• Smith/Kotzen

    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

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Sex Pistols

The Original Recordings

Playing a ’74 Les Paul Custom straight (mostly) through a Twin Reverb, Steve Jones’ Faces-influenced swagger – landing somewhere between the militaristically precise rock of Johnny Ramone and the shambolic roll of Johnny…

Eric Bibb

Kentuckian Wendell Berry is a 79-year- old farmer, activist, novelist, journalist, and poet. He has received numerous awards, but never anything like this tribute, which puts Berry’s words to music – in two…

Robert Earl Keen

Happy Listeners

Robert Earl Keen is all about roots. He has mined his Texas upbringing to create a celebrated career playing Americana that’s ranged widely from folk to country and beyond. His latest foray steps…

Dennis Jones

Dennis Jones’ fifth album elevates his craft to new heights as he juxtaposes an arsenal of blues, rock, and funk with visceral production values. The genre is contemporary blues, and Jones plays serious…

Rob McNelley – On

On

I love it when this happens. Totally out of the blue comes a CD, by an artist I am unfamiliar with, and it blows my socks off. Rob McNelley has been kicking around…

Megadeth

The Sick, the Dying … and the Dead!

During the protracted recording of Megadeth’s 16th album, founding bassist Dave Ellefson was canned, his parts erased and re-recorded by Testament bassist Steve Di Giorgio. Surprisingly, The Sick remains a strong, cohesive statement,…

Ken Will Morton – Devil in Me Kickin’ Out the Rungs

It’s hard for any artist to squeeze out one good album, much less two at once. It’s significant that Ken Will Morton hits more than he misses on these simultaneously released, but separately…

Amy Black

If Will Kimbrough’s name does not come up the next time you’re discussing great guitar players, then you ain’t saying nothin’. Kimbrough is always on the money whether putting a delicately strong acoustic…

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…

Chely Wright

Vanguard Records

Singer/songwriter Chely Wright’s seventh album is different in tone – less solicitous and more emotionally purgative. To enhance her already well-crafted material, Wright has an empathetic producer and collaborator in Rodney Crowell and…

The Yardbirds – Birdland

Birdland

It’s hard not to be skeptical over every “reunion” that comes along when you’ve got Toad The Wet Sprocket reuniting after all these years – five to be exact. If that’s a reunion,…

Little Walter – The Complete Chess Masters (1950-1967)

Hip-O Select/Geffen

Someday someone will make a great movie about rock and roll, maybe even blues. Until then, we’re stuck with crap like Cadillac Records, which takes more than “artistic license” in telling the story…

Evan Johns and The Hillbilly Soul Surfers – Moontan

Moontan

Roots rock wild man Evan Johns returns with a taut but tasty trick bag that should fire the faithful, and make a few new friends, too. The sensibility that infused “Ugly Man” is…

The Howlin’ Brothers

Like a long-lost radio show from the ’50s suddenly coming to life on your radio in the late nighttime hours, this hard-driving string trio summons forth the sounds of old-time bluegrass, vintage country,…

Mojo Monkeys

Medikull Records

Mojo Monkeys is guitarist Billy Watts, bassist Taras Prodaniuk, and drummer David Raven. All three sing, and Blessings & Curses shows them mining a swampy rock feel that sometimes crosses into country. The…

Alligator Records: 50 Years of Genuine Houserockin’ Music

Various artists

The genesis of Alligator Records – founder Bruce Iglauer’s desire to cut an LP with his favorite band, Hound Dog Taylor & the House Rockers – is one of modern blues’ most-told stories.…

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…

The Pretty Things

England’s Snapper Records recently released the ultimate retrospective of the Pretty Things, purveyors of “thrash R&B” (to quote lead singer Phil May) and psychedelia. Featured in July ’15’s “Check This Action,” it weighs…

Marty Stuart

The title of Marty Stuart’s two-disc album originates in a longstanding Southern paradox: the notion of raising hell, boozing, and partying on a Saturday night, usually in a barroom or dancehall – then…

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…

Looking to Get Lost: Adventures in Music and Writing 

Peter Guralnick

Peter Guralnick has masterfully chronicled American vernacular music artists for half a century. His in-depth, first-person profiles of blues, R&B, country and rockabilly greats first appeared in magazines, then in the anthologies Feel…

Howard Alden – Take Your Pick

Here’s a good-old-fashioned jazz guitar album from one of Concord’s young lions. Alden’s work always sounds great, whether he’s swinging with single-note runs (“The Gig”), playing chord solos (“I Concentrate on You”), or…

The Spencer Davis Group – I’m A Man & Gimme Some Lovin’

I'm A Man & Gimme Some Lovin'

In its original incarnation, the Spencer Davis Group was one of the best R&B or pop bands of the British Invasion. Unfortunately, that incarnation only stayed together long enough to record two albums.…

Sean McGowan

On previous releases, Denver-based McGowan has interpreted tunes by such heavyweights as Oliver Nelson, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mercer, Jimmy Van Heusen, Charlie Parker, and Rodgers and Hart. He also dedicated his Sphere album…

Little Feat – Hotcakes and Outtakes

I’ve always been amazed that Little Feat wasn’t a huge band with many hits. They don’t come much snappier than “Dixie Chicken.” And especially in the ’70s heyday of FM radio, how could…

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.…

Al Di Meola – Anthology

Al Di Meola needs no introduction, and most of the music on this fine two-CD collection will be familiar to most guitarists as well. The only question is What’s new? The 20 tracks…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

Robert Cray Band

On the heels of the live release from a 1987 concert, this is a fascinating study that shows how Robert Cray has grown as an artist, working up soul/pop tunes the likes of…

J.D. Simo

This latest shoehorns J.D. Simo’s Nashville six-string virtuosity with the soulful blues phrasing of Chicago, and the heart-pounding adrenaline of rawk. Embedded within a raucous ’60s psychedelic gumbo, Simo summons copious amounts of…

Greg Olliver

Johnny's Blues

In an intimate scene in this DVD’s bonus features, after a short interview and solo slide performance at home (“Murdering Blues” on his ’64 Gibson Firebird V), Winter says, “I love playing guitar.…