• Paul Johnson

    Music

    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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Tommy Castro and the Painkillers

Stompin’ Ground

Veteran Tommy Castro feels right at home here as he takes his band and some pretty special guests through songs that, for the most part, harken back to his days growing up in…

Tommy Emmanuel and Martin Taylor

Tommy Emmanuel and Martin Taylor The Colonel & The Governor Jazz has a long tradition of guitar duets, from the “Blue Guitars” of Eddie Lang and Lonnie Johnson to Dick McDonough and Carl…

Rick Fowler – Back On My Good Foot

The closing, extended version of Savoy Brown’s “Hellbound Train” is this set’s only cover, but it may be the set’s most revealing track. With so many blues guitarists aping the Vaughans, it’s refreshing…

The Aristocrats

The rock-fusion trio known as the Aristocrats are back with a second album fortified with artistic maturity from gigging around the world. With a stronger, more-cohesive musical vision, bassist Bryan Beller, drummer Marco…

Marty Robbins – The Essential Mary Robbins

With a repertoire so extensive and wide-ranging, it would be impossible to track down, let alone list, all the session players backing this country icon on this two-disc retrospective. The Mottola/Caiola crew played…

C’mon Sheryl Crow – America 2003(DVD), Best of (CD)

The latest releases from Sheryl Crow help affirm something I’ve thought for a long time… that she is a “keeper of the flame” for the kind of rock and roll a lot of…

Wink Keziah & Delux Motel – Working Songs

Like Blue Ribbon and Texas Red, some music is best enjoyed in the neon blue of a honky-tonk. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always travel well beyond the barroom. That’s not the case for Wink…

Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators

Slash and his rock and roll posse have released their third solo album with Alter Bridge vocalist Myles Kennedy. This is a mean, heart-resuscitating rock machine with driving tempos, crunchy chord work, and…

Alejandro Escovedo

Fantasy Records

If straight-ahead rock with hints of punk, new wave, and ’50s rock and roll is your deal, Escovedo offers it in spades. Street Songs of Love has plenty of chugging riff-driven rock and…

Jeff Beck – Truth and Beck-ola

Truth and Beck-ola

Okay, reviewing these is a no-brainer. Any guitarist of my generation knows these well. The 1968 and ’69 releases helped establish Beck, and essentially paved the way for Led Zeppelin. Beck is a…

Seth Walker

Seth Walker has issued a string of fine records that come together in his latest. Walker and Dave Gross man the six-strings on a collection of strong cuts, and while the approach offers…

Charles Brown – A Life In The Blues

This is more than just an album by the late R&B great Charles Brown. It’s truly the story of a life – a scrapbook of history, photos, testimonials, music, vintage film clips, a…

Robert Plant & the Strange Sensation – Soundstage

Robert Plant & the Strange Sensation, Soundstage. Robert Plant and his band, The Strange Sensation, play 11 songs; covers, old Zep songs, and newer Plant tunes. The band is the perfect complement, anchored…

Jimi Hendrix

Experience Hendrix is the gatekeeper to the legacy of Jimi Hendrix, and thankfully so. In addition to protecting the music of the greatest rock guitarist of the ’60s from unscrupulous opportunists, they’ve released…

Marshall Chapman

TallGirl Records

Marshall Chapman wrote most of the songs here in tribute to friend (and former guitarist) Tim Krekel, who died of cancer in June of ’09. The result is at once beautiful and very…

Jimi Hendrix – Live at Monterey

Forty years after the fact, some people (people who weren’t around at the time) might say that Jimi Hendrix wasn’t all that revolutionary. These people would be wrong. There had been sonic experimentation…

Jeffrey P. Ross – My Pleasure

My Pleasure

You gotta love this kind of record. Ross has been around awhile, and probably isn’t real well-known to most folks. And it’s a blues album (for the most part anyway) from a guy…

Alvin Youngblood Hart – Down in the Alley

Down in the Alley

I wasn’t prepared for how good this disc is. Hart’s mostly known for his work in country blues. Here, he does a program of good, old-fashioned country blues. And this Mississippi-Delta songfest is…

Little Feat

Little Feat’s run of records for Warner Bros. from 1971 to 1990 was no little feat. The band suffered the effects of too many genius musicians, personnel changes, drugs, and alcohol. In effect,…

Steve Earle – Jerusalem

Jerusalem

Here are a couple of records from one of America’s best songwriters. One is a batch of cuts made for movie soundtracks, or for some other reason didn’t fit on his albums. The…

The Sandro Albert Quartet

Daywood Drive Records

Played well, guitars and f lutes make an excellent combination. Such is the case in Sandro Albert’s quartet. Albert is a gifted guitarist whose soloing swings, and his knowledge of the harmonic structure…

Steve Miller Band

J50: The Evolution of The Joker

David Bromberg

Swearing On The Blues

Roy Orbison & Friends

Black & White Night 30

Pete Townshend & Ronnie Lane

Rough Mix, Pete Townshend, Empty Glass

A Comfortable Crossroads?

Robert Johnson’s “Cross Roads Blues” is more than just a song and artist that inspired and haunted Eric Clapton; it symbolized the conflicts in his own life and career. As he told me…

Donal Clancy – Close to Home

Donal Clancy continues the tradition of the Clancy Brothers, demonstrating that contemporary Celtic music is as vibrant as any musical genre. Clancy grew up surrounded by traditional Irish music, and all 12 cuts…

Lucinda Williams

Ghost Stories

From Bobby Troup’s “(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66” to Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited” and more, the roads we’ve traveled have inspired our music. Enter U.S. Highway 20, stretching 1,500 miles across…

The Rolling Stones

Dead Flowers Bloom Again

If you ever forget how good the Rolling Stones really were back in their heyday, the new edition of Sticky Fingers with outtakes and live recordings and this live shot from the Marquee…

California Transit Authority – Full Circle

CTA is California Transit Authority, a band led by Danny Seraphine, the original drummer for Chicago. Early Chicago records stood out thanks in large part to Seraphine’s drumming and Terry Kath’s incendiary guitar…

Chris Shiflett

Lost at Sea

Rock icons have made forays into country since the Everly Brothers paved the way in the ’50s, followed by Duane Eddy, Rick Nelson, and (in 2007) Bon Jovi with Lost Highway. Chris Shiflett’s…

Jimmy Hall

Ready Now

During the ’70s heyday of Southern rock, Jimmy Hall was frontman with Wet Willie. In subsequent years, the Alabama native provided vocals on Jeff Beck’s 1985 Flash album and played sax and harmonica…

Grace Bowers

Wine on Venus

It would be easy to dismiss this 18-year-old as a prefab gimmick, but Grace Bowers’ guitar work ain’t no hype. Armed with a vintage SG Special, she lays down real funk with her…

Dave Hunter & Chuck Holley

A good guitar fits like a well-worn pair of sneakers. Players often christen them with names, mods, and wear and tear that’s carried like a badge of honor. These two new illustrated books…


Sex Pistols

The Original Recordings

Jimi Hendrix

Power Soul

Aerosmith

1971: The Road Starts Hear