• 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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Julian Lage

Squint

Julian Lage walks an intriguing line between jazz and rock-and-roll. On his latest – and first release on the stellar jazz label, Blue Note – he continues that tradition, and the result may…

Pinnick – Gales – Pridgen

Dug Pinnick, Eric Gales, and Thomas Pridgen have returned with the followup to last year’s Pinnick–Gales–Pridgen. That first album was fueled by superb musicians rising to the occasion to create inspired work in…

John McTigue III

It’s About Time

Drummer/composer McTigue has a long history as a roots-music sideman. Yet on this solo effort co-produced with Kenny Vaughan, he takes unexpected turns as he pairs his percussion with other top roots musicians.…

Diana Krall

Fans familiar with Krall’s records featuring swinging tunes and gentle ballads might be more than a little surprised when they hear Glad Rag Doll. It wouldn’t be fair to say she’s left the…

Joan Osborne – Pretty Little Stranger

“Versatile” doesn’t quite do justice to Joan Osborne’s uncanny range. One minute she’s guesting with the Chieftains, the next she’s touring with the Dead. Then she utterly steals the show in the Funk…

Marah – If You Didn’t Laugh… You’d Cry

Marah – If You Didn’t Laugh… You’d Cry The kids from Philly – Marah brothers Dave and Serge Bielanko – have left home for the big town, New York. And their new city…

Nick Curran and the Nightlifes – Player!

Player!

I enjoyed Nick’s first effort and was quite excited to hear this followup. And I wasn’t disappointed. You’ve got to love a guy who mixes T-Bone Walker, Little Richard, and everything in between,…

The Grateful Dead

Every true Deadhead had the bootleg tape: a cassette too many generations removed from the original recording, notated innocently enough as “Kesey’s Ranch ’72.” That show – played as a benefit for author…

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,…

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…

Andrew Winton – The Decompression Chamber

Based in Perth, Australia, this Dobro and lap steel specialist has obviously listened to some David Lindley, plenty of blues, and his neighbor (and former steel guitarist with Asleep At The Wheel), Lucky…

Dr. Dog – Shame, Shame

Anti

Hailing from Philadelphia, Dr. Dog plays progressive rock in the best sense of the word. Time was, a lot of pop music felt like the song “Stranger,” where punchy rhythm guitars and layered…

AC/DC

With the sad news that rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young is battling dementia and will never play again, the future of AC/DC lingered in doubt. But, on Rock Or Bust, Angus Young and his…

Shawn Lane – All For Today

All For Today

Being part of a successful band can be a mixed blessing. You work regularly and play your music for a large audience, but because it is a band, you can only stray so…

Kris Kristofferson

Kristofferson, who turned 80 in June, recorded this 25-song retrospective focused on his most enduring original compositions, in Austin in 2014. Behind him is songwriter Shawn Camp’s acoustic guitar, upright bassist Kevin Smith,…

Eric Clapton and Friends

After Midnight

Eric Clapton has worn many a hat during his career. English bluesman, psychedelic guitar god, downhome roots rocker, even ’80s big-suited popmeister. In recent decades, he’s added another chapeau to the curious collection:…

Hiromi’s Sonicbloom – Time Control

Ignore the silly cover photo – this ain’t no pop-diva record. Instead, it could be the jazz-rock CD of the year. Hiromi Uehara is a monster jazz pianist who’s been making a name…

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…

Ike Turner & His Kings of Rhythm – Ike’s Instrumentals

Ike's Instrumentals

If it’s true that one’s personality is revealed through one’s music, then Ike Turner is probably every bit the lowdown, badass motor-scooter his reputation implies. And on this collection of rockin’ blues instrumentals…

Audioslave – Audioslave

The news that former Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell was joining the three musicians in Rage Against the Machine, the hard rock/hip hop group that lost rapper Zack de la Rocha, was a true…

Los Lobos

Never Left, But Back

Los Lobos have never put out a bad album; in fact, their artistic track record, spread over 20 albums and 37 years, is something major bands like the Stones and Van Halen wish…

Pat Martino

HighNote

Martino has been recording for almost 50 years, originally as sideman to such funk-jazz greats as saxophonist Willis “Gator” Jackson and organists Brother Jack McDuff, Richard “Groove” Holmes, Don Patterson, and Trudy Pitts.…

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…

J.W. Jones – Bluelisted

On his latest album, Jones proves a master of several styles of American music, and is joined by other impressive guitarists to purvey it. Jones goes toe-to-toe with Little Charlie Baty and Junior…

Mary Weiss – Dangerous Game

“I always knew I would record again someday,” Weiss writes in the liner notes. But who knew it would take 40 years? In the mid ’60s, Weiss was lead singer of the Shangri-Las…

Urge Overkill

Oui

Though Urge Overkill’s Saturation was one of the great major-label debuts of the ’90s, just as much ink was spilled on the group’s rock and roll lifestyle, matching velour jackets, and cover of…

Justin Johnsoné

The Biscuit House

His online videos are hard to cruise past. There’s his wide stylistic range, but also the guitars he built out of cigar boxes, whiskey barrels, and shovels. It amounts to a cottage industry…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

The Derek Trucks Band – Soul Serenade

Though a step back chronologically – tracks for this album were recorded in late ’99 and early 2000, before the release of the band’s 2002 Joyful Noise album – Soul Serenade is several…

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…

Steve Kimock

There comes a time in a musician’s life when he confronts the inevitable question, “Who am I? Am I a mimic simply regurgitating other people’s ideas? Do I blindly repeat stylistic patterns and…