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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
Jim Lauderdale – Honey Songs
Yep Roc Records
When Gram Parsons, Mike Nesmith, and Gene Clark were making their best music, major country radio stations ignored them. It wasn’t much of a jump from Hank Williams Jr. and Charlie Daniels to…
Jo’ Buddy’s One Man Stomptet
Lockdown Sessions & Beyond, Vol. 1
Finnish guitarist Jussi Raulamo has led so many aggregations it’s hard to keep track. From Jo’ Buddy & Down Home King III to the New Orleans R&B Ensemble, One O’Clock Humph, Funky Kingstone,…
Flatt & Scruggs – Best of The Flatt and Scruggs TV Show
Before “Hullabaloo” or “Hootenany” there was the Grand Ole Opry, America’s first national country music show broadcast on the radio. Of course the Opry garnered a slew of imitators, and when television came…
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Chris Walz
All I Got and Gone
This traditional folk singer/guitarist’s solo debut is impressive. He’s been an educator at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music for three decades, but his approach is by no means academic. He not only reveals the influence of folk and blues legends such as Doc and Merle Watson, Elizabeth Cotten, Etta Baker, Dave Van Ronk,
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Nels Cline
Consentrik Quartet
ls Cline long ago established a parallel career as an eclectic instrumentalist and contemporary jazz virtuoso. His fourth Blue Note album is an extended set that unveils Consentrik Quartet, his new band with acoustic bassist Chris Lightcap, drummer Tom Rainey, and tenor/soprano saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock. Their concepts are ambitious and their sound is free, Cline
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Charlie Musselwhite
Lookout Highway
John Mayall is invariably cited for the succession of guitar greats who passed through his band. But Charlie Musselwhite just might be the American equivalent. In a 60-year career, his six-stringers have included Harvey Mandel, Luther Tucker, Louis Myers, Tim Kaihatsu, Robben Ford, Fenton Robinson, Johnny Heartsman, Junior Watson, Andrew “Jr. Boy” Jones, John Wedemeyer,
311
If you remember the ’90s, you probably weren’t there. But if you were there and had your thumb on the pulse of contemporary music, you remember 311. Songs like “All Mixed Up” and…
Charlie Musselwhite – One Night In America
One Night In America
Anyone who’s surprised at the stylistic diversity of the latest offering from Charlie Musselwhite hasn’t been paying close attention to the blues icon’s path. On Rough News, from ’97, he slipped in some…
Cody Canada and the Departed
Cody Canada and company have delivered a record that adds to his work with his former band, Cross Canadian Ragweed, mixing country and rock with lyrics that deal with real life. Seth James,…
Thurston Moore
Rock N Roll Consciousness
There’s always been a push/pull relationship between the worlds of hippie-inspired jam bands and punk-inspired indie rock. While the latter has been known to regard the former as self-indulgent, the former sometimes holds…
The Jayhawks
Power Pop With Twang And Thunder
Those with only a casual ear to the pavement will likely file the Jayhawks under murky signifiers such as “Americana” and “Alt Country.” While those tags were once perfectly apt, the truth is…
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit
Live From the Ryman, Vol. 2
Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium is a special venue for Isbell & the 400 Unit. As their stature has grown beyond roots music, they’ve performed on that vaunted stage more than 50 times in the…
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Popa Chubby
I Love Freddie King
The latest from blues dynamo Popa Chubby is a star-studded tribute to the late great Freddie King. Produced by Mr. Chubby and Mike Zito, I Love Freddie King is a blues guitar love-fest covering some of King’s most potent and popular songs. With Popa fronting the band on guitar and vocals, guests include Eric Gales,
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Rush
Rush 50
The goal of any anthology is to capture the broad scope of an artist’s career. Rush 50 is a strong attempt, starting with their first singles (previously unreleased) all the way to their final live recordings in 2015. In between are reams of epic studio and stage recordings, summing up the band’s career in one
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Rik Emmett
Ten Telecaster Tales
At the risk of starting a brawl, Rik Emmett’s guitar work was arguably too good for Triumph. As evidence, his latest project centers on a custom-built Loucin that inspired both a book and accompanying music. “Magic Power” this is not. On Ten Telecaster Tunes, Emmett delivers 10 solo performances on the instrument he calls Babs,
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Check This Action: Up Jumped Elmore
When someone recently asked me to recommend the most essential Elmore James album, I answered, “Any and all.” I’ve never heard a bad Elmore cut, and I’ve heard nearly everything he recorded. Everybody knows that he set the standard for slide guitar in electric blues, but he was also a fantastic singer and wrote some
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Greg Koch
Blues
The Gristle Master returns with scintillating blues and the influences that made him the six-string slayer he is today. On this live recording, Koch uses an array of guitars including his signature Reverend, a Deluxe Tele, Custom Shop Les Paul, and a Custom Shop Strat while sharing stages with Larry McCray, Jimmy Hall, Malford Milligan,
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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
Matteo Mancuso
The Journey
When guitarists as diverse as Al Di Meola and Joe Bonamassa are singing your praises, something’s up. Sicilian guitar prodigy Matteo Mancuso’s debut record displays effortless facility, charisma, and fresh ideas instead of…
Making “Old-Timey” New
There are myriad ways to interpret “old-timey” music. In broad strokes, you can go the traditional route or be iconoclastic. These two albums illustrate that there’s lot of gray area in between. The…
Tedeschi Trucks Band
I Am The Moon
Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi have released the first of a four-album set called I Am The Moon. Comprised of 24 tracks, the songs feature musical input from their 12-piece ensemble with Trucks…
Larry Carlton – Deep Into It
I first listened to this disc in my car and thought it was nice, but nothing special. Well, the next listen was in the house, with my full attention, and while it’s what…
Bill Frisell
Few jazz guitarists combine versatility, originality, and eclecticism like 59-yearold Bill Frisell. He’s such a unique guitar voice, “jazz” seems too confining a category. And thanks to his open-mindedness, he’s as likely to…
Hamilton De Holanda Quintet
Adventure Music
Brazilian jazz, when played by a native group such as Hamilton De Holanda’s quintet, is far more interesting than what usually passes for Brazilian jazz. Holanda combines his native Choro music with foreign…
Donald Fagen – Nightfly Trilogy
For music lovers and techno geeks, this seven-disc set by the Steely Dan front man is a match made in heaven. It includes CDs of all three Fagen solo albums, The Nightfly, Kamakiriad,…
Nancy Wilson
You and Me
The Heart legend has finally made her first solo album. Armed with a ’63 Telecaster for rhythm, signature Martin HD-35, and Gibson mandolin, Wilson mostly recorded in her home studio, working remotely with…
Pink Floyd
All The Songs
At nearly 600 pages, this massive coffee-table book will send Floydians into paroxysms of pleasure. Authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon craft encyclopedic entries on every single Pink Floyd song, including personnel, tracking…
Steve Smith, George Brooks, Prasanna
Abstract Logix
Before joining Journey in 1978, Steve Smith drummed on jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty’s Enigmatic Ocean, and before he left the band in ’83, he had already formed the fusion group Vital Information. The…
The Isley Brothers & Santana
Love, Peace – And Soul!
Ernie Isley was a hero to a generation of young, bell-bottom-clad guitarists who wore afros and enveloped themselves in soul crooners and the funkiness that caused involuntary dancing. Positioned in one of the…
Toronzo Cannon
Mo' Better Blues
You can’t take anything away from Toronzo Cannon. He’s toiled non-stop on the super-competitive Chicago blues circuit, sharing the stage with some of the greatest musicians in the genre. He’s taken his lumps,…
Barney Kessel with Shelly Manne & Ray Brown
The Poll Winners
Sonny Landreth – From the Reach
Self-Distributed
Sonny Landreth records are typically gems, and this one is no exception. This time out, he has written songs for folks he admires, then invited them to play them with him; Eric Clapton,…
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,…
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Rare, Bluesy, and Beyond
A surprisingly large contingent of people in high school or college in 1965 will tell you that less than two years after the Beatles’ big-bang appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” the album…
Eric Bibb – Diamond Days
Bibb is a fine guitarist and singer, and here proves a very capable songwriter. It’s hard to pin him down – you could call him a folk singer, but his blues and pop…
The Clash – Live At Shea Stadium
If the Rolling Stones were the “World’s greatest rock and roll band” from 1968 to ’72, then 10 years later, that appellation could safely be conferred on the Clash. In that late ’70s/early…
Omar And The Howlers – Swingland
I first ran across Omar Dykes in the mid ’80s when I heard a bluesy radio-ready rock album called Hard Times In The Land Of Plenty. I liked it, and some quick research…
R.L. Burnside – Well… Well… Well
Well… Well… Well
If you’ve ever heard R.L. Burnside play, you’ll know the significance of this album’s title; “Well… well… well” is one of his pet phrases, a constant punctuation to his conversation. Burnside is a…
The Bridge – Blind Man’s Hill
Singer/guitarist Cris Jacobs and singer/mandolinist Kenny Liner co-write the music for this Baltimore-based band. Jacobs writes songs with inherent soul. Whether slinky funk (like the opener, “Honey Bee”) or blues/rock with a ragtime…
Jim Ed Brown
Jim Ed Brown was one third of the vocal trio The Browns with sisters Bonnie and Maxine, a popular act whose ’59 hit recording of “The Three Bells,” topped both country and pop…
