• 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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Sean Costello – Sean Costello

Sean Costello – Sean Costello This is Sean’s first work for Tone Cool/Artemis, and while his past work was very good, he has matured to become one of the major young talents in…

Mark Selby – Nine Pound Hammer

What may be Mark Selby’s best album earns the title in part because his guitar playing is more prominent than it was on his previous efforts. This is essentially a trio record, with…

Miles Davis

Columbia/Legacy

Debates will forever rage regarding the dawn of jazz-rock fusion – its birth attributed to everyone from vibraphonist Gary Burton (and/or his guitarist, Larry Coryell) to Cream. There were definitely examples prior to…

Allman Brothers Band – Live at the Atlanta International Pop Festival Jul

I’ve had the argument many times that the original version of the Allman Brothers Band was the best blues-rock band in the history of rock. Many insist it’s Led Zeppelin. Others have their…

Charles Shaar Murray – Boogie Man – The Adventures of John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen” may well have been the first million-selling blues hit when it came out in 1948. It was a song unlike anything most folk had ever heard: the chanted…

Neil Young + Promise of the Real

Neil Young often does whatever he pleases. And now, at age 70, that’s truer than ever. This new album proves the point: It’s a thematic concert combining new takes on 13 previously released…

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…

Big Joe Williams

Southside Blues

Big Joe Williams’ headstone is undoubtedly the only one on the planet that reads “King Of The Nine-String Guitar.” Because it’s true – as is the rest of the epitaph: “Big Joe sustained…

Long John Baldry – Remembering Leadbelly

The Brits, in at least as far as the blues is concerned, have always been our archivists. With a few exceptions in the ’60s, including John Hammond, Butterfield and Bloomfield, Taj Mahal, and…

Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott

Playing seemingly anything with strings (including piano strings), the cumulative session credits of O’Brien and Scott include Suzy Boggus, Steve Earle, Trisha Yearwood, Mark Knopfler, Joan Baez, the Chieftains, and countless others. The…

Big Joe and the Dynaflows

Severn Records

Big Joe Maher’s latest showcases his bluesy, swinging vocal style and rocksolid drumming on a dozen tracks split evenly between originals and covers, including B.B. King’s “Bad Case of Love” to Billy Wright’s…

Moving Pictures: How Rush Created Progressive Hard Rock’s Greatest Record

Will Romano

Rush’s Moving Pictures is often regarded as the band’s masterpiece, and this book unpacks the creative efforts of frontman/bassist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer/lyricist Neil Peart. Examining the 1981 album’s “filmic…

Kim Lenz – It’s All True

Describing Kim Lenz as a “female Elvis” is narrow-sighted, as there are few musical similarities between the two, particularly in the fact Lenz writes a good chunk of her own material and, more…

Gov’t Mule featuring John Scofield

Gov’t Mule featuring John Scofield

Surprises

Fans have begged for this music to be released for a long time. For the most part, it’s two concerts recorded in September 1999 featuring the original Gov’t Mule lineup along with John…

Young Rascals – Collections

Originally released over a five-year period, these seven albums show a band that knew what would work on the radio, and also how to stretch things a bit. As you’d expect, the early…

Dave Hunter

Les Paul Praises

Here is a coffeetable book and then some! It’s a 224-page hardcover, with 400-plus exquisite photographs chronicling the rise and fall – and rise again – of the Gibson Les Paul. All its…

Laurie Morvan – Cures What Ails Ya

Few standard blues records by non-major artists offer any surprises. But Laurie Morvan adds a bit to the blues genre. Her songs aren’t all that different, but the playing is unique enough to…

Duke Robillard – A Swing Lesson with Duke Robillard

Stony Plain

Duke continues his impressive output with a nod to his swing roots. Among guitarists, Robillard is known as a do-all, as he can be at home in almost any musical style, not only…

Steve Waksman – Instruments of Desire

This is a work of scholarly intent in which the author presents a treatise on the history and development of the electric guitar and how its subsequent use shaped the course of popular…

Daniel de Visé

King of the Blues: The Rise and Reign of B.B. King

Sixty years, 90 countries, 15,000 concerts – and that tally doesn’t include B.B. King’s early years of juke joints, radio broadcasts, and street-corner serenades. Over the years, Riley “Blues Boy” King became the…

Ruth Moody

Red House Records

Founding member of the The Wailin’ Jennys, here, Ruth Moody asserts her musical individuality. Using a cast of 27 musicians, she embraces a breadth of musical genres – old timey, Celtic, and even…

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…

Whiskey Shivers

Some Part Of Something

Whiskey Shivers’ instrumentation, the basic construction of their songs, and lightning fast picking mean you could call this a bluegrass band. But the ensemble takes things one step beyond. “Like A Stone” ruminates…

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.…

The Del McCoury Band – Del and the Boys

Anyone who thinks bluegrass music is just about doing songs performed by dead guys – but doing 'em faster, hasn't heard the Del McCoury band. Their latest album on Ricky Skaggs' Celli Music…

The Little Willies

Essentially a super-group of players that just want to have some fun with the music they grew up with, Norah Jones, Jim Campilongo, Lee Alexander, Richard Julian, and Dan Rieser serve up lots…

Ed Gerhard – House of Guitars

House of Guitars

There are a number of us who find joy in collecting pawnshop guitars – you know the type, cheap, affordable, and ever so quirky. There’s a certain pleasure in having one of these…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

Doc Watson – Best of Sugar Hill Years

Sugar Hill Records

Doc Watson is such an icon of American music and the country and bluegrass fields that it would be impossible to point to one recording and pin down his best work. This collection…

Khalif Wailin’ Walter

Phoenix Risin’

Spawned on the mean streets of Chicago but making his home in Essen, Germany, blues man Khalif Wailin’ Walter has kept the blues alive by barnstorming festivals all over Europe and releasing music…

Robben Ford – In Concert Revisited

The premise of the Autour Du Blues DVD was to stage a transatlantic blues summit for the 25th anniversary of Paris’ New Morning club in December ’06, teaming the group of France’s studio…