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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
Bill Frisell
Bill Frisell is one of those guitarists who make you wish there were a hundred more like him. But, then again, that would make his uniqueness moot. On his latest, he plays songs…
Buddy Guy – Heavy Love & Buddy’s Blues 1979-82
Buddy Guy’s latest CD, Heavy Love, sounds like he’s doing his darndest to wrestle the blues guitarslinger crown back from the late, great Luther Allison. Before his death, Allison proved himself the hardest…
Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, Paco de Lucía
Saturday Night in San Francisco
Recorded in December, 1980, Friday Night in San Francisco was a genre-busting album of acoustic guitar, and a surprise best-seller. The following night’s gig at the Warfield Theater is here, resurrected from 16-track…
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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,
Vince Gill & Paul Franklin
Sweet Memories: The Music of Ray Price and the Cherokee Cowboys
Ray Price (1926-2013) created a distinctive hard-country sound in the ’50s, combining his powerful vocals with the iconic Cherokee Cowboys, a fiddle/pedal-steel band echoing the honky-tonk and Western swing of Price’s native Texas.…
Big Jack Johnson and the Oilers – We Got to Stop This Killin’
Big Jack “Oilman” Johnson lays down modern-day Mississippi Delta blues at their best. Hailing from Clarksdale, some of his songs come straight from his front porch, such as “Lonesome Road;” others are hot…
Crowsong – Shelter
Crowsong offers a couple of atmospheric new records that feature founder Randy Clark’s guitar playing and interaction with bandmates Joshua Zucker (bass) and Vince Littleton (drums). Here, they use one disc to highlight…
Big Bill Broonzy
Live In Amsterdam, 1953
Perhaps because he died just prior to the Folk Boom and a few years before the Blues Revival, Bill Broonzy doesn’t get proper credit. Besides being the first American bluesman to tour England,…
Bob Marley & the Wailers
Ume/Tuff Gong
For such a guitar-driven genre, reggae doesn’t get many props from the six-string community, though its offbeat-chord trademark is as much a part of the rock lexicon as anything. For proof, check out…
Country Roads
It’s a fine time to be an old-school country music fan, what with the current crop of albums featuring classic songwriting and downhome hot picking. Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s duet proves…
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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
The Minus 5
Former R.E.M. fifth man Scott McCaughey is more significantly the longtime leader of Pacific Northwest rock legends Young Fresh Fellows, the brilliant Baseball Project, and the Minus 5. Considering the latter collective’s revolving…
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…
Mike Morgan & the Crawl – Stronger Every Day
Texas-born Mike Morgan returns with his 13th album of original songs, layering blues with a funky rhythm that captures the essence of Muscle Shoals and Beale Street all at once, and does a…
Chris Hillman
Time Between; My Life as a Byrd, Burrito Brother, and Beyond
Though he began as a California bluegrass mandolin picker, Chris Hillman cemented his place in rock history as the Byrds’ original bassist and (with Gram Parsons) co-founder of the Flying Burrito Brothers. His…
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,…
Loe & the Nastys – Loe & the Nastys
Loe and the Nastys deal in music that isn’t popular with young folks anymore; equal parts jazz, Jobim-influenced Latin music, and even a little Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, this quartet has…
Bearfoot
The teenagers who began the Bearfoot Bluegrass Band in 2006 have matured into young adults. As they’ve matured, so has their music. Even their name has changed slightly; it’s been shortened to Bearfoot.…
Bola Sete
Samba In Seattle
The uninitiated will wonder why they’re just now hearing such a guitar genius, while aficionados bemoan the fact Bola Sete isn’t a household name. Previously unreleased, this triple-CD, subtitled Live At The Penthouse…
Pokey LaFarge
In The Blossom of Their Shade
The 2020 pandemic left an impact on Pokey LaFarge, who was about to tour behind his newly released Rock Bottom Rhapsody. During the ample downtime, he wrote an album’s worth of new tunes,…
Stew Cutler
Cutler’s latest release perfectly navigates that land between jazz and blues that puts it firmly in both camps. It’s an organ-trio record for the most part, with Cutler’s lead and rhythm guitar parts…
Mimi Fox – Perpetually Hip
The first thing you notice about Mimi Fox when she begins the single-note original melody of the title track (the first cut of this double-CD) is her bell-like tone (more highs than the…
Jack White: Boarding House Reach
Jack White’s first solo album in four years is a contemporary rock record that brilliantly presents his POV with artsy hard left turns. Basic tracks feature White on drums, guitars, vocals, and synthesizer.…
Various artists
Think I’m Going Weird: Original Artefacts from the British Psychedelic Scene 1966-68
Zac Harmon – From the Root
Northern Blues Music
Toronzo Cannon
In Chicago’s blues community, everybody knows Toronzo Cannon, although outside of the Windy City his name is less recognized. For years he battled it out on Chi-town’s fiercely competitive circuit. Having paid his…
Big James and the Chicago Playboys
With a frenetic, funky solo and smooth dependable rhythm on this disc’s first cut, co-producer James Montgomery’s “The Blues Will Never Die,” Mike “Money” Wheeler demonstrates right off the bat how he earned…
Keith Cameron
The Year (or so) of Mudhoney rolls on. The long-running Seattle foursome has experienced a resurgence of interest lately. The latest example: this well-researched and crisply written biography from rock journalist Keith Cameron,…
Los Lobos
Shout! Factory
It’s been a few years since Los Lobos released original material, but Tin Can Trust is worth the wait. Its music is a mix of rock, R&B, soul, folk, and various Latin styles…
The Martian Denny Orchestra
Bob Irwin, founder-owner of New York-based Sundazed Music and a rock and jazz guitarist for decades, has a guitar-centric mind. Part of the instrumental band the Pluto Walkers, Irwin, who now lives near…
Johnny Cash
Bear’s Sonic Journals: At the Carousel Ballroom, April 24, 1968
Barely two weeks before the release of Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, the album that made him an institution, Cash, wife June Carter Cash, and the Tennessee Three performed for a crowd of…
Wink Keziah & Delux Motel – Working Songs
Like Blue Ribbon and Texas Red, some music is best enjoyed in the neon blue of a honky-tonk. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always travel well beyond the barroom. That’s not the case for Wink…
Electric Willie
Yellowbird
Avant-garde guitarists Elliott Sharp, Henry Kaiser, and Glenn Phillips share a love for the blues, so when a threeway collaboration was suggested, it morphed into a tribute to Willie Dixon. To differentiate it…
David Michael Miller
This makes it two in a row for David Michael Miller. His Poisons Sipped was one of last year’s surprise albums, introducing us to a songwriter, guitarist, and singer who is the whole…
