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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
Big Daddy Love
This North Carolina-based band makes its own rules. Call their music bluegrass or newgrass, Southern rock, hippie country, or anything else, and it’s still refreshingly original music from a quintet whose members must…
Jim Lauderdale
My Favorite Place
Since his 1991 debut, Planet of Love, Jim Lauderdale has produced a body of award-winning work few modern country or Americana acts can match. His albums reflect a level of consistency in creating…
Freddie King – Live at the Electric Ballroom, 1974
Originally released in 1996, this was recorded a couple years before Freddie’s death, and it captures him in full bloom. As you’d expect, the concert portion finds him blasting away from all angles…
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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,
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…
Gary Clark Jr.
Bright Lights, Big Fuzz
When Gary Clark, Jr. appeared on the national scene, music fans on the Internet suddenly became blues experts. Opinions burst like flak guns on D-Day with everything from shortsighted Jimi Hendrix comparisons to…
Mike Stern
Trip
Mike Stern’s latest speaks to the triumph of his spirit and twisted sense of humor. In a freak accident while waiting for a cab, he tripped and broke both arms. This left him…
Santana – Santana: Legacy Edition
Watching Santana’s incendiary performance in the concert film of Woodstock, it’s almost beyond comprehension to realize that this was a band that had yet to release its debut album. That wouldn’t happen until…
Joel Harrison String Choir
Sunnyside
Paul Motian is one of the most unusual figures in jazz – respected for his composing as much as his drumming. He was a member of Bill Evans’ famed trio, backed such greats…
The Sandro Albert Quartet
Daywood Drive Records
Played well, guitars and f lutes make an excellent combination. Such is the case in Sandro Albert’s quartet. Albert is a gifted guitarist whose soloing swings, and his knowledge of the harmonic structure…
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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
Rodney Crowell – Fate’s Right Hand
Fate's Right Hand
Rodney Crowell’s new album, Fate’s Right Hand, explores personal landscapes similar to those he first examined in his 2002 release The Houston Kid, but the final results are less musically satisfying. Perhaps the…
Dale Watson
Dale Watson is a country-music traditionalist, and while he mines familiar veins on Carryin’ On, he also throws in a dash of the pop/country style that dominated both charts in the late ’60s…
Smith/Kotzen
This is one of those projects that gets guitar fanatics drooling. Iron Maiden cornerstone Adrian Smith and prolific American veteran Richie Kotzen join forces for a hard-rock album with a modern sound steeped…
Harry Taussig – Fate Is Only Once
In his liner notes to this extremely rare 1965 album, Harry Taussig lists Woody Guthrie, Jesse Fuller, Mance Lipscomb, Scrapper Blackwell, Libba Cotton, Mississippi John Hurt, John Fahey, Ravi Shankar, and koto master…
Kenny Burrell – The Best Of Kenny Burrell
The good thing about compiling a Kenny Burrell “best of” is, since his 1956 solo debut, it’s hard to find any clinkers; the hard part is knowing where to begin and when to…
Jessi Colter
Edge of Forever
After husband Waylon Jennings’ death 22 years ago, Jessi Colter resumed her recording and performing career with several albums that explored styles within and beyond the “outlaw” sound she shared with him. This…
Sons Of Apollo
Psychotic Symphony
As eyes roll at the thought of yet another project album by virtuosos on a break from touring, one can’t help but be curious about Sons Of Apollo. Keyboardist Derek Sherinian (Planet X,…
Jules Shear – More
Jules Mark Shear is living proof that talented pop musicians who prefer to remain on the fringes can maintain a successful career without cowtowing to the winds of fad and fashion. On his…
Little Charlie and the Organ Grinder Swing
Any fan of the original Little Charlie and the Nightcats knows Charlie Baty can swing; he always had one foot in the jazz world while playing the band’s brand of blues. Here, on…
Scott Gibson
Self-distributed
Gibson It’s hard to toss a quarter in Nashville without hitting a songwriter holding a tip jar, but few have Scott Gibson’s songwriting chops. On Just Keep Drivin’, Gibson delivers 12 reasons…
Robert Hilburn
From Cash’s hard-scrabble childhood through his Air Force stint, Sun years, hazy ’60s, largely forgettable ’70s, ’80s relapse, and second redemption in the ’90s, former LA Times critic Hilburn scours the details of…
Chris Thile – Deceiver
The only disappointing thing about Chris Thile’s fifth solo album is its length – 34:23. Highlighting his songwriting and arranging skills, Deceiver displays the strong influences of not only fellow Mutual Admiration Society…
Paul Reed Smith
Lions Roaring in Quicksand
The new album by guitar builder Paul Reed Smith and his band, Eightlock, offers soul-based sounds with deep grooves, three drummers, and three guitarists. Veteran drummer Dennis Chambers, bassist Gary Grainger, and guitarists…
Various artists – Doctors, Professors, Kings & Queens
The music of New Orleans has, by now, been over-anthologized, but, with four discs and an 80-page book, Shout! Factory’s deluxe treatment is perhaps the most ambitious to date, and quite possibly the…
Judas Priest
50 Heavy Metal Years of Music
With 42 CDs containing every studio and live album by the British colossus – including 13 discs of unreleased material – this is the metal motherlode. The opener, 1974’s “One for the Road,”…
Megan Slankard
(Self-distributed)
Megan Slankard is difficult to pigeonhole. Equal parts country soul, folk, pop, and alt rock, though still in her early 20s, Token of the Wreckage is her third disc, and amply demonstrates why…
Steve Cropper & The Midnight Hour
Friendlytown
From his earliest days in Memphis, Steve Cropper’s virtuosity stemmed from his powerful mastery of rhythm and flawless sense of economy. Those assets stood him in good stead through the glory days as…
John McLaughlin – Industrial Zen
It’s exciting when a musician make creative inroads in the midst of a 45-year career. John McLaughlin began life as a professional guitarist with Graham Bond in 1963, then helped invent jazz-rock fusion…
Alejandro Escovedo – Real Animal
Long a favorite of critics, the former member of the Nuns takes us through a personal history put to musical styles that show his best traits, lyrically and vocally. His music at times…
John Mayall
The Sun Is Shining Down
British blues icon John Mayall – now 88 years old and in his twilight – announced his retirement from touring late last year. His exit from the road, however, doesn’t necessarily mean his…
Tom Feldmann
There’s a good chance the opening licks of “Lone Wolf Blues” will knock you off your chair – or at least give you whiplash as you seek the source of such a wondrous…
