• 2025 December Issue on Spotify

    Music

    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

    Read more >>

Arthur Lee & Love

Complete Forever Changes Live

The fingerpicked intro to Bryan MacLean’s breathtaking “Alone Again Or” starts the heady, cinematic, night-through-day-through-night journey of Forever Changes. The 1967 album was the magnum opus of Love’s troubled visionary, Arthur Lee. MacLean,…

Ken Will Morton – Devil in Me Kickin’ Out the Rungs

It’s hard for any artist to squeeze out one good album, much less two at once. It’s significant that Ken Will Morton hits more than he misses on these simultaneously released, but separately…

B.B. King

In France

By 1977, when this French live album was recorded at the Nancy Jazz Pulsations Festival, the “King of the Blues” had truly crossed over. He’d played Fillmores West and East and won a…

Dan and Leland

Dan and Leland’s forth album is a soundtrack to their graphic novel of the same name. Book One is the first four of 12 chapters, and comes with a 12-song CD that follows…

John Pisano – Guitar Night

This is two discs full of jazz-guitar blowing at its finest, as straightforward as it gets; 16 cuts of John Pisano and various six-string friends playing standards for appreciative crowds. This project started…

The Mother Truckers – Let’s All Go To Bed

Austin needs another talented guitar player and singer/songwriter like Texas needs more tornadoes, but when the Mother Truckers relocated from the Bay Area they were immediately embraced by the Live Music Capital of…

PRS Dragons – Jenna’s Eyes

Jenna's Eyes

The leader of PRS Dragons, as you might expect, is guitarmaker Paul Reed Smith. So it stands to reason the sounds here are just what you’d expect. Crunchy rhythm guitars and big fat…

Andy Timmons – That Was Then, This Is Now

That Was Then, This Is Now

Andy’s been around awhile, even though his isn’t exactly a household name. He was the guitarist in the pop/metal band Danger Danger a few years back, and he’s done sessions with numerous musicians.…

Check This Action: Walking In Memphis

I first visited Memphis in 1990, and it struck me that radio stations played loads of music from the area. Soul, rockabilly, blues, gospel, country, and jazz – if there was a Memphis…

Dan Erlewine – How to Make Your Electric Guitar Play Great

Dan Erlewine has been a Guitar Player magazine columnist since 1985 and is a well-known guitar builder and repairman. His book The Guitar Player Repair Guide has sold nearly 100,000 copies and his…

Shannon McNally and Hot Sauce

Self-distributed

Shannon McNally still prefers to write narratives that favor punch lines over actual choruses or refrains, but on Coldwater, her songwriting is tighter and more disciplined than ever. Lyrically (“Lonesome, Ornery And Mean”)…

Alan Jackson

Where Have You Gone

Few have so done more to maintain the sound and spirit of classic country in the face of ever-changing fads than Alan Jackson. Fiddles and pedal steel still frame his warm, earthy voice.…

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…

Bill Kirchen – King of Dieselbilly

Bill Kirchen – King of Dieselbilly You can smell the diesel as soon as the music starts pouring out of the speakers! Kirchen is a master guitarist who spent time with Commander Cody,…

Ana Popovic

Power

Blues-rock barnstormer Ana Popovic’s latest is about love, perseverance, strength, and survival. After rising victoriously from 14 cancer treatments in 2020, Popovic continues to push the envelope of her artistry by dropping her…

The Relatives

Original guitarist Charles Ray “Gypsy” Mitchell returns to the band from a decades-long break to open this new album with sweet, understated Pops Staples-like licks to underscore an eerie reading of Tim Maia’s…

The Holmes Brothers – State of Grace

It’s tough to write great songs and perform them well. But it’s another thing altogether to covergreat songwriters, make their songs your own, and do them well. And it’s an incredible feat when…

Tal Farlow – The Complete Verve Tal Farlow Sessions

If Mosaic’s compilations haven’t yet appeared on your radar screen, let me enlighten you. Mosaic issues stunningly beautiful and often sprawling tributes to legendary jazz performers like Charlie Parker, Sonny Stitt, Hank Mobley,…

Check This Action: Feeling Jazzy

Jazz guitar is one of my main loves, whether it’s Eddie Lang’s work with Bing Crosby in the early ’30s or Rick McRae playing at an Austin restaurant next week. But to be…

Los Carnales – Los Carnales

Los Carnales is a St. Louis-based blues band, and numerous cuts here – including the opener, “East St. Louis” – feature blistering guitar from Texas native Elliot Sowell. Fans may also know bassist…

Creedence Clearwater Revival

At The Royal Albert Hall

Stop the presses! New CCR is big news, and for one big reason – rarity. Beyond the band’s seven studio albums from 1968 to ’72, and three previous live albums, there’s nothing else…

Andy Wood

Charisma

Jing Chi – Live

Jing Chi Live

Robin Trower

No More Worlds to Conquer

Larry McCray

Blues Without You

After 40 years of playing under the radar, Rust Belt bluesman Larry McCray finally gets his big break. On Blues Without You, McCray receives production magic from Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith for…

Yes – Yesspeak: 35th Anniversary DVD

While many music DVDs contain mostly concert material, the 2-disc Yesspeak takes an alternate approach – it features the famous members of the prog-rock giant Yes talking about the music created during its…

The Allman Brothers Band

In the 40 years since Brothers and Sisters was released in 1973, we’ve lived roughly half our lives. And if you are a fan of classic rock, this album likely provided a soundtrack…

Richie Barron – Rather Have the Green Than the Blues

Leslie Ann Knight is the host of the “Monday Morning Blues” program on KKUP-FM, in Cupertino California, and as of late, she has been responsible for a number of west coast blues getting…

R.L. Burnside – Mr. Wizard & Acoustic Stories

R.L. Burnside plays guitar like the world is coming to an end. His electric sounds follow in the boogie-drone style of John Lee Hooker and Fred McDowell, but take the blues over the…

The Pretty Things

England’s Snapper Records recently released the ultimate retrospective of the Pretty Things, purveyors of “thrash R&B” (to quote lead singer Phil May) and psychedelia. Featured in July ’15’s “Check This Action,” it weighs…

Eddy

Alligator Records

If you’re a blues fan and left-handed guitarist Eddy Clearwater’s name has remained unfamiliar over the course of his six-decade career, now’s the time to rectify that grievous error. If you’re looking for…

Jimmy Raney

Visits Paris

Jimmy Raney was on the cutting edge in February of 1954. The bebop pioneer, known for his work as a member of Woody Herman’s Second Herd, had gained even greater stature for his…

Spirit of Django

The Guitar Label

This Brit’s career has been nothing if not varied. He has backed vocalists from Teresa Brewer to Alison Burns (as the latter’s sole accompaniment on 1 AM); recorded small-group bebop (Freternity), “new acoustic”/Dawg…