• Popa Chubby

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    Popa Chubby

    I Love Freddie King

    The latest from blues dynamo Popa Chubby is a star-studded tribute to the late great Freddie King. Produced by Mr. Chubby and Mike Zito, I Love Freddie King is a blues guitar love-fest covering some of King’s most potent and popular songs. With Popa fronting the band on guitar and vocals, guests include Eric Gales,

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Jim Kweskin

Never Too Late: Duets with my Friends

The Jim Kweskin Jug Band was among the most-influential acts of the ’60s folk revival. Its free-spirited mix of retro jug band, jazz, blues, folk and ragtime inspired the Lovin’ Spoonful and Dan…

Patty Larkin – 25

Signature Sounds

When faced with the task of creating a retrospective album, Patty Larkin took a novel approach. Instead of creating a “best of” album, she re-recorded her favorite 25 love songs while enlisting 25…

Rick Derringer – Guitars and Women

I was quite enamored in the ’70s with Derringer’s All-American Boy. It was a heady mixture of all the kinds of music I liked. For some reason, I thought most of the stuff…

Denny Jiosa – Dreams Like This

Denny Jiosa is a player of immense chops and fire, and while jazz dominates this album, Jiosa is also at home with R&B and pop, and cuts like “Forward Motion” give him the…

New Guitar Summit – Shivers

Merely putting three great guitar players together doesn’t guarantee the results will qualify as music. All too often, ego, lack of chemistry, or merely inadequate rehearsal time results in a stiff, formulaic CD.…

Buddy Guy

Silvertone

As he did on Guy’s Skin Deep, drummer/producer Tom Hambridge co-wrote all but one song, with Guy or Gary Nicholson; he penned the title track by himself. But whereas the 2008 effort called…

Abby and Norm Group – Volume 1: The Book of Norman

This band is led by Norman Zocher and Abby Aronson, both professors at the Berklee College of Music. The style is jazz, and it’s a fine mix of different modern styles. Abby is…

Paul Westerberg – Besterberg: The Best of Paul Westerberg

As the soul of the Replacements, Paul Westerberg not only crafted glorious world-weary lyrics, but wielded one mean guitar. Influenced equally by the disparate threads of Kiss, R.E.M., Alex Chilton’s Big Star, and…

Bryan Sutton – Not Too Far From The Tree

Imagine creating an album where you play duets with all of your guitar heroes. On Not Too Far From The Tree, Bryan Sutton does exactly that. Now, if you or I tried this…

Jules Shear – More

Jules Mark Shear is living proof that talented pop musicians who prefer to remain on the fringes can maintain a successful career without cowtowing to the winds of fad and fashion. On his…

Sunny War: With The Sun

A phrase like “overnight sensation” is usually all kinds of wrong in that the artist in question was beating the pavement long before a writer or reviewer “discovered” them. Case in point is…

James Kinds

Delmark

James Kinds is one of the overlooked maestros of the blues. In 1977, he was hailed as one of Chicago’s new generation greats – someone to keep an eye on, alongside Lurrie Bell,…

Tommy “CGP” Emmanuel and David “Dawg” Grisman

Certifiable Pickin’

Tommy Emmanuel is one of just five pickers hailed by his mentor Chet Atkins as a “certified guitar player,” or CGP. On two new albums, Emmanuel provides proof with every passage. Australia-born Emmanuel…

Groovy Eyes – High Flyin’ But No Foolin’

High Flyin' But No Foolin'

What the hell’s going on in Finland? It seems like every act I hear from there is amazing, regardless of genre – from the instrumental surf of Laika & The Cosmonauts to the…

Sonny Black – Hart And Soul

Sonny Black is an English guitarist who has absorbed several styles of American music and made them his own. It’s a hard sound to describe, but suffice it to say it contains jazz,…

Graham Dechter

It’s always a treat when a young player arrives on the scene with an understanding of what came before him. Dechter is a traditional jazz player who lets us know right off the…

Mike + Ruthy

Humble Abode Music

Michael Merenda and Ruth Ungar formed The Mammals early this decade, and in 2008 put the band on hiatus so members could pursue other projects. For Michael and Ruth, that side project is…

Cary Morin

Cradle To The Grave

When a heard-it-all music critic stumbles onto a “new artist,” only to discover a back catalog and lifetime achievement award, then immediately orders three prior CDs, you know something’s up. A Crow tribal…

Bill Frisell

Few jazz guitarists combine versatility, originality, and eclecticism like 59-yearold Bill Frisell. He’s such a unique guitar voice, “jazz” seems too confining a category. And thanks to his open-mindedness, he’s as likely to…

Blackberry Smoke

You Hear Georgia

For 20 years, Georgia’s Blackberry Smoke has carried on Southern rock’s rich tradition. You Hear Georgia, the band’s seventh studio album, is soaked in those roots. Recorded live in 10 days at Nashville’s…

Pretty Things, Procol Harum, David Bowie, and Various Artists

For all the British psych bands you do know – such as the Move and Small Faces – you’ve probably never heard of dozens more. This three-CD set brings together more than 75…

The Gourds

In October 2013, a mere month after releasing their 10th LP (and 19 years after forming), the Gourds announced that they were taking a hiatus. With the Austin, Texas, alt-country quintet’s new album…

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…

Jimi Hendrix – Voodoo Child: The Jimi Hendrix Collection

Voodoo Child: The Jimi Hendrix Collection

The latest release from Experience Hendrix, Voodoo Child: The Jimi Hendrix Collection, is a two-CD set of the master at work. In his four-year career as a celebrity, Hendrix produced only three studio…

Rich Kienzle

VG readers won’t be surprised to learn that contributor Rich Kienzle’s comprehensive bio of George Jones is a great read and a dispassionate chronicle of his drive-in movie of a life. While the…

Billy Strings

Me/and/Dad

Grammy-winning flatpicking wizard Billy Strings was everywhere in 2022. Rightly seen as part of the vanguard of a new generation of Appalachian-inspired players rooted in the sounds of Doc Watson, Tony Rice, Clarence…

Dave Rawlings Machine

Americana fans are no strangers to guitarist Dave Rawlings. Largely building his rep on several releases by his musical partner Gillian Welch, Rawlings and his flatpicked Epiphone Olympic first stepped out as the…

Jimmy Gaudreau – 2:10 Train

Jimmy Gaudreau and Moondi Klein have been playing together for more than 10 years. They first met when T. Michael Coleman, Mike Auldridge, and Klein asked Gaudreau to join them in Chesapeake. When…

Johnny Nicholas & Friends

Too Many Bad Habits

When Johnny Nicholas was kicking out blues in Austin in the ’70s, between there and Detroit, he recorded his 1977 album Too Many Bad Habits, 14 raw, authentic tracks released on the Blind…

Nick Curran and the Nightlifes – Player!

Player!

I enjoyed Nick’s first effort and was quite excited to hear this followup. And I wasn’t disappointed. You’ve got to love a guy who mixes T-Bone Walker, Little Richard, and everything in between,…