• 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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Kenny Burrell

HighNote

Jazzman Kenny Burrell boasts some 40 records to his name as a leader and dozens more as the consummate sideman. Amazingly, he still has much more to say and, on this new solo…

Top Of The World Tour – Live

One thing that should not be forgotten in the midst of all the controversy surrounding the Dixie Chicks’ 2003 tour is that not only was it the biggest-grossing country tour of the year…

Sean Watkins – Let It Fall

Let It Fall

Sean Watkins is one third of the young Grammy-nominated supergroup Nickel Creek. Along with his sister Sara and mando phenom Chris Thile, they’ve lit up the festival circuit with fresh musical energy. Let…

Pine Mountain Railroad – Alone with Forever

In a world where everything is at our fingertips, anyone with access to the internet can instantly listen to original recordings by Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, Stanley Brothers, Osborne Brothers, Red Foley,…

Brian Setzer – ’68 Comeback Special – Ignition

Okay, I confess. Somehow this one slid in under the radar. Released in late summer, it features Setzer back in a trio setting, basically just cutting loose, guitar-wise and vocally. And let’s face…

Ron Wood Keith Richards Rolling stone Blues and Lonesome Vintage Guitar Magazine

The Rolling Stones

Mick Jagger’s famous 1968 statement – “What’s the point in listening to us doing ‘I’m A King Bee’ when you can hear Slim Harpo do it?” – has been a (sometimes) credo for…

Jim Croce

You Don’t Mess Around with Jim 50th Anniversary

Jim Croce was a pop artist with laser-guided instincts for writing hits. In an impossibly short run of fame – barely two years – he wrote singles that remain staples of ’70s AM…

Drive By Truckers – The Dirty South

The Dirty South

I confess, these good ol’ boys have become one of my favorite rock and roll bands. There double-disc opus, Southern Rock Opera, was one of my favorite records from the past couple of…

Carl Verheyen – Slingshot

I admit that although I’ve seen Carl’s name a lot, I’ve never become familiar with his playing. But after hearing this great CD, that’ll change. He’s a fabulous player whose style falls somewhere…

John Gorka – The Company You Keep

John Gorka is the energizer bunny of singer/songwriters. He just keeps going and going. Each new release not only equals the quality of his last, but exceeds it. The Company You Keep is…

Son Volt – American Central Dust

For Jay Farrar, these are the worst of times and the best of times, to appropriate and paraphrase a famous line. As a songwriter and musician with the spirit of a Woody Guthrie…

Black Sabbath

Vol. 4 Super Deluxe

Sabbaholic Must-Have In May of 1972, Black Sabbath retreated to Los Angeles to record its fourth album, along with a mountain of cocaine. The result was Vol. 4, perhaps the first stoner-metal album…

Electric Prunes – Release of an Oath

Collector's Choice Music

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…

Charles Lloyd and the Marvels

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that adding Bill Frisell to a project will yield great results. But teaming him with jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd was a master stroke, in large part…

American Folk Blues Festival – Various Artists

This is the British TV counterpart to the German broadcasts that were unearthed on three stunning volumes of The American Folk Blues Festival, in 2003. If you saw those, you’ve probably already stopped…

The Gladiators – Studio One Singles

In the years before Bob Marley became the star of reggae and eclipsed most others, a galaxy of lesser luminaries shone bright. The Gladiators were one such band, and a luminescent one at…

Wes Montgomery- In Paris: The Definitive ORTF Recording

Wes is Back!

In broad strokes, jazz guitar can be split into two schools, deriving from arguably the greatest guitarists in the genre’s history: Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt. But if there’s a third fork in…

Ernest Ranglin

Standing at a crossroads of reggae and jazz, Ernest Ranglin has crafted a unique voice. His mellow-toned and laidback fusion is singular. And stunning. To anyone familiar with Jamaican music and reggae, Ranglin…

Pieta Brown and Valerie June

Singer/songwriter Pieta Brown enlists talent – and lots of it – to back her ethereal songs and vocals on her latest. Calexico lends a hand with the opener “In The Light” while Mark…

Adrian Raso – Clean Up The Mess

Black Mamba Records

Adrian Raso understands that, just as a guitar solo is not just a place-holder between lyric lines, an instrumental is not just a bunch of notes that sound good together. Guitarists may have…

Doug Sahm – San Antonio Rock

It’s no big secret that rock and roll lost one of its real deals when Doug Sahm passed away. His history was long and varied, and he hadn’t had a rock hit in…

Jimi Hendrix

Experience Hendrix is the gatekeeper to the legacy of Jimi Hendrix, and thankfully so. In addition to protecting the music of the greatest rock guitarist of the ’60s from unscrupulous opportunists, they’ve released…

Montrose – The Very Best of Montrose

Ronnie Montrose is known less for his guitar capabilities than for fronting a mid-’70s hard rock band that featured an unknown lead singer named Sammy Hagar. Still, Montrose released a quartet of heavy…

Jimi Hendrix

Machine Gun: The Fillmore East First Show

POWER SOUL Jimi Hendrix learned the hard way that signing contracts for fast money can come back to haunt you. Hendrix’ naiveté forced him to settle a breach-of-contract dispute with Ed Chalpin of…

Michael Brecker – Pilgramage

Jazz lost a major figure this past winter with the death of tenor-sax giant Michael Brecker, who died of a blood-marrow disorder. Yet as his health deteriorated last year, he still found the…

Rory Block – The Guitar of Robert Johnson

Rory Block has been involved with the music of Robert Johnson most of her life. At a young age, she apprenticed directly with Son House, Skip James, Reverend Gary Davis and other seminal…

The Derailers – Genuine

Genuine

With the new year comes a look at this album, a fine record deserving of notice. The influences here are wide and varied, and the Derailers manage to mix them to put together…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

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…

Jimi Hendrix Experience – The Jimi Hendrix Experience

This four-CD box set illustrates again how the seed planted by Hendrix’s created a whole tree of rock guitar that still fourishes, although not at the level of creativity it did with Jimi.…

Z.Z. Top – Chrome, Smoke, and B. B. Q.

Chrome, Smoke, and B. B. Q.

Well, Z.Z. Top’s music has been released in a lot of forms on CD. I confess, I didn’t scarf up the other releases, even though I grew up on this stuff and love…