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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
Vandenberg’s Moonkings
He’s had a decade away from the spotlight, but former Whitesnake guitarist Adrian Vandenberg has returned with Vandenberg’s MoonKings. After a false start with the ill-fated Manic Eden starring Rudy Sarzo and Tommy…
Robert Gordon with Chris Spedding
Hellafied
A legend out of time with the times, Robert Gordon should have been a star during the true rockabilly era of the late ’50s. Instead, he made his mark in the punky late…
Yasmin Williams
Acadia
Yasmin Williams has been making a buzz for several years now, but is really hitting her stride with a new album that finds her collaborating with fresh voices and players including guitarist Kaki…
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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,
Jake Armerding – Walking on the World
Jake Armerding’s third solo release has a wider musical scope than his earlier releases, but his songwriting is more focused, articulate, and poignant. Like many talented young songwriters, the traditional genres of folk,…
Carsie Blanton
Love & Rage
Carsie Blanton is a stick of dynamite disguised as a firecracker. Her website applies terms like anthems, moxie, and mischief – and they fit. In 2020, Blanton’s online rent parties became monthly events…
The Mavericks
Since reforming five years ago, the Mavericks have released two studio albums and 2016’s All Night Live, Vol. 1. And again here, the core quartet of vocalist-guitarist Raul Malo, guitarist Eddie Perez, keyboard…
Lefty Williams – Snake Oil
31-year-old Jason Williams was born with a right arm that stopped a little below his elbow. Not many in that condition would pick guitar. But pick it up he did, and pick he…
Neil Young
Uncle Neil’s at it again, issuing the seventh disc in his live Archives Performance Series. Once more he’s alone with his Martins and a piano (a “really outta sight” Steinway), this time post-Thanksgiving…
Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio
I Told You So
The funky organ group’s follow-up to 2016’s Close But No Cigar finds the band comfortably nestled in a bed of soul-jazz backbeats, Silvertone hollowbody goodness, and intoxicating Hammond B3. Rising from the smoldering…
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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
Robert Cray – Time Will Tell
Time Will Tell
Can “Young Bob,” who slyly boasted about being a “Strong Persuader,” the proverbial back door man, be turning 50? Well, the good news is that Robert Cray hasn’t lost any of the original…
Willie Nelson – Willie & The Wheel
Willie, The Wheel, and Wexler
Aside from Jerry Wexler’s standing as a titan of R&B, soul and rock, his musical range extended far beyond. A lifelong country fan, Wexler enjoyed Hank Williams and Bob Wills when they were…
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall Hendrix is undoubtedly the greatest rock guitarist who ever lived, and Experience Hendrix LLC is now releasing a vinyl version of this original 2000 collection. The original release consisted of studio…
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…
Vinnie Moore
Double Exposure
Neoclassical shredder Vinnie Moore’s latest features vocals for the first time. Double Exposure is a heavy-rock record saturated with funky overtones and a high degree of guitarmanship. Joined by vocalists Keith Slack, Ed…
Peter Frampton
Universal Music
To some, Peter Frampton will always be the good-looking ’70s guitar guy with the live double-album. To others he is a dynamic guitarist, full of great licks that still, 35 years later, makes…
David Gilmour – On An Island
This is an expanded edition of Gilmour’s 2006 DVD of material from a live AOL session. The DVD is a bit sterile, done in a studio with no audience, but the playing is…
High Low Duo
Ravel & Bartók
As producers and guitarists, Cameron Greider and Jack Petruzzelli come with impressive resumés. The former has played with Chris Cornell, Natalie Merchant, and Joan Baez; the latter has recorded with Joan Osborne, Patti…
The Martian Denny Orchestra
Bob Irwin, founder-owner of New York-based Sundazed Music and a rock and jazz guitarist for decades, has a guitar-centric mind. Part of the instrumental band the Pluto Walkers, Irwin, who now lives near…
Spirit of Django
The Guitar Label
This Brit’s career has been nothing if not varied. He has backed vocalists from Teresa Brewer to Alison Burns (as the latter’s sole accompaniment on 1 AM); recorded small-group bebop (Freternity), “new acoustic”/Dawg…
Jim Hall
CTI/Masterworks Jazz
There’s never been a time when Jim Hall wasn’t at the top of his game. From his days as a member of the Jimmy Giuffre 3 and Chico Hamilton Quintet, collaborations with Bill…
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…
Cecil Alexander
Various artists
Detlef Schmidt
Girls Go Wild
Some among the cognoscenti argue that there are two bassists in the blues world that define the genre – Chess mastermind Willie Dixon on the upright and Keith Ferguson on electric. This illustrated…
Nick Moss – Privileged
Blue Bella Records
Along with the Kilborn Alley Blues Band, Gerry Hundt, and others on his Blue Bella label, Nick Moss is one of the most consistent current blues/blues-influenced artists from Chicago. Moss’ music is not…
Lee Rocker – Racin’ the Devil
Lee Rocker is best known as the bassist in the Stray Cats. He’s signed with Alligator, which appears to be expanding its scope with acts outside of blues, and here they’ve made a…
Dale Watson
What is there not to love about Dale Watson? He flies the flag for real country music in a day and age when real country isn’t accepted by country radio. His latest is…
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…
The Libertines
Up The Bracket 20th Anniversary Edition
This Super Deluxe Edition arrives smack dab on time – 20 years to the day after the original album’s 2002 debut and spot on for the nostalgia wave. Following on from the Sex…
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…
Cadillac Sky – Gravity’s Our Enemy
Though they call their music “outlaw acoustic” and they include Radiohead and Gnarles Barkley along with Earl Scruggs and Alison Krauss as inspirations, Cadillac Sky’s music is far closer to roots bluegrass than…
Robert Plant
Rounder
Around the time Lorne Michaels offered the Beatles a whopping $3,000 to reunite on “Saturday Night Live” in 1976, there was a brilliant piece of satirical writing wherein the reunited Beatles signed with…
Fleetwood Mac
Live Deluxe Edition
