• 2025 December Issue on Spotify

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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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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…

Norm Harris with David Swartz – Norman’s Rare Guitars

What is it about a “coffee table” book? Is it that they are wonderful objects as well as colorful books? They cover virtually all subjects from cars to architecture, furniture to boats. There’s…

Albert Lee – Road Runner

England’s hottest country picker’s last Sugar Hill release, 2003’s Heartbreak Hill , was a nice tribute to his former bandleader, Emmylou Harris – albeit somewhat tame compared to the stuff he’s been recording…

Check This Action: A Year In Their Life

Recently, I stumbled onto one of those “reaction” videos by a New Zealander named Courtney, who wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen footage of the Beatles or even heard their songs. This shouldn’t…

Bill Frisell, Nels Cline, David Torn, and others

European Union

You may have heard the name Terje Rypdal, but not really know the six-string legend or his music. For close to 50 years, Rypdal was a major force in Europe, pushing the lines…

Tom Jones

A Tom Jones gospel album? The image that first comes to mind is probably something like Elvis’ How Great Thou Art – big production, choirs – and Jones certainly has the lungs to…

Marillion

Misplaced Childhood

Progressive rock suffered an ignominious death in the ’80s, perhaps deservedly. That didn’t stop a few British bands from pushing onward, notably Marillion, which found a sweet spot on its third album, 1985’s…

Mick Fleetwood & Friends

Celebrate the Music of Peter Green & Early Years of Fleetwood Mac

British blues icon Peter Green passed away July 25, 2020, at the age of 73. As one of the founding members of the original Fleetwood Mac with Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, Green…

The Dig 3

The Dig 3

If you’re drowning in a sea of “blooz” mediocrity, you need to check out the Dig 3. The Chicago-based trio delivers no-nonsense blues free of affectation. Though this is the group’s debut album,…

Ted Leo

The Hanged Man

Critically acclaimed East Coast songwriter Ted Leo’s press clippings are filled with references to the Canon of British Bands Whose Names Are Collective Nouns: The Who, The Jam, The Clash. Fair enough; after…

Jools Holland & his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra – Jools Holland’s Big Band Rhythm & Blues

If the term “big band,” especially tied to a pop star, conjures the dreaded image of one of those zoot-suited groups with the word “Daddy” in its name, fear not. Ex-Squeeze keyboardist Holland’s…

UFO

Lights Out 2024 Remaster

UFO was a ferocious live band, but had trouble translating that hard-rock excitement to the studio. They got close on 1977’s Lights Out, and this remaster is proof, delivering chunky, restored bass tracks…

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 –…

Willie Nelson

That’s Life

My Way, Willie’s 2018 Grammy-winning Frank Sinatra homage, clearly didn’t satiate his desire to explore songs by the vocalist whose style profoundly influenced his own. With the same co-producers (Buddy Cannon and keyboardist…

Vince Gill

In the four years since his Guitar Slinger album, Vince Gill kept busy producing others, recording an album with the Time Jumpers and a Bakersfield tribute with pedal steeler Paul Franklin. This time,…

Harvey Dalton Arnold Blues Band

Music Mania Studios

Named for its founder, this band is steeped in the blues and modern interpretations of classics. An album of covers? Not inasmuch as the arrangements are completely different which provides an unexpected character…

Bruce Cockburn

True North

In more ways than one, American audiences are still catching up with this Canadian singer/songwriter. In fact, that tag illustrates how those of us south of the border are largely familiar with only…

Wilko Johnson and Roger Daltrey

Wilko Johnson was having quite a run. In 2009 he stole the show in Oil City Confidential, Julien Temple’s acclaimed rock doc about Johnson’s old band, Dr. Feelgood. In 2011 he began appearing…

Rev. Gary Davis – Live At Newport

A truly unique figure in American folk music, the late Rev. Gary Davis was a blind Baptist preacher from South Carolina who sang on the streets of Harlem. He didn’t make his first…

Charlie Apicella

Organ-ized

The organ trio – or in the case of the Charlie Apicella album, the organ quartet – is alive and well. Each of these new releases features organ and guitar, and to anyone…

Marshall Crenshaw – Jaggedland

All of the hats Crenshaw wears so well – singer, guitarist, composer, producer – come together in full force on “Right On Time,” his latest CD’s opening track. His vocal is equal parts…

Willie Nelson

That’s Life

My Way, Willie’s 2018 Grammy-winning Frank Sinatra homage, clearly didn’t satiate his desire to explore songs by the vocalist whose style profoundly influenced his own. With the same co-producers (Buddy Cannon and keyboardist…

Doug Brod

They Just Seem a Little Weird: How Kiss, Cheap Trick, Aerosmith, and Starz Remade Rock and Roll

This book connects the dots among four bands that emerged in the ’70s, describing how Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen, and Starz’s Richie Ranno played guitar on Kiss vocalist/bassist Gene Simmons’…

The Yawpers

Boy In A Well

The Yawpers’ latest finds the raucous Denver trio playing it a bit against the beery roots-rock type, instead presenting (of all things) a song cycle concerning a mother who has given up her…

Sharon Isbin & Friends

Sony Classical

Isbin, one of America’s most prolific classical guitarists, has incorporated folk and jazz on crossover collaborations such as Journey To The Amazon (with saxophonist Paul Winter and percussionist Thiago de Mello), 3 Guitars…

Check This Action: Kathy Valentine: HoF Bassist

In the highly recommended documentary, 2020’s The Go-Go’s, Police drummer Stewart Copeland is incredulous to learn that the band had yet to be inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “What…

Craig Maki with Keith Cady

Craig Maki and Keith Cady provide a well-researched look at an overlooked part of Motor City’s rich musical history. They offer new or little-known information about the fertile Detroit scene that influenced people…

Albert Collins – Live at Montreux

The justifiably nicknamed “Master Of The Telecaster” was one of the great blues guitarists of all time. By the time of his death in 1994, at age 61, he had exerted a major…

Sevendust

Atlanta, Georgia’s Sevendust’s 11th album of head-butting alternative metal spotlights guitarists John Connolly and Clint Lowery serving up a fierce barrage of pummeling guitar arrangements, jam-packed with hellacious riffs and memorable hooks. The…

The Space Age Travelers

Satellite Shuffle

Though their name tosses them into the surf/space pond, this instrumental trio defies pigeonholing. It’s an eclectic set – no wonder, considering guitarist/composer/producer B.J. Baartmans’ influences; he lists a few as Cliff Gallup,…