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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
Journey
Freedom
Journey’s first album in 11 years did not come easily. Guitarist Neal Schon, keyboardist Jonathan Cain, and vocalist Arnel Pineda welcomed a new rhythm section including bassist Randy Jackson (the “American Idol” judge),…
Bearfoot Bluegrass – Follow Me
Glacier Records
Bluegrass bands are often male-only affairs. But the women in Bearfoot Bluegrass are in a majority position. Annalisa Tornfelt plays fiddle, sings lead, and is responsible for seven of the songs. Kate Hamre…
Fifty Seven Stitch – Nerveblock
Nerveblock
Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned American hard rock? You know the kind – crunching guitars, strong vocals, a deft melodic touch that never threatens to spiral into goo (thanks in large part to…
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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,
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…
Peter Ames Carlin
Sonic Boom: The Impossible Rise of Warner Bros. Records, from Hendrix to Fleetwood Mac to Madonna to Prince
Chances are a significant chunk of your music collection is from artists on the Warner Brothers, Reprise, Atlantic, Elektra, Asylum, and Sire labels. Innovative executives and record producers like Mo Ostin, Joe Smith,…
Geoff Muldaur – The Guitar Artistry Of
Vestapol/Rounder
When an 18-year-old Geoff Muldaur cut his first album – 1963’s Sleepy Man Blues for Prestige – you could practically count on your fingers the number of white performers recording blues – Koerner,…
Bo Diddley – A Man Amongst Men
A Man Amongst Men
Okay, it seems kind of weird to write a review of a guy who’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but this is such a good album that I had to.…
Frank Zappa
Zappa Records
When I had occasion to visit Lancaster, California, in 1996, I was shocked to discover that there wasn’t a single thing in the town to acknowledge the fact that Frank Zappa had spent…
Jinx Jones – Live in Finland
San Francisco’s Jinx Jones teams with two terrific Finnish musicians for the making of this fine live record. Henry Valanne (drums) and Ari Sjöblom (bass) are both adept at the various forms of…
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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
The Sadies
Yep Roc Records
The Sadies are on a creative roll, following 2007’s New Seasons with an eclectic country-rock album one dares call a “modern classic.” Benefiting again from the production of former Jayhawk Gary Louris, Darker…
New Guitar Summit – Shivers
Merely putting three great guitar players together doesn’t guarantee the results will qualify as music. All too often, ego, lack of chemistry, or merely inadequate rehearsal time results in a stiff, formulaic CD.…
Tedeschi Trucks Band
All The Way Live
Live albums can be a remedy for contract disputes or a way to stall for time during a creative dry spell. For Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, it’s really the best way to…
Andy Taylor
Man’s a Wolf to Man
The former Duran Duran guitarist’s third solo album is his first of new material in 37 years, and it’s lucky to have been completed. Taylor announced in ’22 he had stage-four prostate cancer…
Eric Johnson
EMI/Vortexan
The notoriously slow-to-record Johnson follows up his 2005 set, Bloom, with a solid album that should please his guitar-loving fanbase. Where Bloom was an oddly diverse collection of FM rock and vintage soul,…
Jim Colegrove & the New Rough Riders of the Dirty Age
Jim Colegrove’s talent is as big as his résumé is long. His session work includes albums by Todd Rundgren, John Hall, Bobby Charles, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, and even Allen Ginsberg. Most of…
Sarah Harmer – You Were Here
Canadian musicians have long found it necessary to come south to the US of A if they want to make it big. Sarah Harmer is one of a long line of Canadians lured…
David Grissom – Loud Music
When you’ve made your living and reputation as a hired gun, and finally decide to cut a solo album, what do you do? In the case of David Grissom, the question is particularly…
Electromagnets (featuring Eric Johnson) – Electromagnets II
Electromagnets (featuring Eric Johnson) – Electromagnets II Electromagnets (featuring Eric Johnson) Electromagnets II Vortexman Music As many know, Eric Johnson started his career not in the mid 1980s, but 10 years earlier in…
J.J. Grey & Mofo – Orange Blossoms
JJ Grey continues a long line of singer/songwriters who grew up in the South and soaked up everything that makes music from that region so unique. On his second effort for Alligator, Grey…
La Guitara – Gender Bending Strings Anthology of Women Guitaris
When I was young and someone said “You play like a chick guitar player,” they’d be either smiling or ducking. After hearing this anthology, it could only be construed as a compliment. Produced…
Dino Saluzzi – Responsorium
Responsorium
Argentine Dino Saluzzi is at the forefront of a new generation of bandonéonistas arriving on the scene since the overpowering force of Astor Piazzolla. Yet while many have remain trapped in the strands…
Bill Kirchen – Tied to the Wheel
Bill’s no stranger to country music, having anchored the lead guitar slot in Commander Cody’s Lost Planet Airmen way back when. Since the break-up of that band, he’s been around plenty too, and…
Jules Shear – More
Jules Mark Shear is living proof that talented pop musicians who prefer to remain on the fringes can maintain a successful career without cowtowing to the winds of fad and fashion. On his…
The Jelly Jam
The Jelly Jam’s forth album is a weighty recording that combines the best elements of modern prog and aspects of King’s X. Nobody does dark and moody like King’s X guitarist Ty Tabor.…
Jerry Douglas and Various Artists
E1 Entertainment
Tut Taylor is a self-taught virtuoso who plays his Model 27 square-neck Dobro with a flat pick. He first caught the public’s ear while playing with Vassar Clemens in the Dixie Gentleman, and…
Howard Roberts – Various Albums
Mention “the ’60s,” and the sounds that invariably spring to mind (along with images of the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement, and the moon landing) are psychedelia and the British Invasion –…
NRBQ
New Rhythm And Blues
This five-disc retrospective captures the essence of what is one of America’s best, if not best-known, bands from the past half century. To describe NRBQ to someone who has never heard them is…
Mathew Ryan – Concussion
I’m a big fan of un-slick, direct acoustic music. Mathew Ryan’s Concussion is just that – country music in the mold of Steve Earle, not Garth Brooks. Ryan’s music has the grit of…
Check This Action: Dave Davies’ Kinky Journey
I first saw The Kinks live in April, 1973, at Winterland in San Francisco, where they played a flawless set with stops on almost every album. When Dave Davies delivered the power-chord F-G-G-F-G…
