• 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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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.…

Burton Gaar – Mighty Long Road

This is one of those releases that makes it exciting to be a reviewer. Gaar is a blues vet with highly seasoned vocal chops, and I’d be willing to bet (and I’m not…

Steve Waksman – Instruments of Desire

This is a work of scholarly intent in which the author presents a treatise on the history and development of the electric guitar and how its subsequent use shaped the course of popular…

The Stone Age: Sixty Years of the Rolling Stones

Lesley-Ann Jones

Six decades is a long time to cover, especially for a band with a history as volatile as the Rolling Stones, but British author Jones brings a befitting wit, sarcasm, and snark. While…

Blackberry Smoke

You Hear Georgia

For 20 years, Georgia’s Blackberry Smoke has carried on Southern rock’s rich tradition. You Hear Georgia, the band’s seventh studio album, is soaked in those roots. Recorded live in 10 days at Nashville’s…

San Francisco String Trio

May I Introduce to You

As the title may tell, here’s yet another collection of Beatles tunes – this one entirely from Sgt. Pepper – done mostly in the form of jazz instrumentals. The trio is Mimi Fox…

California Transit Authority – Full Circle

CTA is California Transit Authority, a band led by Danny Seraphine, the original drummer for Chicago. Early Chicago records stood out thanks in large part to Seraphine’s drumming and Terry Kath’s incendiary guitar…

Nick Forster – Country Swing Back-up Guitar

Country Swing Back-up Guitar

Country Swing Back-up Guitar Taught by Nick Forster, with guest fiddle by Tim O’Brien Homespun I see Nick Forster face to face nearly every week in my role as the official E-Town photographer…

Roy Buchanan – The Best of the Millennium Collection

I don’t suppose there’s a whole lot more that can be said about Mr. Buchanan. And some might argue that we really didn’t need another collection. While it’s true the Sweet Dreams: Anthology…

AC/DC

While most bands feel the need to evolve, jump on trends, or go to Africa and hire a rhythm section, AC/DC sticks to one simple principle: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”…

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…

John McLaughlin

Hip-O-Select

By 1996, when this album was originally released, the English guitar virtuoso had already been a member of Tony Williams’ groundbreaking Lifetime and Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew band, further melded jazz with rock…

Neil Young

Hitchhiker

Neil Young fanatics known to obsess over a not-so-secret history of unreleased albums were agog at the announcement the mercurial Canadian would finally offer one of these scuttled LPs as an official release.…

Big Dez – You Can Smile

For decades, France has welcomed expatriate American blues and jazz artists. It was inevitable that seeds would be sown; the results in jazz music going back at least as far as the 1930s,…

Pat Metheny

Road To The Sun

Jazz guitar visionary Metheny is so admired he gets other people to perform his music. Road To The Sun features works performed by Grammy-winning classical guitarist Jason Vieaux and the Los Angeles Guitar…

Thin Lizzy

Ume

These two Thin Lizzy albums were originally released in 1976 and set the stage for the band’s astonishing run of hardrock masterpieces through the rest of the decade. Jailbreak contained Lizzy’s mega-hit “The…

Deep Purple

A Fire in the Sky

There have been innumerable Deep Purple compilations, but this clever set includes at least one track from every Purp album. Three guitar legends are spotlighted – Ritchie Blackmore, Steve Morse, and Tommy Bolin,…

Mark Doyle – Guitar Noir

I love this. Doyle has been in the music biz for some time. His first band, Jukin’ Bone, made a couple of obscure albums for RCA in the early ’70s and in the…

Donna The Buffalo

Sugar Hill Records

Some still think Jethro Tull is the name of that band’s lead singer. So was it wise for a band, especially one with a female lead singer, to name itself Donna The Buffalo?…

Flatt & Scruggs – Best of The Flatt and Scruggs TV Show

Before “Hullabaloo” or “Hootenany” there was the Grand Ole Opry, America’s first national country music show broadcast on the radio. Of course the Opry garnered a slew of imitators, and when television came…

Living Colour

Black-Rock Renaissance

Beating the odds with the Grammy-approved album Vivid in 1988, Living Colour ascended victoriously amidst a heaping handful of black rock bands sent packing by record companies for not playing blues, dance music,…

Mick Mars

The Other Side Of Mars

On his first solo album, former Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars leaves his glam-metal discography in the rearview, instead going full beast mode with epic themes, dense production, and exceptional guitarmanship. Gothic soundscapes,…

Scott Gibson

Self-distributed

  Gibson It’s hard to toss a quarter in Nashville without hitting a songwriter holding a tip jar, but few have Scott Gibson’s songwriting chops. On Just Keep Drivin’, Gibson delivers 12 reasons…

Stephen Bruton – Nothing But The Truth

I love when records like this happen. I loved this when I first heard it, and subsequent listens revealed more great things. Bruton is well-known as a guitarist and ace producer from Austin.…

D.A.D. – No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims

On their first major label release, the band formerly known as Disneyland After Dark (changed after a threatened lawsuit by the Disney Co.) was poised for a breakthrough in the U.S. with backing…

Ron Thompson

Ron Thompson has been a fixture in the San Francisco blues scene for more than 40 years. But rather than gaining visibility and rocketing to stardom like, say, Robben Ford, he patiently paid…

Bob Marley & the Wailers

Ume/Tuff Gong

For such a guitar-driven genre, reggae doesn’t get many props from the six-string community, though its offbeat-chord trademark is as much a part of the rock lexicon as anything. For proof, check out…

  • Yes

    Yes

    Close to the Edge: Super Deluxe Edition

Scott Lindsey

Grey Trailer Music

From the first raucous notes of “You Only Call Me (When You’re Drunk)” it’s obvious Scott Lindsey is invoking the spirit (and spirits!) of the late Gary Stewart. There are certainly worse musical…

Thunderchiefs – Dig

From its very first gig, this surf quartet sounded like they’d been playing together for years – which isn’t surprising, considering the pedigree of its members. Mike Guerrero was lead guitarist of Austin’s…

Easton Corbin

Florida native Easton Corbin earned justified acclaim for his 2009 debut album Roll With It, revealing his twangy traditional voice and obvious debts to George Jones, Merle Haggard, and the late Keith Whitley.…