• 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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Jamnesia – Jamnesia

Feenix Finale

This CD can’t help but grab any guitarist’s attention, with its clever cover collage, depicting Robert Johnson playing Clapton’s famous psychedelic “Fool” Les Paul/SG. If you check out what’s inside the package before…

Amos Garrett – Get Way Back

Garrett is, of course, best known as a guitarist (his tasteful solo on Maria Muldaur’s “Midnight At The Oasis” should have topped Rolling Stone‘s recent “100 Greatest Guitar Songs”). Percy Mayfield (a big…

Justin Johnsoné

The Biscuit House

His online videos are hard to cruise past. There’s his wide stylistic range, but also the guitars he built out of cigar boxes, whiskey barrels, and shovels. It amounts to a cottage industry…

John Hiatt with the Jerry Douglas Band

Leftover Feelings

Teaming veteran singer/composer John Hiatt with resophonic master Jerry Douglas and his band could have yielded yet another predictable Americana spin on modern bluegrass. Luckily, that didn’t happen. With Douglas producing, the collaboration…

George Van Eps and Marty Grosz Meets the Fat Babies

Great Acoustic Jazz

Marty Grosz is surely one of the last of a breed – a jazz guitarist who plays strictly rhythm and chord-style solos and strictly acoustic. He’s also a fine singer and scholar of…

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett works with a jazzman’s precision and taste, a swing player’s cool, and a rockabilly’s sense of urgency and fun. As a songwriter of guitar-centric instrumentals, his songs are visually as well…

Steve Hillage

Steve Hillage is the greatest master of tape-echo guitar in rock history, and this 22-CD boxset (that’s not a typo) does a good job proving it. A pioneer of British psychedelia and quirky…

The Steepwater Band – Grace and Melody

It’s easy to dig the Steepwater Band, and on this, their fourth studio record, the Chicago trio steps it up a notch with the help of producer Marc Ford, whose tenure with the…

Russell D – One Thing

Russell D is Austin singer/songwriter duo Russell Forsyth and percussionist Arron Michaels, and the “one thing” referenced in the CD title is love – the overriding or underlying theme that runs throughout the…

Volto!

Guitarist extraordinaire John Ziegler has been laying down the law every Monday night at California’s San Fernando Valley Baked Potato jazz club for what seems like forever. Hosting a weekly jam playing everything…

The Band

The Band’s double-LP Rock of Ages was released in August 1972, their first live collection – as well as their last before they disbanded with 1978’s The Last Waltz. As phenomenal as their…

Mustangs of the West

Down at the Palomino

Los Angeles’ all-female country quintet has a new record featuring 12 super-cool songs. Produced by Kirk Pasich and Colin Devlin, the album features Suzanna Spring on guitar and vocals, Sherry Rayn Barnett on…

Diana Krall

Fans familiar with Krall’s records featuring swinging tunes and gentle ballads might be more than a little surprised when they hear Glad Rag Doll. It wouldn’t be fair to say she’s left the…

Eric Brace & Peter Cooper

Red Beet Records

Eric Brace and Peter Cooper’s label, Red Beet Records, has been busy lately with not one, but two newly released CDs. The first is a duo project uniting Peter Cooper with the legendary…

Red Allen, Frank Wakefield, and the Kentuckians

Washington, D.C. and vicinity, known for forward-thinking bluegrass bands like the Country Gentlemen and the Seldom Scene, also had staunch traditionalists, among them the team of mandolin virtuoso Frank Wakefield (a one-time Stanley…

Little Charlie and the Nightcats – Nine Lives

Little Charlie and the Nightcats – Nine Lives What can you say about Charlie Baty and the boys? This is their ninth record for Alligator since the late ’80s, and the mix of…

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble – Live At Montreux 1982 & 1985

By now, every guitar fan worth his salt knows the story behind these two concerts by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble at the legendary Montreux Jazz Festival. Appearing in 1982, the boys…

Stephen Stills – Man Alive!

Stephen Stills – Man Alive! Stephen Stills hasn’t released a solo record since the early ’90s. He says it took so long for this one because he kept giving songs to Graham Nash…

Jeff Golub – Do It Again

I can hear the naysayers already. They’ll call this album a boring, derivative, smooth jazz standerbearer. That’s fine. Listen closely, though, and you’ll hear a soulful guitarist doing heartfelt covers of some of…

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…

Susan Tedeschi

Just Won’t Burn

Fantasy Records is celebrating Susan Tedeschi by reissuing the album that introduced her to lovers of soulful music the world over. The 25th anniversary edition of 1998’s Just Won’t Burn features all the…

David Rawlings

Poor David’s Almanack

Beginning with the 1996 debut of his musical partner Gillian Welch, David Rawlings has quietly become an Americana guitar hero, flatpicking his ’35 Epiphone Olympic across Welch’s five critically acclaimed albums and his…

Jo’ Buddy’s One Man Stomptet

Lockdown Sessions & Beyond, Vol. 1

Finnish guitarist Jussi Raulamo has led so many aggregations it’s hard to keep track. From Jo’ Buddy & Down Home King III to the New Orleans R&B Ensemble, One O’Clock Humph, Funky Kingstone,…

Craig Maki with Keith Cady

Craig Maki and Keith Cady provide a well-researched look at an overlooked part of Motor City’s rich musical history. They offer new or little-known information about the fertile Detroit scene that influenced people…

Lightning Striking: Ten Transformative Moments In Rock And Roll

Lenny Kaye

Kaye’s standing among record collectors was cemented in 1972, when he compiled the Nuggets double-album of ’60s garage and psychedelia. Also co-author of Waylon Jennings’ biography, here he takes on the role of…

Tom Principato – Not One Word

Not One Word

Tom’s put out some stuff on record before, and it’s been pretty good. This one’s a little bit different. As the title says, there’s not one word. It’s all instrumental, and Tom does…

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…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

John Leventhal

Rumble Strip

After 45 years as a roots music sideman and record producer, winning six Grammys, Leventhal’s first solo effort is an expansive 16-track collection. Released on the label he owns with wife and frequent…

SimakDialog

Hailing from Indonesia, SimakDialog is one of the best jazz-rock bands on the planet and this two-CD live set proves it. This performance features virtuosic playing from lead guitarist Tohpati and electric-piano master…

Tony Gilkyson

Avenging Angel

You know an album is promising when its sidemen include Buck Owens pedal-steeler Jay Dee Maness and Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band drummer James Gadson. Tony Gilkyson delivers on that promise. Not surprisingly,…