This month, we feature Tinsley Wllis, Jimmy Aaughan, Duke Levine, Joshua Hedley, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Pink Floyd, Coyote Motel, Julian Lage, Jocelyn Gould, and more! Spotify is free or available without ads via a paid subscription. Go to www.spotify.com and search “Vintage Guitar magazine,” or if you already have an account Listen to the complete

In Mighty Footsteps
A riveting soloist, Dan Wilson honed his chops as a sideman to jazz greats like organist Joey DeFrancesco and bassist Christian McBride. If his latest, Vessels of Wood and Earth,…
Stickin' with the Low-End
It’s not surprising that Tony Levin has always been a player of instruments in the low end of the sonic range. From his experiences with upright basses in classical and…

Stringin’ on “Blue Lounge” Harp legend Charlie Musselwhite has recorded and performed with a stunning array of guitarists in his band – Harvey Mandel, Luther Tucker, Robben Ford, Junior Watson,…
On Money & Power, Ally Venable wields the power of wisdom and emotional connection. It’s an album about empowerment and comeuppance, but there’s plenty of playtime with guest stars Shemekia Copeland and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram. An audio bluesfest, it’s songwriting brings substance carried by guitarists swinging for the fences. What does the albums title represent?What
When Hubert Sumlin sideman Sean Chambers played a gig with Savoy Brown bassist Pat DeSalvo and drummer Garnet Grimm, the result was blues-rock ecstasy. Live From Daryl’s House Club is the next best thing to being there. Fans of incendiary slide playing and Rory Gallagher, look no further. How did you meet Pat and Garnet?I
On Lari Basilio’s latest record, Redemption, art and life collide to make beautiful music. Effortless instrumental guitar techniques merge with rib-sticking melodies to captivate and astonish. Bassist Leland Sklar and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta are back to add rhythmic fire, but Basilio’s muse is life’s challenges and, of course, super cool gear. You became a mother.

Live and Still Dangerous!
Thin Lizzy has cemented its place in history as one of the most influential rock bands of all time. Recognizable by its harmonized twin-guitar leads and a hard-edged sound, Lizzy…

Bonnie’s New Guitar Man
After 29 years on the road, Bonnie Raitt guitarist George Marinelli decided to take a break. Stepping into the role will be Boston native Duke Levine. The youngest of five,…

Blues/Jazz Great Jams on “Four Bills” Duke Robillard’s custom-made J.W. Murphy 17” archtop is the perfect accomplice for this great solo take on “Swingin’ for Four Bills,” a track…

Sparking Another Rockabilly Riot
Three decades, umpteen records, and several stellar bands into his career, and Brian Setzer still makes rockabilly sound fresh and exciting. This album has much of the verve of his…

Roots Return
Most people know Hall & Oates as a pop-music hit machine that has sold millions of records. What you may not know is that John Oates is a lifetime student…

Funk, Blues, and Thunder
It’s been a quarter-century since the Spin Doctors broke out with “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong,” which catapulted the New York band to international prominence. The quartet of Eric Schenkman…
A songwriting blues-rocker in the purist sense, Dudley Taft is succeeding in an era when nothing comes easy for his ilk. His new album, The Speed of Life, required a departure from the norm; while his previous three were recorded at his own studio in Cincinnati, this one used down time during a European tour
Acclaimed as bassist for The Flower Kings, Jonas Reingold is a master four-stringer. He’s recorded with many artists, including Jon Anderson (of Yes), and has become an integral part of Steve Hackett’s band, re-creating the complex bottom of early Genesis. Twenty years ago, Reingold started the prog group Karmakanic (repeat it slowly a few times),
Tommy Emmanuel is a real guitarist in its truest sense. On Live At The Sydney Opera House, he stands onstage with only an acoustic guitar, and mesmerizes a packed house. His virtuosity employs country, Celtic, and folk fingerpicking styles that lift the spirit. The set is loaded with fan favorites, but a song suggestion from
After landing on American shores in 2002 to study bluegrass, then shifting into a career as a country singer/songwriter/picker, Jedd Hughes has spent 20 years on an alternate – but rewarding – path as A-list session player and touring sideman. While being busy tempered his flow of original music, in 2014, he returned to songwriting.
As a teenager who just wanted to play music, Norm Harris lived with the reality that he and his band weren’t going to be millionaires anytime soon. So he did what musicians do – side-hustled. But when most were manning the counter at a music shop or serving tables, Harris was up at the crack
If you’re making a list of beloved bands with a long string of hook-heavy hits, the Doobie Brothers will surely be on it. Their new album, Walk This Road, features the creative core of vocalist/guitarist Patrick Simmons, vocalist/guitarist Tom Johnston, multi-instrumentalist John McFee, and vocalist/keyboardist Michael McDonald. The news of Walk This Road generated significant

The Fine Art of Face Melting
Michael Angelo Batio is one of the most prodigious guitarists on Earth. Since his stint with the rock band Holland in the ’80s, Batio has written his ticket with a…

Rocking Back to the Future
Brian Setzer wears several hats – rockabilly, swing, even hard-rocking Christmas music. But through it all, by and large he plays only one guitar – a Gretsch. And ideally, just…
Blowin Down the Road
It’s fitting that The Road To Escondido, the long-awaited collaboration between Eric Clapton and J.J. Cale – a concept that seems, on the surface, to be so obvious, at least…

A Rock Cat Plays the Blues
In the eyes of many, there’s quite a difference between arena rock and blues rock. But not to Phil Collen, guitarist for one of the biggest acts in the former…

Joe Cocker alum plays “Leap of Faith,” Cliff Goodwin was Joe Cocker’s guitarist for a decade and has also backed Robert Palmer. For this VG exclusive, he grabbed his early-’80s…

Tales to Tell
Armed with a new deal with Alligator Records and producer Kid Andersen (of Rick Estrin & The Night Cats), Chris Cain recently recorded Raisin’ Cain, an impassioned blues masterpiece full…

Ramming It
As one of the leading bands of the early-’80s New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement, Saxon is responsible for offering up such headbanging anthems as “Wheels of Steel,” “Strong…

“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Kevin Borden Season 01 Episode 04 In Episode 4 of “Buy That Guitar,” presented by Vintage Guitar magazine, host Ram Tuli is joined…

Vintage ES-335 on “And They All Sang” Famous for supplying charismatic guitar parts while backing Nora Jones and Tracy Chapman, Adam Levy’s latest solo album, “Spry,” is music laden with…
I'm Not a Musician
…but the innovations wrought during his tenure with the Gibson guitar company from 1948 to 1965 forever changed the musical landscape for fretted instrument players. As President of Gibson during…

Jazz lost one of its six-string luminaries when Russell Malone died on August 23, after suffering a heart attack in Japan while touring with bass legend Ron Carter. According to…

Memorable Musical Sojourn
Dave Hope’s musical odyssey began with playing trumpet and tuba in school accompanied by a fascination with the sounds created at Muscle Shoals and Stax. Its impact, says the original…

Top-Tier Tutorial
Whoever said, “Those who can’t do, teach” has never heard David Hamburger. Among his two dozen instructional books and videos, Beginning Blues Guitar, awarded Best New Educational Book or Video…
Still Climbing
Upon first viewing you’ll notice that The Sound and the Story is different. The new video from guitarist Leslie West stands apart from other instructional guitar DVDs in that, while…

Rock-Guitar Hero
Fanny, the legendary all-girl quartet from the early ’70s, kicked to the curb the notion of “they play good… for girls.” Acknowledgement was slow to come for their musical excellence…

The Artist’s Way
On Lari Basilio’s latest record, Redemption, art and life collide to make beautiful music. Effortless instrumental guitar techniques merge with rib-sticking melodies to captivate and astonish. Bassist Leland Sklar and…

Busy Smilin’
When does Joel Hoekstra sleep? To say the always-smiling guitarist has a full plate is an understatement. For several years, he has juggled performing with the smash hit Broadway musical…

Can't Keep a Good Man Down
As the world marks the 50th Anniversary of the recording of “That’s Alright Mama,” one can’t help but wonder what life would be like today if Scotty Moore had told…

1945-2015
Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister, founding bassist for the iconic heavy metal band Motörhead, died December 28, two days after reportedly being diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and four days…
Alternative Godfathers
In the late 1980s, the Pixies’ unique brand of punk, pop, and guitar rock almost singlehandedly created the alternative music movement that flourished in the early ’90s. Its sound served…

Bob Page, co-founder of the vintage-instrument shop Buffalo Brothers, died December 24 after falling and suffering a head injury at his home in Faial, in the Portuguese Azores. He was…