• 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

    Read more >>

Strolling Scones – Instrospective

The Strolling Scones recreate a ’60s vibe while writing songs that are fresh and new. For instance, if the 12-string on “Any Time She Passes By” doesn’t bring to mind the Byrds, you’ve…

Robbie Robertson

429 Records

It’s been more than a decade since Robbie Robertson has issued a solo record, and closer to two since he offered a pop/rock disc. How to Become Clairvoyant is unique in the Robertson…

The Yardbirds

Sundazed

The Yardbirds issued only three truly distinct albums – Five Live (with Eric Clapton), The Yardbirds (a.k.a. “Roger The Engineer,” with Jeff Beck), and Little Games (featuring their final lineup of Jimmy Page,…

Brian May

Back to the Light

After frontman Freddie Mercury’s death in 1991, Queen seemed done and gone. But the following year, their resident guitar hero bounced back with this solo U.K. hit, now expanded into a two-CD set.…

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…

Val Bonetti

Baraban Records

A first listen to guitarist Val Bonetti’s Wait makes one respect his playing. Subsequent listens make you appreciate his music, too. This is simply Bonetti and his acoustic, focusing on jazz but employing…

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble

The Good, The Bad, and The Troubling

One of the greatest blues guitarists of any era, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s recorded output with his band, Double Trouble, consisted of only five albums (four studio, one live) during his lifetime. And though…

Easton Corbin

Florida native Easton Corbin earned justified acclaim for his 2009 debut album Roll With It, revealing his twangy traditional voice and obvious debts to George Jones, Merle Haggard, and the late Keith Whitley.…

Tony Bacon – Willie G. Moseley

Into The Spotlight

Whatever were they thinking? In hindsight, it’s tough to fathom how Gibson could scrap the Les Paul Standard at the end of 1960 and replace it in ’61 with a new design, the…

Lissa Schneckenburger

Footprint Records

Lissa Schneckenburger plays “progressive” New England/Celtic music that combines equal parts traditional harmonic textures with a modern acoustic sensibility. Her voice has a pristine directness that perfectly suits these traditional tunes. Song is…

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…

Jake Shimabukuro – Live

In his introduction to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” Shimabukuro explains how a video of him playing the George Harrison classic in Central Park, for New York’s Midnight Ukulele Disco, “changed my life.”…

Maps and Legends: The Story of R.E.M.

John Hunter

Any balanced rock-and-roll bio scrutinizes a band’s more-unsavory side. And scrutinize is exactly what John Hunter does in this unauthorized bio of ’80s indie darlings turned ’90s megastars R.E.M. The band’s more-egregious tendencies…

Chris Thomas King – Me, My Guitar and the Blues

Chris Thomas King is the real deal: a modern-day blues revivalist with one foot firmly in the past and the other keeping time in the present. Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, King grew…

The Soul of John Black

John Bigham, aka John Black, has worked with Fishbone, Joshua Redman, Everlast, and Miles Davis. For the past decade, he’s produced a handful of recordings mixing jazz, R&B, rock, and gutbucket blues. Like…

Mark Knoll – High Time

High Time

Great guitar sounds and a musical mix of blues, rock, and pop highlight this disc. The opener, “Gotta Give It Up” hints at what’s in store – big, bold guitar with a great…

Foghat

Road Fever: The Complete Bearsville Recordings 1972-1975

By the time British blues-and-boogie quartet Foghat struck gold in 1975, it already had a solid catalog under its belt. This box explores its first five studio albums. While many early-’70s LPs lacked…

Rob McNelley – On

On

I love it when this happens. Totally out of the blue comes a CD, by an artist I am unfamiliar with, and it blows my socks off. Rob McNelley has been kicking around…

Kurt Rosenwinkel – The Enemies of Energy

Rosenwinkel is a jazz guitarist. That said, this CD proves he’s willing to go anywhere for his musical muse. There’s not much of a chance to pigeonhole him. From killer bop on the…

Bob Schneider – I’m Good Now

I'm Good Now

Singer/songwriter whose subject matter spans love to hate, happiness to abject despair. While not exactly lighthearted, anyone who likes their music with a bit of meat on it will find plenty to chew…

Paul “Mayo” Mayasich

The latest from guitarist Paul Mayasich and his band of buddies is an eclectic mix of American music. You get blues of all kinds, country, folk, and lots more – all of it…

John Fogerty – Déja vu All Over Again

Much of what is written about this record will have to do with the subject matter of the title cut – an anti-war song where Fogerty compares the Iraq situation to Vietnam, and…

Robert Cray – Twenty

Once every couple of years, Cray puts out a well-crafted record with fine writing, guitar solos that ooze soul, and vocals that rank with the best. No change here. Twenty should make plenty…

Mark Hummel – Golden State Blues

A great album by a harp virtuoso sums this one up. Mark Hummel is part of that West Coast batch of guys who just have their pulse on the jump-blues and shuffles of…

Wes Montgomery/Wynton Kelly Trio

Maximum Swing: The Unissued 1965 Half Note Recordings

Historically, there’ve been two camps of jazz guitar: acoustic Gypsy Django Reinhardt and electric pioneer Charlie Christian. But the swing and hard bop of Wes Montgomery required a third path, and 55 years…

Anthony Wilson – Adult Themes

Here’s the third album from guitarist, arranger, and leader of his own big band, Anthony Wilson. He’s young, but he definitely can look backward to the likes of his father, Gerald, and other…

The Anthony Wilson Trio – Our Gang

This is a little different thing for Anthony. His past few albums have been him leading a big band, doing marvelous arrangements and playing guitar to die for. Here, it’s just him, Joe…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

Big Bill Morganfield – Born Lover

Talent isn’t always inherited. And when it is, the ability to develop it doesn’t always come along with it. Big Bill Morganfield inherited a healthy slice of talent from his father, Muddy Waters.…

A Nod to Bob – An Artists Tribute to Bob Dylan on his 60th Bday

We are all getting older, except of course, for those of us who’ve already died. Bob Dylan is still among the living, although judging from the most recent Academy Awards broadcast, he’s threatening…

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…