• 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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Doug MacLeod

Break The Chain

A three-time Blues Music Award winner for Acoustic Artist Of The Year, MacLeod also deserves the B.B. King Entertainer Of The Year conferment. His concerts, with between-song stories as essential as the tunes,…

Emmylou Harris – Songbird

Emmylou Harris’ latest box set, Songbird, occupies a unique place among deluxe anthologies. Instead of being merely another greatest hits or an unreleased versions set, it’s a collection of personally important musical moments.…

Jeffrey Halford and the Healers – Kerosene

Jeffrey and the boys specialize on one of my favorite kinds of rock and roll. You just put a few chords together, write some great lyrics, sing and play with great fervor, and…

Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band

Honeysuckle

Resonator-slide specialist Reverend Peyton returns to his primary influences – early 20th-century African-American music – compelling him to shout from the hollers and the hills. Rootsy, acoustic, inter-war blues is the specific genre,…

Damon Fowler

Blind Pig

Damon Fowler has a smokyMemphis-like style of soul and blues at its peak on his third album. The combination infuses his originals (“After The Rain”) with a Southern rock feel that recalls Lynyrd…

Moby Grape – Grape Jam/Wow

When Columbia/Legacy released the single-disc Listen My Friends! The Best Of Moby Grape, the label made the mistake of dubbing a career overview a “best of” – when nearly everything the band did…

Wes Montgomery: His Life and His Music

Oliver Dunskus

You don’t have to be a bebopper thumbing a Gibson L-5 to appreciate the music of Wes Montgomery – arguably the greatest jazz guitarist of all time.  While his fan base includes Carlos…

Brian Setzer – The Knife Feels Like Justice

I was extremely happy to see this on CD. I loved this album when it came out in ’86, and it still sounds wonderful. I guess you’d call this post-Cats/pre-swing Brian. Musically, it…

Roy Buchanan – American Axe – Live In 1974

It’s not too far of a stretch to say Roy Buchanan was one of the most unique guitar players in the past 40 years. This recording, done at two shows in 1974, does…

Tony Rice – The Bluegrass Guitar Collection

The Bluegrass Guitar Collection

Tony Rice and the words “bluegrass guitar” are rarely, if ever, separated. Along with Doc Watson, Dan Crary, and Clarence White, Tony Rice has had more influence on modern flatpicking than anyone else.…

Josh Williams

Josh Williams would be the first to tell you he’s heavily influenced by Tony Rice – vocally and instrumentally. Rice has had vocal-cord problems since the ’90s, and in a cosmic “irony,” arthritis…

The Blues Will Set You Free

We’ve all heard of blues in bars, but what about blues behind bars? That’s what Paul Oscher had in mind in the late ’80s, when he brought a world-class blues band to play…

Big Head Todd

Ryko

Doing an album of Robert Johnson songs may not be a particularly original idea, but it’s not a bad one. For this one, Todd Mohr and band have called upon veteran bluesmen to…

The Bellfuries

Blue-Collar Cool

Just as rockabilly back in the ’50s was largely a regional phenomenon, many of the best bands today remain local heroes. Witness Austin’s Bellfuries, with guitar man Mike Molnar. The band’s debut was…

The Beau Brummels

Turn Around: The Complete Recordings (1964-1970)

In the mid ’60s, this Bay Area band straddled British Invasion, garage rock, and emerging psychedelic sounds. More important, they cut some of the most sophisticated rock and roll of the time, thanks…

Stacie Collins

Rev Records

The list of people who call themselves “professional harmonica players” certainly is not all that long. And the number of female harmonica players… well, beyond Stacie Collins, I can’t think of one. On…

Luther Allison – Luther’s Blues

Originally released by Motown in 1973, Luther’s Blues was not a big seller. Not that it’s not a great album. It is. But maybe Motown at that time wasn’t the best place to…

Woodstock 1969

Ten Years After

Though he was a multifaceted guitarist, Ten Years After’s Alvin Lee had a reputation as a speed demon – not something he tried to dissuade. Never was it on display more than at…

Felix Martin

Sometimes six strings just ain’t enough. Venezuelan Berklee alum Felix Martin uses 14 and sometimes 16 strings to explore the contrapuntal galaxy of progressive melody and rhythm. Sounding like a Chapman Stick player,…

Jethro Tull

Masterwork Revisited

Jethro Tull’s 1975 masterwork gets the deluxe box-set treatment with all the trimmings. Packaged in a hardbound book cover, the set includes remastered tracks (with that classic “green” Chrysalis label); a fresh live…

Jimmy McIntosh – Orleans to London

At first glance, this record appears odd for a first-call player in Las Vegas. But the title says it all. Not only does it signify where parts of the record were recorded, it…

John Del Toro Richardson

With this Tex-Mex flavored blues album co-produced with Anson Funderburgh, another fine Texas blues guitarist, John Del Toro Richardson hits his stride. Think Los Lobos with the blues to Latino style ratio in…

Jeffrey Foucault & Lisa Olstein

Self-distributed

Cold Satellite is a concept album with songs co-written by Jeffrey Foucault and Lisa Olstein. Longtime friends, they began to collaborate in 2007, when Olstein sent Foucault a bunch of unpublished poems plus…

Duke Robillard – World Full of Blues

A master of jump-blues and T-Bone-Walker-style guitar, here Duke Robillard pulls out “Treat Me So Lowdown,” a T-Bone gem from the ’60s that originally featured studio players and arrangements that didn’t feel right.…

Jay Geils, Duke Robillard, Gerry Beaudoin – New Guitar Summit

The great stuff continues to flow from Duke Robillard. The man makes great solo records, produces records, and makes special appearances, always adding great parts to records for friends everywhere. Here is more…

Danny Schmidt

Red House Records

On his second Red House Records release, Danny Schmidt displays the same level of wit and lyricism that made his last release such an artistic success. Undoubtedly, Schmidt writes great songs. Man of…

Biller & Horton – Texotica

Apparently, Dave Biller ran out of existing styles to master and had to start making up new ones. His work as leader and sideman – all of the highest order – has ranged…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

Simo

Rise and Shine

Blues-rock phenom J.D. Simo and his band continue to push boundaries as they explore everything from slow-burn soul and psychedelia to greasy funk-blues that would make Albert King smile. This album also has…

Pete Anderson

How to Produce a Record: A Player’s Philosophy for Making a Great Recording

Known as longtime musical partner and guitar ace with country singer Dwight Yoakam. But, his real claim to fame might be that as a bona fide roots-music mechanic – a guy who has…

Eric Clapton

Crossroads Festival 2019

Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Festival has become the guitar event since its inception in 1999. With a diverse cast of the greatest pickers in the world, the event is a fundraiser for Clapton’s drug…