• 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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Guy King

Two words describe these two records from Chicago guitarist Guy King: mature and eclectic. That holds especially true for the double record, I Am Who I Am And It Is What It Is.…

João Erbetta & Adam Levy and Panamericans!

A glimpse at João Erbetta’s résumé brings to mind Harry Belafonte’s tongue-in-cheek introduction of Carlos Santana at the 2013 Kennedy Center Honors, begging for immigration reform because the Mexican native had squelched his…

Blues Unseen But Thriving

This is a fascinating, albeit incomplete, documentary about a segment of the blues seldom seen by devotees, let alone lay people. Director Daniel Cross uses Bobby Rush as his focal point and ad…

Ric Lee’s Natural Born Swingers

This band doesn’t just hearken back to the late ’60s British blues movement; it includes two seminal figures from that period, in Ten Years After drummer Ric Lee and pianist Bob Hall, an…

Sacred Steel Convention – Train Don’t Leave Me

Train Don't Leave Me

When Arhoolie Records’ Chris Strachwitz stumbled onto Mance Lipscomb, the amazing 65-year-old Texas bluesman and songster who had never recorded, in 1960, it was a bit like an anthropologist coming across a saber-toothed…

Kenny Burrell and the Jazz Heritage All-Stars – Live At the Blue Note

It’s almost ridiculous how many great jazz guitar albums this label puts out. And here is more. The Burrell CD features the legend in a live setting with the likes of Sir Roland…

Marcin

Dragon In Harmony

Acoustic/electric sensation Marcin effortlessly traverses the fretboard with a guitar style that embraces the companionable influences of classical, flamenco, and pop music. Lightning-fast intervallic runs dovetail into high-level rhythmic slapping, tapping, and fierce…

Peter Guralnick

Rocking The World

Sam Phillips was not a guitarist – though he did play drums and sousaphone in his high-school marching band. But he had great ears. And, in launching his Memphis Recording Service and later,…

Florence Joelle

Zoltan Records

Florence Joelle sings rock and roll like Billie Holiday might, croons a torch ballad as Wanda Jackson may, and spices it all with a bit of Patti Smith attitude. Add to that Joelle’s…

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…

Beastie Boys

This groundbreaking album needs little introduction – except maybe to guitarheads. Yes, it’s rap, but the Beastie Boys showed the world what composing with sound samples can create. Here’s a primal fusion of…

Kentucky Thunder

Self-distributed

First, this Kentucky Thunder has nothing to do with Rickey Skaggs’ band. And instead of bluegrass, they serve up hot-buttered white Southern soul, a la Delaney and Bonnie. Since the band has four…

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…

Rev. Gary Davis – Live At Newport

A truly unique figure in American folk music, the late Rev. Gary Davis was a blind Baptist preacher from South Carolina who sang on the streets of Harlem. He didn’t make his first…

Dio

There’s his music, his style, and his metal-culture influence. But above all, Ronnie James Dio is responsible for creating one indelible symbol – the flashing of the goat horns. Rhino has now released…

Bernard Allison – Times Are Changing

The times certainly are a-changing. Luther Allison’s son, Bernard, is back, unleashing a tough brand of modern blues that will blow the dust out of your speaker cones. This is new blues by…

Mountain Heart – The Road That Never Ends (The Live Album)

Mountain Heart plays music its own way. What makes the band so different? Breadth. While most bands narrow their scope to one particular sound, Mountain Heart pushes boundaries past traditional bluegrass into other…

Alison Krauss and Union Station – Alison Krauss + Union Station Live

Although fine female bluegrass singers and songwriters like Hazel Dickens and Emmylou Harris have achieved success, Alison Krauss must be considered the first woman bluegrass superstar. Ever since her first release, Krauss’ CDs…

Son Volt – A Retrospective: 1995-2000

Spinning off from the roots-rock trailblazers Uncle Tupelo, Jay Farrar’s Son Volt is famed for its honest, no-nonsense, straight-to-the-heart songs. A Retrospective: 1995-2000 is a fine greatest hits celebration with six unreleased bonus…

Mark Pickerel – Cody’s Dream

This is the second solo album by the former Screaming Trees drummer turned singer/songwriter/front man, who went on to record with Neko Case, Jim Carroll, and Nirvana. There’s a cinematic vibe to the…

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…

PRS Dragons – Jenna’s Eyes

Jenna's Eyes

The leader of PRS Dragons, as you might expect, is guitarmaker Paul Reed Smith. So it stands to reason the sounds here are just what you’d expect. Crunchy rhythm guitars and big fat…

Buddy Miller & Jim Lauderdale

In addition to his sterling reputation as a singer/songwriter, both alone and with wife, Julie, Buddy Miller’s guitar bonafides speak for themselves, including his work with Emmylou Harris and Robert Plant’s Band of…

Various Artists

Homegrown Heroes

Subtitled “1950s & 1960s Oddball Labels,” these three boxed sets collect nuggets from dozens of independent record labels that popped up across post-Elvis America then faded away as the British Invasion and the…

João Erbetta & Adam Levy and Panamericans!

A glimpse at João Erbetta’s résumé brings to mind Harry Belafonte’s tongue-in-cheek introduction of Carlos Santana at the 2013 Kennedy Center Honors, begging for immigration reform because the Mexican native had squelched his…

PRS Dragons – Jenna’s Eyes

Jenna's Eyes

The leader of PRS Dragons, as you might expect, is guitarmaker Paul Reed Smith. So it stands to reason the sounds here are just what you’d expect. Crunchy rhythm guitars and big fat…

Nate Najar

This Is Nate Najar

Nate Najar plays accessible jazz on a classical guitar and applies classical technique to match. This album showcases the music veteran playing a variety of tunes that range from Chopin’s “Prelude in E…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

Anger and Marshall – Woodshop

Mike Marshall and Darol Anger were in the early David Grisman bands that expanded the scope of acoustic music. Woodshop reunites these pioneers, who are among the most cerebral players in modern acoustic…

Mimi Fox – Perpetually Hip

The first thing you notice about Mimi Fox when she begins the single-note original melody of the title track (the first cut of this double-CD) is her bell-like tone (more highs than the…

Too Rolling Stoned

The Rolling Stones

Once reviled as a self-indulgent, drug-addled wreck, the Stones’ Their Satanic Majesties Request has been reconsidered in recent years and is now regarded as a one-off gem. Lodged between their early R&B-fueled hits…