• Paul Johnson

    Music

    Paul Johnson

    The Hepcats Live at the Ajax Novelty Company

    This isn’t live, there may not be an Ajax Novelty Company, and the three felines known as the Hepcats are actually the brainchild of Paul Johnson, whose Belairs were early-’60s pioneers of surf music. Suspend reality and dig how the “trio” expertly articulates layers of acoustic guitar. Across decades, Johnson has embraced folk-rock, psychedelia, and…

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Eric Clapton

Still Slowhand

There’s a lot of looking back going on here. For his 23rd solo album, Eric Clapton reunites with producer Glyn Johns, who not only worked with the Rolling Stones on Sticky Fingers and…

Frank Zappa

Halloween 77

In late October 1977, Frank Zappa played six shows at the Palladium in New York City. Now you can hear the whole enchilada – more than 150 tracks of soundboard-quality audio – all…

The Dean Ween Group

The Dean Ween Group’s debut showcases all the genre-hopping shenanigans that became the stock in trade of Ween’s first band – the prolific and eponymously named indie weirdos Ween. While it’s busy serving…

Frank Frost with Sam Carr and Frank Frost – Keep Yourself Together and Jelly Roll Blues

X Frank Frost’s two recent CDs are time machines, transporting you to a hot, sweaty night in a Mississippi Delta juke joint. Frost is a true Mississippi Delta bluesman. Throughout his career playing…

Alan Parsons

For the recording enthusiast, Alan Parsons talking about recording techniques is cherry stuff. Parsons of course was the assistant engineer on The Beatles’ Let It Be and Abbey Road, and the engineer on…

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…

Shannon McNally

The Waylon Sessions

Does the world really, truly need yet another tribute to quintessential country outlaw Waylon Jennings? Yes – especially when it’s overflowing with hot country guitar, honky-tonk piano, and sizzling vocals. Shannon McNally has…

Mathew Ryan – Concussion

I’m a big fan of un-slick, direct acoustic music. Mathew Ryan’s Concussion is just that – country music in the mold of Steve Earle, not Garth Brooks. Ryan’s music has the grit of…

Jamey Johnson

Like earlier country outlaws, Jamey Johnson forges his own paths while never forgetting his forebears. One is singer-composer Hank Cochran, who died in 2010. A giant among Nashville writers, Cochran wrote many tunes…

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…

John Scofield and Eddie Henderson

Inakustik

These two new releases showcase guitarist John Scofield in far different ways. The DVD finds Scofield in a quartet setting and is the perfect vehicle for his skills, displaying chops on cuts like…

Phil Collins, Billy Cobham

Great Guitar Albums From Non-Guitarists

Sometimes non-guitarists make great guitar albums. These expanded reissues from drummers Billy Cobham and Phil Collins are cases in point. After a blistering career in the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Cobham went solo and released…

Mel Brown

Hellafied

Before becoming a member of the house band at the legendary Austin venue Antone’s, Mississippi-born Mel Brown (1939-2009) was a blues guitarist who gained notice with West Coast R&B icon Johnny Otis. This…

Roy Orbison

Unequivocally Essential

When Roy Orbison walked onstage, the black Gibson ES-335 around his neck wasn’t just for show. Orbison was a pretty good picker, and he holds down a good portion of the guitar on…

Junior Wells & the Aces

Delmark

Junior Wells released enough mediocre product in his lifetime that it’s easy to forget what a great stylist and showman the Chicago bluesman was. This hour-plus live set, recorded at Club 47 in…

Songcatcher – Music from the Motion Picture

Music from the Motion Picture

A film about a young female musicologist who visits the south at the beginning of the century is fine vehicle not only for some ingénue in a hoopskirt, but also for lots of…

Sue Foley

Live in Austin Vol. 1

 Foley is an award-winning blues veteran, yet this is her first electric live album. It includes 11 songs primarily from the Canadian-born/longtime Texan’s 14 studio albums. Of course, no live album (this one…

Not Done Yet

Eric Clapton

Nearly 60 years after “For Your Love” – the hit that prompted him to leave the Yardbirds – Clapton can pick the material he wants, documented on this eclectic, mostly-mellow release. Meanwhile combines…

Tommy Castro and the Painkillers

R&B stalwart Castro comes out with guns blazing on his latest, adding some raucous rock and roll to his usual helping of soul and blues. There’s an added edge to songs like the…

P.K. Dwyer – King Pin

Yes, PK is a bit odd – he admits it. While some folks can’t get past that, it’s hard not to get into his whacked take on traditional blues and country. Healed is…

Fifty Seven Stitch – Nerveblock

Nerveblock

Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned American hard rock? You know the kind – crunching guitars, strong vocals, a deft melodic touch that never threatens to spiral into goo (thanks in large part to…

Big Daddy Love

This North Carolina-based band makes its own rules. Call their music bluegrass or newgrass, Southern rock, hippie country, or anything else, and it’s still refreshingly original music from a quintet whose members must…

Parliament – Funked Up: The Very Best of Parliament

Funked Up: The Very Best of Parliament

Like the man said, “Make my funk the P-Funk. I wants to get funked up.” This is not the first “best of” by George Clinton and troop, but it is the best I’ve…

5th Dimension – Stoned Soul Picnic/The Age of Aquarius Live

In 1967, the 5th Dimension (Billy Davis, Jr., Marilyn McCoo, Florence LaRue, Lamonte McLemore, and Ron Townson) was launched into the Top 10 with “Up, Up And Away,” by then-unknown songwriter Jimmy Webb.…

Chuck Berry

Live from Blueberry Hill

If you saw a Chuck Berry performance during the final 20 years of his life, it was likely at a club called Blueberry Hill, in his native St. Louis, where he played more…

Grisman & Sebastian – Satisfied

John Sebastian and David Grisman first ran into each other in the early ’60s, when Greenwich Village’s Washington Square Park was the epicenter of the national Folk Boom. They were both recruited by…

Johnny Cash – Ride This Train

In 1986, after 28 years and (literally) hundreds of albums worth of material with the label, Columbia Records dropped Johnny Cash. Seems American institutions weren’t selling that year. Not surprisingly, the artistic side…

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…

Duke Robillard – World Full of Blues

A master of jump-blues and T-Bone-Walker-style guitar, here Duke Robillard pulls out “Treat Me So Lowdown,” a T-Bone gem from the ’60s that originally featured studio players and arrangements that didn’t feel right.…

Alan Jackson

This three-disc set should be subtitled “The Arista Years,” since it only spans the 20 years Jackson was with that label – the first artist signed to its country division. He followed in…


Robert Mugge

Capturing the Blues

Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’

Bluesy and the Folksy

Brian F. Wright

The Bastard Instrument: A Cultural History of the Electric Bass