• 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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Alan Parsons

For the recording enthusiast, Alan Parsons talking about recording techniques is cherry stuff. Parsons of course was the assistant engineer on The Beatles’ Let It Be and Abbey Road, and the engineer on…

Gibson Brothers – Iron & Diamonds

On their fourth Sugar Hill release the Gibson Brothers have dialed back their high-energy bluegrass sound to focus on songs and lyrics rather than hot picking. The brothers hail from upstate New York,…

Reverend Horton Heat

Jim Heath, the fleet-fingered and irrepressible godfather of psychobilly, is back, leading his trio, Reverend Horton Heat, through their first new long-player since 2009. And while some are hailing it as a return…

Nickel Creek – Nickel Creek

Nickel Creek is a of (primarily) musical whiz kids. Three of its four members are under 23. Two are siblings, Sara Watkins (19) on fiddle and vocals, and Sean Watkins (22) on guitar,…

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 –…

Shelby Lynne

Everso Records

Revelation Road comes from an artist who knows exactly what she wants and how to get it, and can come up with an end product that displays brilliantly the worth of the work…

Don Rich

Don Rich’s recording career lasted only 13 years, beginning as the fiddle player on Buck Owens’ 1961 debut. But Owens released as many as four albums a year, and like Merle Haggard’s Strangers…

Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives

For decades, Stuart has been one of country music’s biggest champions, and may yet be its savior. His Fabulous Superlatives are one of the tightest, most authentic country bands and possibly the most…

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…

Check This Action: Folk Festival of Blues

I heard blues records earlier than I can remember. My dad had Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee albums, and a family friend had records by Lead Belly and Jesse Fuller. It was the…

Andy Babiuk and Greg Prevost

The rest of the world may be titillated by what the Stones smoked, shot, snorted, or ingested. But some of us have our priorities straight; we’re more concerned with what the band strummed…

The Explosives – Ka-Boom!

The Explosives were possibly the best of the punk/new wave bands that sprang up in Austin (centered around haunts like Club Foot, Raul’s, and the Continental Club), on the heels of the city’s…

Peter Guralnick

Rocking The World

Sam Phillips was not a guitarist – though he did play drums and sousaphone in his high-school marching band. But he had great ears. And, in launching his Memphis Recording Service and later,…

Laurie Lewis – Live

Bill Monroe never paid much attention to studio recording. He believed bluegrass music was created to be played live. On her latest release, entitled simply Live, Laurie Lewis treats us to a complete…

The No Refund Band

Lead singer/guitarist Ricky Jackson sings with a brassiness and strength that doesn’t come along often in pop music. He’s also an impressive guitarist, partly in debt to the crotch-rock styles of Slash and…

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Sweetheart Of The Rodeo – Live!

Roger McGuinn & Chris Hillman with Marty Stuart

A premier folk-rock band morphing into psychedelia in the mid ’60s, the Byrds pioneered country-rock with 1968’s Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Personnel upheavals had seen David Crosby fired, Gene Clark going solo, and…

Jan & Dean – Liberty Singles

Last month’s “Hit List” review of the Beach Boys’ U.S. Singles Collection: The Capitol Years (1962-1965) pointed out that, as great as the music is, what your $132.95 list price really goes toward…

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,…

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…

Vintage Guitar magazine presents greg Martin's Head shop Pet sounds Home Feature image

Pet Sounds and the Birth of Psychedelic Sunshine

Vintage Guitar magazine Presents Greg Martin's Head Shop

This is the first in a regular series of exclusive Vintage Guitar online articles where The Kentucky Headhunters’ Greg Martin looks back on influential albums and other musical moments. Next to vintage guitars,…

Steel Master

Jerry Byrd

Before and even after pedal-steel guitars began showing up on country records, Jerry Byrd (1920-2005) and his lap steel remained a gold standard. Whether soloing or accompanying, his distinctive, easy-flowing, undulating lines, flawless…

Ronnie Lane

Anymore for Anymore

My Years With UFO

Michael Schenker

Coco Montoya

Writing on the Wall

Elizabeth Cook

31 Tigers Records

Chet Atkins – Me and My Guitars

Chet Atkins has a deserved reputation as a great gui-tar player and all-around nice guy. So it’s a pleasure to see a book that is part biography and part history of his personal…

Reverend Horton Heat

Jim Heath, the fleet-fingered and irrepressible godfather of psychobilly, is back, leading his trio, Reverend Horton Heat, through their first new long-player since 2009. And while some are hailing it as a return…

Dwight Yoakam

Dwight Yoakam’s 1986 Guitars, Cadillacs… etc. etc. infused Bakersfieldstyle twang into the New Traditionalist trend then sweeping a country scene weary of frothy country pop. Two years later, he revived the career of…

Rival Sons

Bands that sound like they just walked out of a recording studio 40 years ago are practically a genre nowadays. While it can be argued that the Black Crowes have been doing this…

The Wailin’ Jennys

Red House Records

The concept of a “folk supergroup” sounds strange, sort of like “the folksinger’s Porsche.” But no musical amalgamation deserves this moniker more than The Wailin’ Jennys. With three world-class lead vocalists who are…

The Holmes Brothers

This album’s chock full of solid musicianship, including stylish guitar from co-producer Chris Bruce. Yet the story here, as it is on all Holmes Brothers records, is the vocals and the songs. Sherman…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

Wanda Jackson

Encore

The girl with a big guitar, big hair, a short dress, and a rockabilly howl, she first shook up the music world in 1954, pre-Elvis. Wanda Jackson went on to score rock and…

Red Simpson – Truckers’ Christmas

Truckers' Christmas

It’s the time of year when you may be looking to make a few additions to your collection of Christmas records. The theme this year is “Eclectic.” For oddball fun, check out Red…

The Bottle Rockets

The Bottle Rockets return with their first studio LP since 2009, and it’s yet another terrific gumbo of power-pop, burly rock, and alt-country – a collection of mostly sub-three-minute gems featuring lyrics liable…


Jinx Jones

Home Brand Records

Chris Cain

Raisin’ Cain

The Jayhawks

Power Pop With Twang And Thunder