• Smith/Kotzen

    Music

    Smith/Kotzen

    Black Light/White Noise

    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

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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…

Joe Bonamassa

Joe Bonamassa may not be pushing the blues genre forward, but his fans don’t care. His latest opus features 75 minutes of blistering blues-rock. The CD comes with a DVD and features both…

Joecephus & the George Jonestown Massacre

Heirs of the Dog: A Tribute to Nazareth

Nazareth rarely gets credit as an influential hard-rock band, though original guitarist Manny Charlton laid down killer riffs. This tribute features the loose collective Joecephus & the George Jonestown Massacre – led by…

Frank Meyers

Impossibly Cool Guitars

Frank Meyers’ first axe was a ’63 Fujigen EJ2 – a cheap-o, two-pickup solidbody like so many Japanese electrics used by beginner guitarists the world over. Though unremarkable, it spurred in him a…

Cheryl Wheeler – Defying Gravity

After 11 releases in 22 years, you might assume Cheryl Wheeler has written songs about nearly everything. But her latest release proves she still has plenty of fresh insight. In the last two…

Bonnie Raitt

Struttin' Her Stuff

The adjective “smooth” can sometimes get a bad rep, but as the new album by Bonnie Raitt readily shows, it can be a good thing, too. Her latest is the perfect blend of…

Electric Prunes – Release of an Oath

The ’60s produced some mighty weird bands, perhaps none odder than the Electric Prunes. The group is primarily known for its 1967 hit “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” and the…

Rodrigo y Gabriela

This is Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero’s first album of new material in five years. It comes two years after the duo’s big collaborative effort, Area 52, and marks a return to the…

Jonny Lang

Signs

A long way from the days of “Kid” Jonny and four years since his last studio record, Lang’s latest is the second consecutive record to exhibit a maturity in writing, playing, and vocals.…

Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin

First off, neither of these excellent four-CD sets includes personnel listings in their skimpy liner booklets. This is simply unpardonable – especially considering how stylish, how influential, how downright phenomenal the backlines are…

Tedeschi Trucks Band

I Am The Moon

Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi have released the first of a four-album set called I Am The Moon. Comprised of 24 tracks, the songs feature musical input from their 12-piece ensemble with Trucks…

Tommy Emmanuel and Martin Taylor

Tommy Emmanuel and Martin Taylor The Colonel & The Governor Jazz has a long tradition of guitar duets, from the “Blue Guitars” of Eddie Lang and Lonnie Johnson to Dick McDonough and Carl…

Freddy Cole

HighNote

Asked what younger jazz guitarists stood out to him, in his March ’10 VG interview, George Benson listed Norman Brown, Mark Whitfield, Russell Malone, and “the guitar player who’s playing with Freddy Cole.”…

Justin Golden

Hard Times and a Woman

The word “blues” pops up in Justin Golden’s bio, but “African-Americana” might be a more apt term. The Virginian’s 12 originals make for an extremely impressive debut, as comfortable leaning toward country on…

Tom Feldmann

Modern Master

No question, Tom Feldmann is a jewel of American guitarmanship, and his new album confirms the notion. As a player, he’s deeply rooted in the “interwar” Delta blues and gospel guitar of the…

Romane

Soir de Trottoir

Patrick Leguidecoq, better known as Romane, has been a pioneer of the Gypsy jazz revival. Beginning with his now-classic 1992 album Swing for Ninine, he’s hailed today for his ongoing efforts to spread…

Hellecasters – Live…Raw…In Germany On…The Filter Video

Yikes! Here’s a truly awe-inspiring display of guitar playing. Recorded live on German television, Jerry Donahue, John Jorgenson, and Will Ray take you on a roller-coaster ride that will leave you sitting on…

Merlefest Live – The 15th Anniversary Jam CD/DVD

Doc Watson. If you aren’t familiar with him you can’t consider yourself any kind of expert on American music. He’s simply the most influential acoustic guitarist this side of the Fertile Crescent. Blind…

Peter Ostroushko

Red House Records

Peter Ostroushko channels a mixture of Stephen Foster, Carter Stanley, and Doc Boggs to create unique music that sounds much older than it is. Here, he further expands his library of heartbreakingly beautiful…

The Stray Cats

Unearthed Stray Cats

Formed in ’79, the Tomcats – singer/guitarist Brian Setzer, drummer Slim Jim Phantom, and bassist Lee Rocker – had only marginal success playing rockabilly at punk clubs like Manhattan’s CBGB. Reasoning that they’d…

Josh Smith

Josh Smith takes the soul stylings that marked his earlier work and puts it on the back burner here. In its place is a return to his first love – high-octane, supercharged blues-rock.…

Double Trouble – Been A Long Time

This celebratory debut release lays testament to the resilient talent of drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon, renowned as Stevie Ray Vaughan’s rhythm section, Double Trouble. Losing a front person of such…

Crazy – The Demo Sessions

There once was a time when Willie Nelson was just another starving songwriter trying to make it in music city. Stories abound of songs he tried to sell for $50. During the early…

Delirium Blues Project – Server or Suffer

This live CD begins by asking the musical question, “What Is Hip?” Singer Roseanna Vitro and her octet transform Tower Of Power’s dexterous funk anthem into a cool, would-be jazz standard – thus,…

The Holmes Brothers

This album’s chock full of solid musicianship, including stylish guitar from co-producer Chris Bruce. Yet the story here, as it is on all Holmes Brothers records, is the vocals and the songs. Sherman…

Davie Allan & the Arrows – Moving Along

Davie Allan came along when, by all rights, instrumental rock should have been long past rigor mortis and decomposing, after the British Invasion nailed instro surf’s coffin shut. But, against all odds, as…

Thurston Moore

Rock N Roll Consciousness

There’s always been a push/pull relationship between the worlds of hippie-inspired jam bands and punk-inspired indie rock. While the latter has been known to regard the former as self-indulgent, the former sometimes holds…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

Robert Bradley – Out of the Wilderness

While Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise deals in styles of music done by many bands – R&B, rock, soul, and jazz – it always brings an edge most bands don’t offer. Out of the…

Tony Joe White – Snakey

Snakey

The title track that opens the Swamp Fox’s latest offering sounds almost like a variation on his bluesy “As A Crow Flies,” from 1972’s The Train I’m On. Hallelujah! At this point in…

Shelby Lynne

Everso Records

Revelation Road comes from an artist who knows exactly what she wants and how to get it, and can come up with an end product that displays brilliantly the worth of the work…