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Michael Dregni
Sue Foley
Pinky’s Blues
Sue Foley named her paisley Telecaster reissue “Pinky,” and her latest album celebrates the guitar she has played her whole career. Over the years, Foley moved from her native Canada to Austin, and has proven she can play the blues. This is a solid guitar-trio album, with Pinky front and center on every track and…
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Michael Dregni
Collings CJ-45 T
Golden Child
Every now and then, you pick up a guitar and realize you’re holding magic in your hands. Welcome to the Collings CJ-45 T. The inspiration is obvious in a slope-shouldered design that harkens to the J-45, Gibson’s wartime answer to Martin’s big pre-war dreadnoughts. Like that classic, Collings’ guitar is a no-frills instrument that’s all…
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Michael Dregni
Bob Dylan
Springtime In New York: The Bootleg Series Vol. 16 (1980-1985)
Bobby Zimmerman’s famed Bootleg Series has been of prime interest for alternate takes, outtakes, rehearsals, and never-released tunes giving a glimpse behind the mask. That’s all present in spades in this collection, covering the early-’80s albums Shot of Love, Infidels, and Empire Burlesque. Of equal fascination is hearing more of the backing groups, including guitar masters Mark Knopfler…
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Michael Dregni
Sue Foley
Still Playing Pinky
Sue Foley’s Paisley-finished Telecaster is the one guitar to which she has remained true since her debut album, Young Girl Blues. After 29 years, it only seemed right to dedicate her new album to the steadfast instrument by calling it Pinky’s Blues. Hailing from Canada, Foley grew up in a guitar-playing household where classic blues…
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Michael Dregni
Eddie Cochran’s Gretsch 6120
Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got that Twang
One night in the late 1950s, Eddie Cochran set the world alight onstage in the City of Angels. Though the details are lost to history, The Los Angeles Times reported, “Last night, Eddie Cochran rocked and he rolled and finally the cows came home. By the time he strummed his last notes on that big,…
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Michael Dregni
Wanda Jackson
Encore
The girl with a big guitar, big hair, a short dress, and a rockabilly howl, she first shook up the music world in 1954, pre-Elvis. Wanda Jackson went on to score rock and country hits that helped define the genres, earning her slots in the halls of fame – for rockabilly, gospel, and rock-and-roll. Sixty-seven…
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Michael Dregni
The Grez Mendocino Junior
New Old-Soul
Luthier Barry Grzebik was a Jersey boy who moved to NorCal in his teens. When he began building guitars, he was inspired by the sonic possibilities of redwood. Those possibilities perhaps seem fully realized in his Grez Mendocino Junior. Grez’s flagship Mendocino is a crazy-cool chambered semi-hollow packing a duet of Lollar goldfoils, and the…
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Michael Dregni
First Guitar of Rock and Roll
Scotty Moore’s Gibson ES-295
Like a hound dog hit by lightning, the first notes of rock and roll blasted out of radios across the country in July of 1954, courtesy of Elvis Presley’s supercharged-hillbilly singing on “That’s All Right” and “Blue Moon Of Kentucky,” backed by Scotty Moore’s guitar. It was the twang heard ’round the world. That guitar…
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Michael Dregni
Daniel de Visé
King of the Blues: The Rise and Reign of B.B. King
Sixty years, 90 countries, 15,000 concerts – and that tally doesn’t include B.B. King’s early years of juke joints, radio broadcasts, and street-corner serenades. Over the years, Riley “Blues Boy” King became the best known of bluesmen. Leave it to his erstwhile valet and chauffeur, Bobby “Blue” Bland, to crown him simply as “The Man.”…
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Michael Dregni
Romane
Soir de Trottoir
Patrick Leguidecoq, better known as Romane, has been a pioneer of the Gypsy jazz revival. Beginning with his now-classic 1992 album Swing for Ninine, he’s hailed today for his ongoing efforts to spread the good word about Django Reinhardt’s music through his teaching. This new album is Romane’s first in a decade and signals a…
