This is the third album from rock veterans Adrian Smith (Iron Maiden) and Richie Kotzen (The Winery Dogs). The busy axeslingers – especially Kotzen, who is always involved in solo and band projects – released their full-length debut and an EP in 2021. Smith-Kotzen has happily blossomed into a going concern. What’s interesting about Smith/Kotzen’s
Footprint Records
Lissa Schneckenburger plays “progressive” New England/Celtic music that combines equal parts traditional harmonic textures with a modern acoustic sensibility. Her voice has a pristine directness that perfectly suits these traditional tunes. Song is…
Brian Setzer has, more than once, found a musical niche that allows him to play great guitar, use his vocal talents to their fullest, and lets him make a good…
Through the Years
The Italian guitarist’s third acoustic-fingerstyle album brings a pleasurable mix of covers with two originals. Primarily a solo set, it overdubs keyboards, drum patterns, and he even sings on the title track. An…
This traditional folk singer/guitarist’s solo debut is impressive. He’s been an educator at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music for three decades, but his approach is by no means academic. He not only reveals the influence of folk and blues legends such as Doc and Merle Watson, Elizabeth Cotten, Etta Baker, Dave Van Ronk,
ls Cline long ago established a parallel career as an eclectic instrumentalist and contemporary jazz virtuoso. His fourth Blue Note album is an extended set that unveils Consentrik Quartet, his new band with acoustic bassist Chris Lightcap, drummer Tom Rainey, and tenor/soprano saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock. Their concepts are ambitious and their sound is free, Cline
John Mayall is invariably cited for the succession of guitar greats who passed through his band. But Charlie Musselwhite just might be the American equivalent. In a 60-year career, his six-stringers have included Harvey Mandel, Luther Tucker, Louis Myers, Tim Kaihatsu, Robben Ford, Fenton Robinson, Johnny Heartsman, Junior Watson, Andrew “Jr. Boy” Jones, John Wedemeyer,
Living Out of Time
Following up his last work, 2001’s Go My Way, could hardly be easy for Robin Trower. That effort was his best album in 20 years. On his latest, Trower ditched the band from…
Panorama Records
The Stryker/Slagle Band has been producing near-perfect quartet records for some time, and Keeper will not snap the string. While Dave Stryker (on guitar) and Steve Slagle (sax) supply memorable melodies and soulful…

Epic/Legacy
It’s hard to understate how important Stevie Ray Vaughan was to the guitar. He emerged when the guitar had all but ceased to exist on pop/rock radio. Even hitmakers who played guitar, i.e.…

Oz Noy masterminds an inspired jazz sequel with spectacular feel and blues embellishments. Amidst Noy’s quirky, energetic, funk-charged compositions is gutbucket slide. “You Dig” features slide player Greg Leisz, who offsets Noy’s intervallic…
Up All Night
Scofield drives some folks crazy. His last few records have stretched the boundries of funky jazz about as far as they can go. And with this one, he’s added more electronic flourishes and…

Blues A-Plenty
Considering that its first-cousin, jazz, is predominantly an instrumental form, it’s surprising that there are so few instrumental blues albums. In terms of guitar, of course, Freddie King excelled most successfully, but that…
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,
The goal of any anthology is to capture the broad scope of an artist’s career. Rush 50 is a strong attempt, starting with their first singles (previously unreleased) all the way to their final live recordings in 2015. In between are reams of epic studio and stage recordings, summing up the band’s career in one
At the risk of starting a brawl, Rik Emmett’s guitar work was arguably too good for Triumph. As evidence, his latest project centers on a custom-built Loucin that inspired both a book and accompanying music. “Magic Power” this is not. On Ten Telecaster Tunes, Emmett delivers 10 solo performances on the instrument he calls Babs,
When someone recently asked me to recommend the most essential Elmore James album, I answered, “Any and all.” I’ve never heard a bad Elmore cut, and I’ve heard nearly everything he recorded. Everybody knows that he set the standard for slide guitar in electric blues, but he was also a fantastic singer and wrote some
The Gristle Master returns with scintillating blues and the influences that made him the six-string slayer he is today. On this live recording, Koch uses an array of guitars including his signature Reverend, a Deluxe Tele, Custom Shop Les Paul, and a Custom Shop Strat while sharing stages with Larry McCray, Jimmy Hall, Malford Milligan,
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
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…

Judas!
Breaking out of the box and kicking down barriers seems the first item on the daily to-do list for many Nobel laureates, but it’s probably fair to say only Bob Dylan was booed…
The likes of Dylan, Mellencamp, Van Morrison, Dwight Yoakam, and many more cover the songs of one of country music’s pioneers. The covers mostly work. There are a few clinkers, but cuts like…

He’s the godfather of fusion guitar, and don’t you forget it. Chico Hamilton, Gary Burton, the Eleventh House, Alphonse Mouzon, the Guitar Trio – Larry Coryell was melding jazz, rock, and Indian music…

Abstract Logix
Before joining Journey in 1978, Steve Smith drummed on jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty’s Enigmatic Ocean, and before he left the band in ’83, he had already formed the fusion group Vital Information. The…
Radio Free Gristle
Ya gotta love this stuff! Greg Koch, for those of you who haven’t run across him, is one of those guitarists who spark awe in other players. His chops are impeccable, and his…

Nathan East’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing in 40 years. Offered gigs with Quincy Jones, Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, and Daft Punk, he’s crisscrossed genres from pop to jazz. His smooth yet percolating…
Hard to imagine that the only way this album was put back in print was by Concord re-releasing its Stax back-catalog. Shot in late 1983 for a Canadian television show, Vaughan was at…
In other hands, Osborne’s penchant for jumping from genre to genre could peg her as a dilettante. But she’s just so good at everything she tackles – her 2006 Nashville CD, Pretty Little…
Take an Aussie living in Ireland and a Londoner living in Amsterdam, stick them in a studio, and what do you get? Gypsy swing, of course. Date, the ex-Aussie, has played with George…
Ian Hunter’s latest is straightforward, nuts-and-bolts rock and roll. The writing is fueled by personal and real politics, and the sound of the band and Ian’s voice are perfect. Some credit must go…

Back to '67 Blues
Unreleased club recordings of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers from 1967, featuring lead guitarist Peter Green? This is, indeed, a major find. Tasked with replacing “God” (as Eric Clapton was proclaimed in graffiti around London),…

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
A veritable holy grail, this recording from CSNY’s first tour captures their harmonies in amber. Better, the integrity of the audio has been strenuously maintained, as guitarists Neil Young and Stephen Stills helped…
Scream of the Crop
Soulfarm is three fellas from New York who have put together a very cool album that’s pretty hard to pigeonhole. Noah Chase and C Lanzbom on vocals and guitar, and Mark Ambrosino on…

Rare, Bluesy, and Beyond
A surprisingly large contingent of people in high school or college in 1965 will tell you that less than two years after the Beatles’ big-bang appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” the album…
Back to the Juice
Robben Ford’s last live album included only acoustic guitar. So, given that eight of the 10 cuts on this new disc feature Ford cutting loose on electric and his choice of material is…

44 Years Later
The market is flooded with previously unreleased albums and reissue CDs containing alternate takes. It must be simple to get something like that released, right? Guess again. It’s hard to imagine, but a…
They came, they saw, they conquered… sort of. Minneapolis’ Replacements were one of the great rock and roll bands that never quite was. And happily so. In the 1980s, after punk fizzled and…
Live at Montreux 1983 & 1990
The early ’80s weren’t a high point of John Lee Hooker’s career. Demand for all blues – including his Mississippi hill-country music – had eroded and record deals were scarce. None of that…

Wine on Venus
It would be easy to dismiss this 18-year-old as a prefab gimmick, but Grace Bowers’ guitar work ain’t no hype. Armed with a vintage SG Special, she lays down real funk with her…