• 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

    Read more >>

Dale Watson

What is there not to love about Dale Watson? He flies the flag for real country music in a day and age when real country isn’t accepted by country radio. His latest is…

The Yardbirds

Yardbirds ’68

This two-CD set captures a 1968 concert taped at the Anderson Theater in New York City, roughly three months before the Yardbirds folded. This show was briefly released as an LP in 1971,…

Kid Ramos – Greasy Kid Stuff

The Kid’s got it goin’ on here; 17 cuts steeped in the blues, but sounding as fresh as the day T-Bone Walker first strapped on an electric. The concept here finds Ramos with…

Buddy Miller & Jim Lauderdale

In addition to his sterling reputation as a singer/songwriter, both alone and with wife, Julie, Buddy Miller’s guitar bonafides speak for themselves, including his work with Emmylou Harris and Robert Plant’s Band of…

Jimmy McIntosh

While guitarists in high-profile bands get the lion’s of share of publicity, the working stiffs who slug it out on local stages get no love. Las Vegas sideman Jimmy McIntosh is one of…

Anthony Wilson – Adult Themes

Here’s the third album from guitarist, arranger, and leader of his own big band, Anthony Wilson. He’s young, but he definitely can look backward to the likes of his father, Gerald, and other…

Kim Wilson – Smokin’ Joint

This CD, recorded over a two-year period, spotlights the world class work of the legendary T-Birds frontman, but of interest to the readers of this publication would be the four – count ’em,…

Heart

Heart is beating hard again. It’s been four years since Ann and Nancy Wilson’s last release, but the sisters are back – and with a vengeance. Along with Heart’s 16th album, Ann has…

R.J. & the Del Guapos

Guitarist/vocalist R.J. Ronquillo’s quartet utilizes three-fourths of the Panamericans, with him taking the place of Joao Erbetta. You can’t do much better than saxophonist Ron Dziubla, bassist Rob Douglas, and drummer Pete Curry…

Dokken

Dokken is still going strong with their 11th studio album Broken Bones. With vocalist Don Dokken as producer, it’s an album that is shameless in its mission to reproduce the sound that made…

Jinx Jones

Whether navigating rockabilly, swing, or hardcore country, Jinx Jones puts on a fiery guitar display that leaves you breathless. The reverb-drenched twang of “Metalflake Sky” is a surf-music delight featuring blistering chromatic runs.…

John Mellencamp

Universal Music

Box sets are too often an excuse to release material that wasn’t deemed good enough in the first place, or they’re a means to repackage an artist’s hits. On the Rural Route 7609…

Ike & Tina Turner – Sing the Blues

The late Ike Turner, due to ex-wife Tina’s revelations of his various abuses, has been dismissed as a marginally talented manipulator who rode his wife’s coat-tails to success. Ike has only himself and…

Van Duren – Open Secret

Van Duren was an exponent of “power pop” way back in the mid 1970s. He did some recording in Memphis, but things didn’t get far. But here he reaffirms his love of the…

Hank Williams – Alone with His Guitar

Alone with His Guitar

Ever since Hank Williams died on December 31, 1952, his fans have had to make do with commercial recordings, which have been almost continuously re-mixed, re-mastered, and repackaged by MGM and Mercury. But…

Deep Seven – Rapid Serve

Rapid Serve

I love stuff like this. Deep Seven is a quartet of very odd designs. With guitar (Paul Diethelm, Johnny Lang’s touring rhythm guitarist), keyboards (the wonderful Jeff Olson), bass(Mike Zeleny), and drums(Jay O’Donnell),…

Bob Dylan

Dylan Goes Electric!

Oh, the shock! The outrage! The betrayal! Truth is, no one should have been surprised when Bob Dylan and his electrified band took the stage on the evening of July 25, 1965 at…

Paul Priest – The Keeley Effect

The title references the “impact” of the guitar effects pedals made by Robert Keeley in making the album. That’s all fine and good, but more important is the fine music, propelled by the…

James McMurtry – Childish Things

James McMurtry – Childish Things McMurtry’s Too Long In the Wasteland, from 1989, was an auspicious debut in more ways than one. Among its 11 original tracks were a few that instantly sounded…

Scorpions

Only the most jaded rock fan can resist pumping their fist to the hardrockin’ nirvana of Scorpions. Long past their heyday, the German rock institution has decided to cap their career with a…

Bill Frisell – Blues Dream

Blues Dream

In some ways, Blues Dream is a bit of an odd title for this new release by guitar soundpainter Bill Frisell. Like several of his recent releases, the music is definitely dreamlike, with…

Otis Redding

Live At The Whisky A Go Go: The Complete Recordings

“Are you ready for star time?” That’s the introduction by emcee Al “Brisco” Clark to the six-CD boxed-set of Otis Redding performances at the Whisky A Go Go club. His three-night residency in…

Steve Miller Band

J50: The Evolution of The Joker

Miller’s beloved eighth album was recorded and mixed in 17 days, culminating in a jumble of rock, pop, R&B, and blues tracks – plus originals and covers, studio and live cuts. Yet it…

Danny Marks

John Lennon once said that, with the exception of Chuck Berry’s “Rock And Roll Music,” songs about rock and roll are never successful. And it’s hard to write a song about the blues…

Tony Bennet – Cloud 7

Because of its warmth and range, jazz guitar (in the right hands) is perfectly suited to accompanying vocalists singing standards in intimate settings – sometimes requiring no other instruments at all. The best-known…

Stephane Wrembel

Django New Orleans

The concept is simple enough: a mashup of Django Reinhardt’s gypsy swing with the buoyant sounds of Louis Armstrong and New Orleans jazz. Could easily become marketing hokum, but in the trustworthy hands…

Black Sabbath

Slabs Of Molten Sab

September 18, 1970 is infamous as the day Jimi Hendrix died, but it’s also the day Black Sabbath released its sophomore album, Paranoid. That LP proved itself a molten masterpiece and, in some…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

The Time Jumpers

Time Machine

The Time Jumpers formed in ’98 as a lark for a group of A-list Nashville sidemen who loved Western swing. Eighteen years later, they’ve become a local institution, energetically presenting the vintage music…

Chet Atkins: Me and My Guitars – Chet Atkins and Russ Cochran

Chet Atkins has a deserved reputation as a great guitar player and all-around nice guy. So it’s a pleasure to see a book that is part biography and part history of his personal…

Royal Trux

Drag City Records

>Royal Trux took the Velvet Underground’s “Heroin” and made a career of it. The band was founded after the implosion of Washington, D.C. punkers Pussy Galore by guitarist Neil Hagerty and girlfriend Jennifer…