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Music
2025 December Issue on Spotify
This month, we feature Rick Derringer, Kid Ramos, Booker T and The M.G.’s, Steve Stevens, Phil Manzanera, Doug Aldrich, Kenny Burrell, Eric Johanson, Gary Moore, 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
Chris Whitley – War Crime Blues
Chris Whitley caught my attention back in ’91 with a brilliant album called Living With the Law. He’s done a lot of things since. His sound has definitely gotten rougher, with stops at…
Grateful Dead – Live at Cow Palace
The Grateful Dead was an electric jug band with more in common musically with Jim Kweskin than Jimi Hendrix. On this new three-CD set, you can hear this ultimate jam band at its…
Fleetwood Mac – Tusk
Considering Fleetwood Mac’s enormous popularity in the 1970s, which can be traced to the moment Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the waning band, Buckingham would have to rank as one of the…
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Paul Johnson
The Hepcats Live at the Ajax Novelty Company
This isn’t live, there may not be an Ajax Novelty Company, and the three felines known as the Hepcats are actually the brainchild of Paul Johnson, whose Belairs were early-’60s pioneers of surf music. Suspend reality and dig how the “trio” expertly articulates layers of acoustic guitar. Across decades, Johnson has embraced folk-rock, psychedelia, and
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Yes
Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition
Are you a high-fidelity audio geek? If the answer is, well, yes, this Rhino release brings together an HD experience of Close to the Edge in no fewer than four versions, plus rarities and a ’72 concert. For starters, the 2025 remaster sounds as close to the analog 1972 mix as you’re going to get
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Pink Floyd
Have You Got It Yet? – The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd
It’s understandable that fans warily approach the flood of pseudo-documentaries and biopics. Add the fact that the late Syd Barrett, Floyd’s original guitarist/leader, suffered from mental illness, and exploitation alarms are sure to go off. But this documentary handles the subject with dignity instead of sensationalism. Interviews by longtime Floyd cover artist Storm Thorgerson with
Carrie Elkin
Red House Records
How many versions of the song “If That Mocking Bird Don’t Sing” have you heard? I’ve listened to more than I can count on all my digits. So when I heard Carrie Elkin…
Santana IV
Describing Carlos Santana’s guitar playing, Greg Rolie, the Santana band’s original keyboardist, declares, “It’s real music; it’s not just a bunch of notes put together.” Truer words were never spoken. They’re just part…
Walter Jr. – Back On the Bayou Road
In music and pop culture today, subtlety and taste are in very short supply. But this has both, in spades. Walter’s a Louisiana guy, and it shows on the opener, “Hot Louisiana Rock,”…
Johnny Winter – The Best of Johnny Winter
The Best of Johnny Winter
Johnny Winter was such an important guitarist when he hit the national scene in 1969, it’s a shame his discography has become so littered with bootlegs and “best of”‘s that don’t do justice…
Marshall Crenshaw – Jaggedland
All of the hats Crenshaw wears so well – singer, guitarist, composer, producer – come together in full force on “Right On Time,” his latest CD’s opening track. His vocal is equal parts…
Cecil Alexander
Introducing Cecil Alexander
The award-winning Michigan guitarist, widely heard on Instagram, was inspired by his dad’s passion for jazz and vintage soul music. His debut effort combines originals and covers that manage to sound timeless, yet…
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The Wildhearts
In the raging ’90s, The Wildhearts blasted out of Newcastle upon Tyne like some unholy melding of Guns ’N Roses, Cheap Trick, and The Replacements. Hard rock, power pop, and punk still make up their secret sauce, heard on this latest effort with original singer/guitarist Ginger Wildheart. Ben Marsden plays lead, while Kavus Torabi adds
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Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band
Honeysuckle
Resonator-slide specialist Reverend Peyton returns to his primary influences – early 20th-century African-American music – compelling him to shout from the hollers and the hills. Rootsy, acoustic, inter-war blues is the specific genre, and Peyton doesn’t hold back. With top-tier tutelage from the likes of David “Honeyboy” Edwards, T-Model Ford, and Robert Belfour, he masterfully
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Mike Campbell with Ari Surdoval
Heartbreaker: A Memoir
In his autobiography, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Campbell admits he’s quiet and shy. Self-doubt plagued him his entire life, and when problems arose in the Heartbreakers, a lack of confidence had him blaming himself first, even when he wasn’t responsible. Perhaps his attitude was psychologically rooted in his impoverished childhood and coming from
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Alan Gogoll
Lioness Lullabies
Venture online and watch a few videos by Tasmanian guitarist Alan Gogoll and you’ll see he’s nothing short of a phenomenon. On acoustic, he conjures artificial harmonics in a manner that almost defies gravity. Better still, he never shows off these chops – everything on Lioness Lullabies is in the service of the song and
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Jimmy Vivino
Gonna Be 2 of Those Days
A veteran vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist and purveyor of blues, R&B, and rock’, Jimmy Vivino has an incredible résumé. A longtime fixture in Conan O’Brien’s house band, he has played on movie, radio, and Broadway projects and worked with Levon Helm, Hubert Sumlin, Al Kooper, Jimmie Vaughan, Donald Fagen, Warren Haynes, Laura Nyro, along with innumerable others. He’s
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Thin Lizzy
The Acoustic Sessions
Thin Lizzy’s first studio release in decades, this album reimagines tracks recorded 50+ years ago by the trio of vocalist/bassist Phil Lynott, guitarist Eric Bell, and drummer Brian Downey. The songs are from Lizzy’s first three albums – 1971’s Thin Lizzy, ’72’s Shades of a Blue Orphanage, and ’73’s Vagabonds of the Western World. Recently,
David Gilmour – On An Island
This is an expanded edition of Gilmour’s 2006 DVD of material from a live AOL session. The DVD is a bit sterile, done in a studio with no audience, but the playing is…
Mark Hummel – Golden State Blues
A great album by a harp virtuoso sums this one up. Mark Hummel is part of that West Coast batch of guys who just have their pulse on the jump-blues and shuffles of…
Sonic Youth – Goo (Deluxe Edition)
As we get older, reminders of the fact come fast and furious. The reissue of classic albums from our youth perhaps hits the hardest, as with this newly remastered deluxe edition of Sonic…
Muireann Bradley
I Kept These Old Blue
If you conveyed the soul of a 1930s bluesman into an Irish teenager, you might have Muireann Bradley, who is both a delight and a true phenomenon. Recorded over the past few years,…
Various Artists – All My Loving
“All My Loving” was a 1967 TV special on the BBC that scared some people – and it’s easy to see why. For older folks tuned in, video of musical acts and other…
The Bottle Rockets – Brand New Year and Leftovers
Brand New Year and Leftovers
If you didn’t know better, you’d swear after hearing the first few bars of “Nancy Sinatra,” the opening song on the Bottle Rockets’ Brand New Year, that you were listening to an unearthed…
The Routes
In This Perfect Hell
Think old-school Zombies crossed with new-thing Arctic Monkeys: the result may just be the Routes. The guitar-bass-drum trio is part classic Brit invasion rockers with period-perfect gear, part hypnotic proto psychedelia – yet…
Tav Falco & the Unapproachable Panther Burns
Conjurations: Seance for Deranged Lovers
“Unapproachable” is right. “Indescribable” may also be justified. Just like the myriad musics of Memphis, from where Tav Falco hails, his longtime band Panther Burns remains a fascinating and ongoing conundrum. The band…
The Hula Hawaiians – Hilo March
Imagine the year is 1946 and you live in Europe. You’re a steel guitarist and, naturally, you’re really interested in Hawaiian music. You don’t want to play this music all by yourself, so…
Various Artists – Best of Outlaw Country
The kind of disc essential to party DJs, Outlaw Country contains many cuts fans of this subgenre will already have. But it’s still worth a nod. Hearing Waylon Jennings’ “Are You Sure Hank…
Royal Southern Brotherhood
Royal Southern Brotherhood has a different guitar lineup, but the sound of the band – which incorporates pretty much anything you can think of on the American music scene – still remains pretty…
The Tube Amp Book – Deluxe Revised Edition
Tube amp connoisseurs, your cup runneth over! This new edition of the veritable Tube Amp work distills all the facts and schematics from the first four editions, marries them to a large hardcover…
Roy Orbison
Playing the role of a lonely, heartbroken teen, Roy Orbison was the Enrico Caruso of early ’60s pop, his voice gracing more than a few torchy hits. “Oh Pretty Woman” from 1964 remains…
Mark Erelli – Delivered
Fearing negative comparison, some singer/songwriters shy away from covering other writer’s material. Some, boring people by the dozens in coffeehouses across the country, feel it’s everyone else who comes up short. Mark Erelli…
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…
Dave Hunter
Les Paul Praises
Here is a coffeetable book and then some! It’s a 224-page hardcover, with 400-plus exquisite photographs chronicling the rise and fall – and rise again – of the Gibson Les Paul. All its…
Tony Rice – The Bluegrass Guitar Collection
The Bluegrass Guitar Collection
Tony Rice and the words “bluegrass guitar” are rarely, if ever, separated. Along with Doc Watson, Dan Crary, and Clarence White, Tony Rice has had more influence on modern flatpicking than anyone else.…
Various Artists
Bear Family Records
Richard Weize and his Bear Family Records are based in Germany, but few have done more to preserve American roots and other world music. Weize is dedicated to seeking out and reissuing the…
John Pizzarelli – Bossa Nova
John Pizzarelli’s latest should come as a surprise to no one. The fact that he’s been influenced by Jobim and his many disciples is evident in his past work. And it should come…
Swamp Cabbage – Honk
Swamp Cabbage – Honk Swamp Cabbage is a trio led by guitarist/vocalist Walter Parks. Walter has been around, and is best known as the guitarist for Richie Havens. If that fact would have…
The Steepwater Band – Dharmakaya
Dharmakaya
Plain and simple, folks, the Steepwater Band rocks! Usually, such a trite phrase is used to describe something that ends up being just the opposite. But not this time. The Steepwater Band is…
