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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
Samuel James – Songs Famed for Sorrow and Joy
The hoodoo factor in Samuel James’ music is strong. He is very connected to the eerie, mythical nature of early 20th-century country blues, his music conjures up images of Ol’ Scratch in his…
James Brown – I Got the Feelin’
Shout Factory
While a generation may remember James Brown as a soul star who fell on hard times, or as a man whose death has led to a tabloid-ready story of a fight for his…
The Jayhawks
Power Pop With Twang And Thunder
Those with only a casual ear to the pavement will likely file the Jayhawks under murky signifiers such as “Americana” and “Alt Country.” While those tags were once perfectly apt, the truth is…
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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,
Joe Satriani
After moonlighting with the super group Chickenfoot, Joe Satriani returns to his day job as solo artist extraordinaire with this new album, continuing his galactic reign as supreme commander of instrumental rock guitar.…
The Blue Shadows
Bumstead Records
Led by Bill Cowsill and Canadian guitarist Jeffrey Hatcher, the guitar-strong rockabilly-oriented Blue Shadows made two fine albums in the ’90s, but neither was released in the U.S. and they weren’t able to…
The Explosives – Ka-Boom!
The Explosives were possibly the best of the punk/new wave bands that sprang up in Austin (centered around haunts like Club Foot, Raul’s, and the Continental Club), on the heels of the city’s…
Carolyn Sills Combo
On the Draw
Listening to the Carolyn Sills Combo, you might do a double-take: Is this newly fashioned country music, or a long-lost 1950s or ’60s band coming out of the ether? The combo is indeed…
America – Here & Now
The folk-pop songs of America have, for many, long been one of life’s guilty pleasures. And for every “Horse With No Name” there was a brilliant song like “Only In Your Heart,” “Tin…
Shawn Lane – All For Today
All For Today
Being part of a successful band can be a mixed blessing. You work regularly and play your music for a large audience, but because it is a band, you can only stray so…
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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
The Mother Truckers – Let’s All Go To Bed
Austin needs another talented guitar player and singer/songwriter like Texas needs more tornadoes, but when the Mother Truckers relocated from the Bay Area they were immediately embraced by the Live Music Capital of…
Jim Lauderdale – Country Super Hits! Vol. 1: Bluegrass
It’s rare to see simultaneous releases by one artist in two different genres, but singer/songwriter/guitarist Jim Lauderdale ably juggles the trick, proving along the way that this is one of the simplest in…
Ralph Stanley, II – This One is II
The expression “born into the business” applies to Ralph Stanley II. The son of Ralph Stanley and a nephew of Carter Stanley, “Two” as he’s often called when in his father’s presence, is…
Steve Vai
Inviolate
After decades of technical shred-dom, Vai returns to his musical mindset prior to David Lee Roth, composing soundtrack-scaled material that is powerful and dramatic. “Teeth of the Hydra” is a showpiece for a…
Randy Napoleon
Rust Belt Roots
Napoleon is a jazz professor at Michigan State University, but there’s nothing clinical or academic about his guitar playing. The veteran of the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, Michael Bublé, and Freddy Cole dives into…
Roger Miller
Roger and Out/A Trip in the Country, et al
Like Willie Nelson and Mel Tillis, Roger Miller was one of the 1950s-’60s Nashville songwriters who left a lasting mark. He wrote hits for others before “Dang Me” and the 1965 signature song…
Jimi Hendrix – Live at Monterey
Experience Hendrix/Geffen/Ume
Forty years after the fact, some people (people who weren’t around at the time) might say that Jimi Hendrix wasn’t all that revolutionary. These people would be wrong. There had been sonic experimentation…
Stephen Bruton – Spirit World
A CD of personal or autobiographical songs can be tricky. The music can wind up meaning far more to its creator than it does to its audience. That’s bad. Luckily for everyone, Stephen…
Alan Jackson
Where Have You Gone
Few have so done more to maintain the sound and spirit of classic country in the face of ever-changing fads than Alan Jackson. Fiddles and pedal steel still frame his warm, earthy voice.…
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…
Check This Action: Back Aboard
Despite (or because of) the huge Folk Boom of the late ’50s and early ’60s, these days “folk” is almost a dirty word in some circles. It’s replaced with “singer/songwriter,” as if that’s…
Pat Martino – Live at Yoshi’s
I’ve always found it hard to review Pat’s records. He’s one of those almost mystical players who always play so brilliantly, before and after his health problems, that it just seems silly to…
Hank Williams – Alone with His Guitar
Alone with His Guitar
Glen Campbell – Meet Glen Campbell
Glen Campbell has been absent from the pop/rock world for a long time. His late-’60s records like “Wichita Lineman,” “By the Time I Get To Phoenix,” and “Gentle on my Mind” showed him…
The Grascals
Cracker Barrell Records
The Grascals understand that making music professionally is a business, and strategic partnerships are part of being successful. On The Grascals + Friends they partner with some of the biggest names in country…
Betty Davis and Mahalia Barnes
Nasty Girl
Betty Mabry was known far and wide by the sobriquet of the Nasty Girl. She earned the moniker for being too wild for her men to handle – and among her men were…
Eric Brace & Peter Cooper
Red Beet Records
Eric Brace and Peter Cooper’s label, Red Beet Records, has been busy lately with not one, but two newly released CDs. The first is a duo project uniting Peter Cooper with the legendary…
Orianthi
Live In Hollywood
Known for her solo work and as Michael Jackson’s final touring lead guitarist, Orianthi’s 2022 performance at the Bourbon Room in Hollywood displays the Aussie ripping over a bevy of well-manicured pop-rock ditties…
Bill Kirchen – King of Dieselbilly
Bill Kirchen – King of Dieselbilly You can smell the diesel as soon as the music starts pouring out of the speakers! Kirchen is a master guitarist who spent time with Commander Cody,…
Tony Joe White
Smoke from the Chimney
When Tony Joe White died in 2018 at age 75, just after the release of Bad Mouthin’, that raw collection of originals and blues covers seemed an appropriate epitaph for the Louisiana singer/songwriter/guitarist.…
Donovan – Try For The Sun: The Journey Of Donovan
Donovan Leitch rose from Dylan wannabe to the flower-power embodiment of all things peace and love. He sometimes appeared to be more a hanger-on than his own artist – the wide-eyed clone who…
David Dondero
Ghostmeat
Folkie Dondero ranges from eclectic originals (“Not Everybody Loves Your Doggie Like You Do”) to uniquely interpreted covers including Lowell George’s hippie trucker ballad “Willin.’” Though it’s been done in just about every…
Glenn Phillips – Angel Sparks
Angel Sparks
