already a legend; to far too many, he’s an unsung hero or, worse, an unknown. In addition to being honored with Pat Metheny’s tribute “Calvin’s Keys,” on the…
Alan Parsons
For the recording enthusiast, Alan Parsons talking about recording techniques is cherry stuff. Parsons of course was the assistant engineer on The Beatles’ Let It Be and Abbey Road, and the engineer on…
Eli Cook
Self-distributed
As music evolves and grows, it sometimes hits roadblocks. That has been a problem in the past with the blues. Eli Cook’s latest album takes a stab at helping the music evolve. It’s…
Styx
Crash of the Crown
BreaBreaking While 2017’s concept album The Mission embraced progressive rock, the new Styx album has even higher ambitions. Returning to their guitar/keyboard-fueled ’70s style, the band takes prog’s grandest elements and condenses them…
Son House – Revisited
Revisited
There were blues guitarists before him – such as Charley Patton – and perhaps better blues guitarists that followed him, but there were few as soulful, deep, and downright bonechilling as Eddie “Son”…
Shawn Mullins – Honeydew
Vanguard Records
Shawn Mullins hit the big time in the ’90s with the sleepy folk tune “Lullaby.” Since then he has jumped around a bit and now finds himself recording for Vanguard, which has a…
Vince Gill
In the four years since his Guitar Slinger album, Vince Gill kept busy producing others, recording an album with the Time Jumpers and a Bakersfield tribute with pedal steeler Paul Franklin. This time,…
Cesar Rosas – Soul Disguise
I’ve been of the opinion for a couple of years now that Los Lobos is one of the finest rock bands around. Rosas is one of the singer/guitarists in that band. This is…
Eric Clapton
The Definitive 24 Nights
This box set heavily expands Slowhand’s 24 Nights, the live album and video of Eric Clapton’s 1990-’91 residencies at London’s Royal Albert Hall. It includes six hours of music, including 35 previously unreleased…
Merle Haggard – Roots, Vol. 1
Roots, Vol. 1
Norm Stephens isn’t a household name, even to country music fans who have no doubt heard his guitar playing. But to Merle Haggard, Stephens – the original guitarist behind Hag’s biggest influence, Lefty…
SVT
Always Comes Back
Whether named for supraventricular tachycardia (meaning rapid heart rhythm) or the Ampeg bass amplifier, SVT was one of the more-interesting bands to emerge from San Francisco’s new wave scene of the late ’70s.…
Craig Maki with Keith Cady
Craig Maki and Keith Cady provide a well-researched look at an overlooked part of Motor City’s rich musical history. They offer new or little-known information about the fertile Detroit scene that influenced people…
Tom Principato – Raising the Roof!
Powerhouse Records
Norman Blake – Old Ties
Old Ties
Domino Kings – The Back of Your Mind
The Domino Kings are back for another set of rollicking country. I do mean country, by the way. The stuff with twangy guitars, lyrics that range from the weepy to raising hell, and…
Cage the Elephant – Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked
Brothers Brad and Matt Schultz had a rough youth in small-town Kentucky, where music, money and hope were hard to find. Growing up in an eventually broken home with six people squeezed into…
Alvin Youngblood Hart – Down in the Alley
Down in the Alley
I wasn’t prepared for how good this disc is. Hart’s mostly known for his work in country blues. Here, he does a program of good, old-fashioned country blues. And this Mississippi-Delta songfest is…
Emmylou Harris – Red Dirt Girl
Emmylou Harris seems to have finally found her freedom. It’s rare to follow an artist who, after almost three decades of recording, still has something new and fresh to say – and who…
Stefan Grossman
Live at the BBC
Though he has dedicated much of his career to guitar instruction, Grossman has always been a formidable picker in his own right, with a lively, engaging stage presence. Having taken lessons from Rev.…
Jackson Browne & David Lindley
Inside Recordings
In his 40-year recording career, Jackson Browne has used a battalion of guitar greats, from Clarence White to Mark Goldenberg. But from ’71 to ’81, his guitarist (and fiddler and steel player and,…
Garaj Mahal
Self-distributed
One of the best fusion bands around today, Garaj Mahal is rife with virtuoso players who care only about a loose, funky groove. Here, the playing of guitarist Fareed Haque is just sick…
Jerry Krahn – No Wires Attached
No Wires Attached
Chances are you haven’t heard of Jerry Krahn. He’s from Milwaukee, but has spent the past 12 years in Nashville. He’s worked with bands like the Titan Hot Seven, the Time Jumpers, and…
Chris Stapleton
Higher
Chris Stapleton’s distinctive style – blending elements of Outlaw country with high-caliber original songs, powerful vocals, and a minimalist, edgy sound – proves Nashville artists can prosper without mindless “bro-country” formulas. Stapleton has…
Jake Shimabukuro – Hula Girls
Hula Girls
