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Music
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,
Wes Montgomery
Play It Hot
The social climate transformed the music: being a jazz musician of color in the 1950s forced you to express music differently in those days. Life and music were tumultuously intertwined. A factory worker…
Dierks Bentley
Capital Records
From the outside, one could easily judge Dierks Bentley’s music too slick, his status as merely a phenom on country radio. But Up On The Ridge might slap you up-side the head. Recorded…
Black Sabbath
Heaven and Hell & Mob Rules Deluxe Editions
One of the most shocking events in metal history wasn’t Black Sabbath firing Ozzy Osbourne, but that it found a new front man who built his own legend. Ronnie James Dio’s two ’80s…
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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
Steve Zook – Transporter
Longtime VG readers will recognize Steve Zook’s name. He’s been advertising for years. I’ve acquired some nice jazz boxes from him in the past. But unlike many dealers who are primarily buyers and…
Denny Jiosa – Dreams Like This
Sonic Canvas Records
Denny Jiosa is a player of immense chops and fire, and while jazz dominates this album, Jiosa is also at home with R&B and pop, and cuts like “Forward Motion” give him the…
Tony Joe White – Snakey
Snakey
The title track that opens the Swamp Fox’s latest offering sounds almost like a variation on his bluesy “As A Crow Flies,” from 1972’s The Train I’m On. Hallelujah! At this point in…
Joseph Rosen
Surely, Joe Rosen isn’t the first music photographer to snap a shot not of a performer’s face but of his or her hands. The difference is he continued the practice and, with a…
LA LOM
The Los Angeles League of Musicians
It’s Latin, it’s surfy, it’s twangy – okay, what the heck is it? LA LOM is an instrumental trio that mines a vein of electric South and Central American music known as “chicha.”…
Toots and the Maytals – Light Your Light
News flash: Toots is sporting dreads! Since the dawn of his career in the mid 1960s, Frederick “Toots” Hibbert has sworn by a close-shaven head. And his music has remained close to its…
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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
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Paul Johnson
The Hepcats Live at the Ajax Novelty Company
This isn’t live, there may not be an Ajax Novelty Company, and the three felines known as the Hepcats are actually the brainchild of Paul Johnson, whose Belairs were early-’60s pioneers of surf music. Suspend reality and dig how the “trio” expertly articulates layers of acoustic guitar. Across decades, Johnson has embraced folk-rock, psychedelia, and
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Yes
Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition
Are you a high-fidelity audio geek? If the answer is, well, yes, this Rhino release brings together an HD experience of Close to the Edge in no fewer than four versions, plus rarities and a ’72 concert. For starters, the 2025 remaster sounds as close to the analog 1972 mix as you’re going to get
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Pink Floyd
Have You Got It Yet? – The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd
It’s understandable that fans warily approach the flood of pseudo-documentaries and biopics. Add the fact that the late Syd Barrett, Floyd’s original guitarist/leader, suffered from mental illness, and exploitation alarms are sure to go off. But this documentary handles the subject with dignity instead of sensationalism. Interviews by longtime Floyd cover artist Storm Thorgerson with
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The Wildhearts
In the raging ’90s, The Wildhearts blasted out of Newcastle upon Tyne like some unholy melding of Guns ’N Roses, Cheap Trick, and The Replacements. Hard rock, power pop, and punk still make up their secret sauce, heard on this latest effort with original singer/guitarist Ginger Wildheart. Ben Marsden plays lead, while Kavus Torabi adds
Charlie Byrd, Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis – Great Guitars Live
Great Guitars Live
Call it a gimmick if you will, but the Great Guitars super trio of Charlie Byrd, Barney Kessel, and Herb Ellis made some great music. The concept came by accident. Byrd’s own trio…
Pink Floyd
All The Songs
At nearly 600 pages, this massive coffee-table book will send Floydians into paroxysms of pleasure. Authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon craft encyclopedic entries on every single Pink Floyd song, including personnel, tracking…
Antiseen
Antiseen celebrates 30 years of raw, southern punk-and-roll with their latest CD. It’s an impressive milestone for any band, much less a rag-tag group of fringe-dwellers. Is that part of the reason New…
Montrose
Live Forever, Never Get Old
Montrose was one of the first American rock bands to kick Brit-rock ass in the early ’70s. Made up of Sammy Hagar on vocals, drummer Denny Carmassi, bassist Bill Church, and guitarist Ronnie…
Bill Monroe – Father of Bluegrass
First released on VHS in the mid ’90s, this documentary deifies Bill Monroe as the founder of bluegrass music and as an all-around swell guy. Whether the film crosses the line between documentary…
Tony Green – Gypsy Jazz
New Orleans artist/guitarist Tony Green has crafted a masterpiece of swinging gypsy jazz with this CD. He covers three Django Reinhardt tunes, as well as songs by Sidney Bechet, a variety of traditional…
The Time Jumpers
Time Machine
The Time Jumpers formed in ’98 as a lark for a group of A-list Nashville sidemen who loved Western swing. Eighteen years later, they’ve become a local institution, energetically presenting the vintage music…
Eve Monsees and Mike Buck
& Their Groovy Orbit
This is not a solo album as much as an anthology of Austin artists and styles – from blues to country to ’60s garage and psych, demonstrating the versatility of singer/guitarist Monsees (Eve…
Cedric Burnside
Be Trying
One of 35 grandchildren of the late R.L. Burnside, Cedric grew up in the rundown Holly Springs, Mississippi, home that housed four generations of Burnsides. An award-winning drummer, he was behind a kit…
Joe Bonamassa
Joe Bonamassa may not be pushing the blues genre forward, but his fans don’t care. His latest opus features 75 minutes of blistering blues-rock. The CD comes with a DVD and features both…
Kim Wilson – Smokin’ Joint
This CD, recorded over a two-year period, spotlights the world class work of the legendary T-Birds frontman, but of interest to the readers of this publication would be the four – count ’em,…
Amos Garrett – Get Way Back
Garrett is, of course, best known as a guitarist (his tasteful solo on Maria Muldaur’s “Midnight At The Oasis” should have topped Rolling Stone‘s recent “100 Greatest Guitar Songs”). Percy Mayfield (a big…
Nick Lowe – Dig My Mood
It’s extremely tempting to start this review with something like…”I knew Nick Lowe when he used to rock and roll…,” but I won’t because it might make you think I don’t like this…
Close Enough for Jazz, II
October’s “CTA,” titled “Close Enough For Jazz,” surveyed a half-dozen indie jazz releases featuring guitar in different capacities and styles. Fortunately for jazz guitar fans, there’s never a shortage of such releases –…
Sierra Hull – Secrets and Tunes
Accutab Video
Sierra Hull may be the next Alison Krauss. Then again, she could be merely another photogenic young picker. But regardless of her future, she is an impeccably talented mandolin player. At the beginning…
Hilton Valentine
Tatty
For players in their late 50s and early 60s, the Animals’ #1 “House Of The Rising Sun” is often cited as a benchmark, with guitarist Hilton Valentine’s arpeggiated intro as indelibly stamped as…
Eric Lindell
Eric Lindell’s past efforts have showcased his multiple skills, and this latest is no different. His songwriting is strong as ever, his interpretive skills are impeccable, he handles various instruments with ease, and…
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…
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…
Lexie Roth – One Long Blink
Roth was 17 when she started recording this project, 19 when she finished, and it’s testament to her talent and maturity that you can’t tell where the performances fell chronologically. Her six originals…
Tommy Emmanuel
As the title suggests, this is a collection of performances pulled from several Public Television concerts Tommy Emmanuel has done, including some never seen before. It will come as no surprise to fans…
Ricky Skaggs with Kentucky Thunder – History of the Future
History of the Future
Sex Pistols: I Wanna Be Me
Dave Simpson
