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Music
2026 February Issue on Spotify
This month, we feature Tinsley Wllis, Jimmy Aaughan, Duke Levine, Joshua Hedley, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Pink Floyd, Coyote Motel, Julian Lage, Jocelyn Gould, and more! Spotify is free or available without ads via a paid subscription. Go to www.spotify.com and search “Vintage Guitar magazine,” or if you already have an account Listen to the complete
Michael Bloomfield – If You Love These Blues, Play ‘Em As You Please
I’ve had more than one conversation with a colleague when The Paul Butterfield Blues Band album came up, and we said in unison, “That album changed my life.” A big reason for the…
Tom Principato – 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…
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…
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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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Chris Walz
All I Got and Gone
This traditional folk singer/guitarist’s solo debut is impressive. He’s been an educator at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music for three decades, but his approach is by no means academic. He not only reveals the influence of folk and blues legends such as Doc and Merle Watson, Elizabeth Cotten, Etta Baker, Dave Van Ronk,
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Nels Cline
Consentrik Quartet
ls Cline long ago established a parallel career as an eclectic instrumentalist and contemporary jazz virtuoso. His fourth Blue Note album is an extended set that unveils Consentrik Quartet, his new band with acoustic bassist Chris Lightcap, drummer Tom Rainey, and tenor/soprano saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock. Their concepts are ambitious and their sound is free, Cline
Robben Ford – Soul On Ten
Back to the Juice
Robben Ford’s last live album included only acoustic guitar. So, given that eight of the 10 cuts on this new disc feature Ford cutting loose on electric and his choice of material is…
The Hold Steady
You’re hearing it here first: The Hold Steady returns with its sixth studio album, and while the focus is usually on frontman Craig Finn and his idiosyncratic lyrics, this is one of the…
Trevor McShane
By day, Neville Johnson is an attorney who was voted by Hollywood Reporter as one of the Top 100 Power Lawyers, seven years running. By night he assumes the alter ego of singer-songwriter…
Grateful Dead
Road Trips, Vol. 1 No.4: From Egypt With Love
In 1978, the Dead played a series of shows at a venue many Deadheads swear was just built for the band – The Great Pyramid of Giza. Still high from the shows, the…
Albert King
Stax/Concord
Two CDs of Albert King – 34 songs, approaching two hours of material from his Stax period – has to be good news. It’s when companies label things as “best” or “essential” or…
Taste
Taste was a criminally short-lived Irish blues-rock trio in the late ’60s, featuring bassist Richard McCracken, drummer John Wilson, and the extraordinary guitar and vocals of Rory Gallagher. They played 1970’s infamous Isle…
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Charlie Musselwhite
Lookout Highway
John Mayall is invariably cited for the succession of guitar greats who passed through his band. But Charlie Musselwhite just might be the American equivalent. In a 60-year career, his six-stringers have included Harvey Mandel, Luther Tucker, Louis Myers, Tim Kaihatsu, Robben Ford, Fenton Robinson, Johnny Heartsman, Junior Watson, Andrew “Jr. Boy” Jones, John Wedemeyer,
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Popa Chubby
I Love Freddie King
The latest from blues dynamo Popa Chubby is a star-studded tribute to the late great Freddie King. Produced by Mr. Chubby and Mike Zito, I Love Freddie King is a blues guitar love-fest covering some of King’s most potent and popular songs. With Popa fronting the band on guitar and vocals, guests include Eric Gales,
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Rush
Rush 50
The goal of any anthology is to capture the broad scope of an artist’s career. Rush 50 is a strong attempt, starting with their first singles (previously unreleased) all the way to their final live recordings in 2015. In between are reams of epic studio and stage recordings, summing up the band’s career in one
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Rik Emmett
Ten Telecaster Tales
At the risk of starting a brawl, Rik Emmett’s guitar work was arguably too good for Triumph. As evidence, his latest project centers on a custom-built Loucin that inspired both a book and accompanying music. “Magic Power” this is not. On Ten Telecaster Tunes, Emmett delivers 10 solo performances on the instrument he calls Babs,
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Check This Action: Up Jumped Elmore
When someone recently asked me to recommend the most essential Elmore James album, I answered, “Any and all.” I’ve never heard a bad Elmore cut, and I’ve heard nearly everything he recorded. Everybody knows that he set the standard for slide guitar in electric blues, but he was also a fantastic singer and wrote some
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Greg Koch
Blues
The Gristle Master returns with scintillating blues and the influences that made him the six-string slayer he is today. On this live recording, Koch uses an array of guitars including his signature Reverend, a Deluxe Tele, Custom Shop Les Paul, and a Custom Shop Strat while sharing stages with Larry McCray, Jimmy Hall, Malford Milligan,
Rodrigo y Gabriela – Live in Japan
The guitar duo of Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero created a huge sensation with its eponymous 2006 CD – the pair’s acoustic attack equal parts flamenco and metal. If there was any doubt…
Dick Dale – King of the Surf
The Rosetta Stone of Dick Dale’s brand of surf guitar is 1962’s Surfer’s Choice, which, even though it was his first album, was largely a collection of the singles he’d already released on…
Dick Dale – Better Shred than Dead: The Dick Dale Anthology
Well, what needs to be said about this? The King of the Surf Guitar at his finest. This covers 1959 to 1996 and hits all the high points. All the tunes are here,…
Joe Ely
Driven to Drive
From the start of his solo career, Joe Ely’s west Texas audacity and unpredictability has been an asset – an extension of his early days as part of the revered country-folk trio The…
The Creation
Biff Bang Pow!
Hard as it seems to imagine, there are U.K. bands of the ’60s who’ve remained obscure and unsung despite increasingly enthusiastic digging into that era. Case in point: the Creation. Contemporaries of the…
Red Simpson – Truckers’ Christmas
Truckers' Christmas
It’s the time of year when you may be looking to make a few additions to your collection of Christmas records. The theme this year is “Eclectic.” For oddball fun, check out Red…
Robert Plant & the Strange Sensation – Soundstage
Robert Plant & the Strange Sensation, Soundstage. Robert Plant and his band, The Strange Sensation, play 11 songs; covers, old Zep songs, and newer Plant tunes. The band is the perfect complement, anchored…
Stanley Clarke, Biréli Lagrène, Jean-Luc Ponty
As you’d hope from an album featuring three giants of jazz, this disc is full of passionate playing, technique that forces you to shake your head and smile at the same time, and…
Wayne Kramer – LLMF
The Wayne Kramer story has been documented pretty well. A member of the MC5, time in prison due to drug charges, several very good albums on Epitaph the past few years, and now…
Kenny Burrell – Lucky So and So
Here’s the latest from a true legend. Kenny’s been doing it for so long, and doing it as well as or better than everyone else, that it’s foolish to even think there’d be…
Juicy Lucy
Juicy Lucy/Lie Back and Enjoy It/Get A Whiff A This
Any discussion of unsung guitar greats needs to include Glenn Ross Campbell. Thankfully, his work with Juicy Lucy is documented on this two-CD three-fer. Between Freddie Roulette playing Chicago blues on lap steel…
Hadden Sayers Band – Swingin’ From The Fabulous Satellite
If tasteful, solid, rock is your thing, this band is for you. Storming out of Texas and led by guitarist Hadden Sayers, they blend blues, classic rock, country, and good old-fashioned pop music…
Luther Allison – Reckless
Luther Allison is the hottest thing going today in the world of the blues, and this, his third release on Alligator, keeps his tradition burning strong. Reckless is classic Luther Allison. It is…
Jared James Nichols
Jared James Nichols
Pentatonic beast and Gibson ambassador Jared James Nichols’ third album bristles with out-of-the-box soloing amidst crafty tunes where blues-rock meets grunge at the trailer park. Nichols cuts loose with testosterone-fueled vocal intensity and…
Jules Shear – More
Jules Mark Shear is living proof that talented pop musicians who prefer to remain on the fringes can maintain a successful career without cowtowing to the winds of fad and fashion. On his…
Jake Shimabukuro – Live
In his introduction to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” Shimabukuro explains how a video of him playing the George Harrison classic in Central Park, for New York’s Midnight Ukulele Disco, “changed my life.”…
Christine Ohlman and Rebel Montez – The Deep End
Horizon Music Group
The beehive-haired soul diva of the “Saturday Night Live” band offers a collection of mostly original soul and country songs (often mixed together, as in “Girl Growing Up”) that hit the sweet spot,…
Cadillac Angels – Two Blocks Off Main
Guitarist Tony Balbinot employs an array of classic Gretsch guitars to make his band’s distinct rockabilly music. Sure, they wear the derigueur cowboy gear and sideburns, but they treat the music seriously, as…
Alison Brown Quartet – Replay
Replay
Acoustic jazz is one of those “difficult” musical categories that doesn’t get much attention. Most jazz fans won’t take seriously anything that lacks a horn, while folkies are intimidated by music where they…
Crowsong – Western
Western
Crowsong’s first album was very atmospheric, with all sorts of guitar sounds flying about. This one has a more definite band feel, with songs that feel a little more familiar. That said, I…
Frank Zappa
In the coming years, Universal will reissue 66 of Frank Zappa’s albums, kicking off a with a 10-CD flight covering the years 1966 through ’72. Take your pick of great Zappa releases, but…
