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Music
2026 February Issue on Spotify
This month, we feature Tinsley Wllis, Jimmy Aaughan, Duke Levine, Joshua Hedley, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Pink Floyd, Coyote Motel, Julian Lage, Jocelyn Gould, 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 complete
Davie Allan & the Arrows – Apache ’65, Blues Theme, & Cycle-Delic Sounds
Arriving just after instrumental surf music was dealt a knockout punch by the British Invasion, Davie Allan survived against all odds, providing numerous soundtracks to biker and teen exploitation movies and hitting the…
Pops Staples
Roebuck “Pops” Staples learned his chops at the elbows of Son House and Robert Johnson. When he passed away in 2000, American culture lost perhaps the last direct link to rock and roll’s…
Joshua Breakstone
Joshua Breakstone’s latest is another chance for the guitarist to use his cello quartet. Yes, it’s Breakstone on guitar, bassist Lisle Atkinson, drummer Andy Watson, and Mike Richmond on cello for four of…
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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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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
Brian Setzer
Sparking Another Rockabilly Riot
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…
John Lee Hooker & the Coast to Coast Blues Band
Live at Montreux 1983 & 1990
The early ’80s weren’t a high point of John Lee Hooker’s career. Demand for all blues – including his Mississippi hill-country music – had eroded and record deals were scarce. None of that…
Ruf Records 20 Years Anniversary
The guitar was once derided as a “woman’s instrument,” and in the early 20th century, blues was considered a woman artist’s medium. Things have changed over the intervening years – and perhaps too…
Free – Free Forever
Eagle Vision
Free was capable of turning out such memorable originals as “Fire And Water,” “Mr. Big,” and its biggest hit, “All Right Now” – all from 1970’s Fire And Waterthe band’s third album. The…
Muddy Waters and The Rolling Stones
Reissues and new arrivals
The cup runneth over with Rolling Stones live discs, a heady mix of reissues and new arrivals. Ladies & Gentlemen… is the soundtrack to the concert film shot over four nights in the…
Hiromi’s Sonicbloom – Time Control
Ignore the silly cover photo – this ain’t no pop-diva record. Instead, it could be the jazz-rock CD of the year. Hiromi Uehara is a monster jazz pianist who’s been making a name…
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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,
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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,
Marty Stuart, Doyle Lawson, Vince Gill, and more
Back to the Beginning
The sessions produced by Ralph S. Peer over 12 days in July and August of 1927 in a makeshift Bristol, Tennessee, studio featuring Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, and others are often termed…
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…
Ronnie Bowman – It’s Getting Better All The Time
On the cover, Bowman holds his new Gibson AJ in a decidedly non luthier-approved manner – by the soundhole. This pose typifies his relaxed and informal approach to bluegrass. He’s so comfortable and…
Nili Brosh
Nili Brosh takes the phrase “playing like a girl” and turns it on its ear. This new album weaves the kind of muscular soloing, graceful melodies, and strenuous time signatures that would send…
Beastie Boys
This groundbreaking album needs little introduction – except maybe to guitarheads. Yes, it’s rap, but the Beastie Boys showed the world what composing with sound samples can create. Here’s a primal fusion of…
Alberto Lombardi
Through the Years
The Italian guitarist’s third acoustic-fingerstyle album brings a pleasurable mix of covers with two originals. Primarily a solo set, it overdubs keyboards, drum patterns, and he even sings on the title track. An…
The Highwaymen
Country’s first supergroup emerged from a 1984 Johnny Cash Christmas special taped in Switzerland. Along with Marty Stuart, the guests were longtime Cash pals friends Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson. The…
The Band – Rock of Ages and Islands
Rock of Ages and Islands
These two late albums by The Band need little introduction. By the time they were originally released – Rock of Ages in ’72 and Islands in ’76 – The Band had made its…
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…
The Rolling Stones
Dead Flowers Bloom Again
If you ever forget how good the Rolling Stones really were back in their heyday, the new edition of Sticky Fingers with outtakes and live recordings and this live shot from the Marquee…
Chet Atkins: Me and My Guitars – Chet Atkins and Russ Cochran
Chet Atkins has a deserved reputation as a great guitar player and all-around nice guy. So it’s a pleasure to see a book that is part biography and part history of his personal…
Big Apple Blues and Smokin’ Joe Kubek and Bnois King
Blues A-Plenty
Considering that its first-cousin, jazz, is predominantly an instrumental form, it’s surprising that there are so few instrumental blues albums. In terms of guitar, of course, Freddie King excelled most successfully, but that…
Check This Action: A Mess of Blues
It doesn’t happen often, but I still encounter people who think the blues is strictly sad music. I tell them to listen to Hound Dog Taylor’s joyful “house-rockin’” blues. Or when guitar players…
Bootzilla
Bootsy Collins
Bootsy Collins’ first album in six years continues the tradition of 2011’s Tha Funk Capital Of The World by enlisting special guests to extend his funkalicious reach. Proselytizing the holy gospel of uncut…
Allison Moorer
Ryko
Allison Moorer couples a pitch-perfect voice with an edge you rarely find in commercial country music. Her first recordings displayed a rustic rock-and-roll leaning you’d expect from someone with her looks and vocal…
ZZ Top
RAW
The latest from ZZ Top is the soundtrack from the Netflix documentary That Little Ol’ Band From Texas, released in 2019. Recorded live at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas, this 12-track release…
Joan Osborne
Songs Of Bob Dylan
Osborne could sing a dictionary and make it sound good, and though she’s written much of her best material, she’s proven to be a stellar interpreter – be it Motown, blues, Americana, or…
Backyard Tire Fire – The Places We Lived
Backyard Tire Fire can be called “tasteful,” “workmanlike” (in the best sense of the word), and “tough.” Many of the songs are about uneasy situations. “Everybody’s Down” and “Welcome to the Factory” are…
Keith Cameron
The Year (or so) of Mudhoney rolls on. The long-running Seattle foursome has experienced a resurgence of interest lately. The latest example: this well-researched and crisply written biography from rock journalist Keith Cameron,…
Allen Hinds
The Good Fight
The latest from the Lord of Legato features compositions that blur the line between prog, fusion, and Americana. From the majestic to the bucolic, Allen Hinds leaves it all in the ring with…
Gretchen Menn
Magnum Opus
Gretchen Menn stands alone. One might argue that she’s the female counterpart to Steve Morse. Both are aviators, both play ungodly guitar, and both are ersed in the European traditions of the Classical…
