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Rick Allen
Andy Poxon
A former teen phenom, Andy Poxon is just now hovering around the legal drinking age with enough footage on the internet to chronicle his musical growth and development over the last half dozen years or so. The switch from solidbody Teles, Strats, and Les Pauls to the semi-hollow Gibson 175 he sports on the cover…
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Rick Allen
Zac Harmon
The blues has often called out injustice and shined the harsh light of truth as much as it has lamented broken hearts or celebrated the joys of sex. Zac Harmon’s “Stand Your Ground” is the showpiece here, rooted in the social protest that has been part of the blues since before the music had a…
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Rick Allen
Ted Drozdowski’s Scissormen
Parts of Ted Drozdowski’s coal-mining family background are almost as hardscrabble and tragic as that of the people who created the blues music he champions so fiercely. That background is a factor in what made him a guitar player and songwriter of authority and heartfelt passion. Drozdowski draws upon the thread linking gothic supernatural sensibilities…
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Rick Allen
Various Artists
Guitarists John Primer and Billy Flynn, bassist Felton Lewis, and drummer Kenny “Beady Eyes” Smith are part of an aggregation that’s long worked for the preservation and perpetuation of Chicago blues. That core gives this tribute disc continuity, letting guests who actually worked with Muddy Waters – such as Johnny Winter, guitarist Bob Margolin, and…
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Rick Allen
Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett works with a jazzman’s precision and taste, a swing player’s cool, and a rockabilly’s sense of urgency and fun. As a songwriter of guitar-centric instrumentals, his songs are visually as well as emotionally evocative, flowing out of your speakers in Technicolor. The lonesome trumpet of “That Girl Was Northern,” followed by luscious electric…
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Rick Allen
Amy Black
If Will Kimbrough’s name does not come up the next time you’re discussing great guitar players, then you ain’t saying nothin’. Kimbrough is always on the money whether putting a delicately strong acoustic solo to Paul Mitchell’s soul ballad, “Starting All Over Again,” a hit for Mel & Tim also recorded in Muscle Shoals in…
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Rick Allen
Greg Nagy
Blues rocker Greg Nagy makes the Northern industrial equivalent to Southern country of the 1950s and ’60s. He melds ’70s West Coast R&B, British blues rock, Albert King tones, dollops of Steely Dan, the Rascals and Elvin Bishop, and the unhurried approach of a player justifiably confident in his material. Always a tastefully impressive guitarist,…
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Rick Allen
Bernard Allison Group
Bernard Allison’s father, Luther, was a modern-era blues great. And while Bernard is most definitely in the family business, blues isn’t the only musical color on his palette. When he stretches out for a slide solo on “Move From The Hood,” he may be sizzling hot and all about the blues. Then, as he comes…
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Rick Allen
Cailyn
Cailyn Lloyd’s former life as a blues rocker of the Peter Green school gave her the stuff to put blood into the New Age music she has been making for the last few years. Her latest uses British composer Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite, “The Planets,” as a jumping off point. The consistently full-bodied tone of…
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Rick Allen
Ruf Records 20 Years Anniversary
The guitar was once derided as a “woman’s instrument,” and in the early 20th century, blues was considered a woman artist’s medium. Things have changed over the intervening years – and perhaps too much so. Nowadays, too often too little attention is paid to female guitarists, especially in blues, rock and roll, and country music.…
