New from Metropolitan Guitars of Texas comes the Westport Series, a scaled-down version of their Tanglewood, reviewed last year in these pages. The Tanglewood is, if you recall, Dave Wintz’s homage to the old National Res-o-glas guitars, albeit more playable and prettier. “The response to the Tanglewood was so great, we felt we had to [...]
Monthly Archives: October 2003
Steve Newman
Springfield Roots, Bakersfield Attitude
The dog died and the woman done me wrong! Such are the traditional pains of the country music songwriter. But as tired and trite as mainstream/top 40 country music can be nowadays, there are still times when a fan of the real deal can be convinced that, given the right boots, these themes can still [...]
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Shawn Pittman – Full Circle
I enjoyed Shawn’s last record, with its killer mix of rock and roll and blues. This new release takes things a step further, and really satisfies. Shawn spent time playing with Buddy Guy a while back, and that intensity shows on his own stuff. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s backed on a good part [...]
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The Robin Nolan Trio – Swings & Roundabouts
If you like gypsy jazz and you haven’t heard The Robin Nolan Trio, you should. Solo guitarist Nolan is joined by rhythm guitarist Jan P. Brouwer and bassist Paul Meader on Swings & Roundabouts (CD RNT3), the third CD from this fine Amsterdam-based band. Robin is an exceptional improviser which you can hear on each [...]
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Trussart Steel
Classic designs, never before seen
James Trussart is a luthier who recently moved his headquarters from Paris to Los Angeles. A guitar builder since 1980, in recent years he has upped his profile and reputation by crafting custom steel-bodied copies of Teles and Les Pauls in three finishes: rusty, chrome, and brushed. Though they offer a very distinct physical presence, [...]
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John Paul Jones
Before teaming up with Jimmy Page in 1968 to form the soon-to-become greatest and most influential hard rock band of all time, John Paul Jones was an arranger, composer, and session player, working with many of the most prominent artists of the 1960. Though best known as a bassist, he’s also an accomplished multi-instrumentalist who [...]
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Rickenbacker Electric 12-Strings
Double-bound for Glory
George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacher founded Electro String in 1931 to manufacture what everyone would soon call “Rickenbacker” guitars. Success with musicians came early. Rick steels were the measure of quality and performance; their tone established the standards. On the other hand, the company’s fully electric bass viols and violins excited segments of the industry, [...]
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Slash
Life is Grand After Guns N' Roses
Bursting onto the rock scene in 1987, Guns N’ Roses overthrew the shred and pop kings who’d previously ruled the decade. The group’s contrasting blues-based style revitalized classic rock and its bluesier, more groove-oriented sounds. Once GNR ruled rock radio, pointy guitars and Floyd Rose tremolos were out of fashion and players returned to a [...]
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Seks Bomba – Somewhere In This Town
This is one of the most fun, most clever, and downright best CDs I’ve heard in a long time. I can’t even begin to describe what this Boston band does. Let’s say you took a big pan and threw in the Ventures, Burt Bacharach, Antonio Carlos Jobim, any number of late-’60s East and West Coast [...]
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Tim Sparks – Tanz
Tanz is guitarist Tim Sparks’ second album of “Jewish Blues” – a collection of Jewish songs and dances from Yiddish, Sephardic, and Oriental traditions he has translated into acoustic fingerstyle guitar. This album follows on the dancing heels of last year’s Neshamah, which VG‘s review noted as “…a truly stunning album created with vision.” Tanz [...]
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