• 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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Danny Marks

John Lennon once said that, with the exception of Chuck Berry’s “Rock And Roll Music,” songs about rock and roll are never successful. And it’s hard to write a song about the blues…

The Stryker/Slagle Band

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…

Gene Clark – This Byrd Has Flown

Gene Clark was one of the Byrds’ original members, and the first to quit back in 1966. He died in 1991, right after the Byrds entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.…

Jo’ Buddy & Down Home King III

Finnish singer/ guitarist/ composer Jussi “Jo’ Buddy” Raulamo has played with just about every bluesman to pass through Finland and more on his pilgrimages to the States. Howard Armstrong, Eddy Clearwater, Maceo Parker,…

Raisin’ Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter

Backbeat Books

The biographer has a duty to get close to the subject in order to relay all the facts and get first-hand accounts of events while at the same time not getting so close…

Jim Campilongo

Hillbilly Twang

Jim Campilongo plays the kind of grownup guitar that makes the rest of us want to put aside our childish noodlings and play something with substance. Drawing from the good stuff, Campilongo is…

Rick Vito

Who Needs Frets?

Rick Vito is one of the few guitarists who didn’t just put his name on a guitar as an endorser; as his own guitar designer, he came up with the art deco Streamliner,…

Sean Watkins – 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…

Albert Lee – Heartbreak Hill

Heartbreak Hill

Being an Albert Lee fan can be as frustrating as it is rewarding. Because, even though he’s invariably busy, touring behind somebody or playing on someone’s record, his jam-packed schedule doesn’t allow much…

Vanilla Fudge

Rhino Handmade

Maybe it’s the name, maybe it’s the band’s insistence on turning everything from Michel Legrand to Sonny Bono into an epic, but Vanilla Fudge has never gotten the respect it deserves. But in…

Gary Moore

A Different Beat

Today, the mashup of fiery, blues-based guitar and techno beats is fairly commonplace, but 24 years ago it was a radical move for Gary Moore. Now reissued on vinyl, 1999’s A Different Beat…

Jim Hall

CTI/Masterworks Jazz

There’s never been a time when Jim Hall wasn’t at the top of his game. From his days as a member of the Jimmy Giuffre 3 and Chico Hamilton Quintet, collaborations with Bill…

Mark Hummel – Golden State Blues

A great album by a harp virtuoso sums this one up. Mark Hummel is part of that West Coast batch of guys who just have their pulse on the jump-blues and shuffles of…

Mike Zito

Mike Zito’s latest serves up large helpings of boogie, blues, and roadhouse-ready rock. His guitar work is stellar as usual and the band features Rob McNelly on guitar, Tommy McDonald on bass, and…

The Steepwater Band – Dharmakaya

Dharmakaya

Plain and simple, folks, the Steepwater Band rocks! Usually, such a trite phrase is used to describe something that ends up being just the opposite. But not this time. The Steepwater Band is…

Shawn Camp – Fireball

Shawn Camp’s latest record features his songwriting skills presented in a live acoustic and bluegrass context, framed with electric honkytonk flare. Even though the milieu may be different, the overall impression remains the…

Kid Bangham and Amyl Justin – Pressure Cooker

Here’s a very cool guitar-based blues record that gets ya jumpin’ from the first cut, the straight-ahead blues/rock of “Close to the Danger Zone.” Bangham is a versatile and interesting guitarist who has…

The Ultimate Book of Blues Guitar Legends

The Ultimate Book of Blues Guitar Legends

  The blues is the foundation of nearly all American popular music, and this book by Vintage Guitar’s music editor covers the genre’s giants, from the founders to present-day practitioners. Its emphasis is…

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Déjà Vu 50th Anniversary

The essential tragedy of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young is that they never recorded a sequel to Déjà Vu. Instead, the quartet resorted to fractious live reunions and disappointing studio albums cut decades…

Mac Yasuda and Jim Washburn

Countrified

Somewhere along that lost highway, plainspoken, straight-from-the-heart country music got all gussied up with rhinestone suits and fancy guitars. Mac Yasuda may hail from Japan, but he understands the music and culture better…

Stephane Wrembel

Django New Orleans

The concept is simple enough: a mashup of Django Reinhardt’s gypsy swing with the buoyant sounds of Louis Armstrong and New Orleans jazz. Could easily become marketing hokum, but in the trustworthy hands…

Queensrÿche

Operation: Mindcrime and Empire Deluxe Editions

Bill Frisell

Music Is

Cactus

Guitarist Jim McCarty (not to be confused with the Yardbirds’ drummer of the same name) initially turned heads in the mid ’60s, as a member of Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. He…

Holden

Think of Holden as the Velvet Underground with a French accent. This noise-pop duo differs, however, in chronicling not the wild side of the ’60s, but the existential estrangement of modern-day life –…

Freddie King – Live at the Electric Ballroom, 1974

Originally released in 1996, this was recorded a couple years before Freddie’s death, and it captures him in full bloom. As you’d expect, the concert portion finds him blasting away from all angles…

Smooth Shred

Greg Howe

After Greg Howe’s epiphany to distinguish himself from the glut of arpeggio-sweeping classical-music pirates, his career took the kind of turns you would never imagine – especially with contemporaries like Jason Becker, Vinnie…

Mike Zito – Today

Mike Zito’s debut disc is brimming with Texas-style fire and soul, even though he’s from St. Louis! Zito uses a variety of Strat tones and employs chops chock full of soul. His vocals…

Sons of Adam

Saturday’s Sons: The Complete Recordings, 1964-1966

Whatever claim to fame the Sons of Adam have is thanks to guitarist Randy Holden, who later joined Blue Cheer (replacing Leigh Stephens) after a stop with the under-recorded Other Half. The Sons…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

John Cowan

E1 Entertainment

John Cowan’s latest is taken from sessions recorded four years ago by George Massenburg. Cowan’s music combines traditional bluegrass with rock-influenced players and the songs here show Cowan’s talents as a singer and…

Elana James

For her second solo effort, Elana James, fiddler-vocalist for the western-swing trio Hot Club of Cowtown, ventures afield into other genres. This shouldn’t be surprising, given her 2006 touring work as part of…

Blind Pig Records – 20th Anniversary Collection

It’s been 20 years since Blind Pig Records got its start in the humble Blind Pig Café in a basement in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Over the years, the label has released records by…