On Money & Power, Ally Venable wields the power of wisdom and emotional connection. It’s an album about empowerment and comeuppance, but there’s plenty of playtime with guest stars Shemekia Copeland and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram. An audio bluesfest, it’s songwriting brings substance carried by guitarists swinging for the fences. What does the albums title represent?What

Busy Smilin’
When does Joel Hoekstra sleep? To say the always-smiling guitarist has a full plate is an understatement. For several years, he has juggled performing with the smash hit Broadway musical…

Swampy grooves mix blues with rock Enjoy Bex Marshall and her Ozark 3515BTE Custom Cutaway resonator delivering superbly on an exclusive rendition of the title track from her latest…

A Muse From Olden Times
Charlie Parr makes new music from olden times. And he makes it the old way – not only using just the simplicity of a National resonator, a bottleneck slide, boot-stomping…
When Hubert Sumlin sideman Sean Chambers played a gig with Savoy Brown bassist Pat DeSalvo and drummer Garnet Grimm, the result was blues-rock ecstasy. Live From Daryl’s House Club is the next best thing to being there. Fans of incendiary slide playing and Rory Gallagher, look no further. How did you meet Pat and Garnet?I
On Lari Basilio’s latest record, Redemption, art and life collide to make beautiful music. Effortless instrumental guitar techniques merge with rib-sticking melodies to captivate and astonish. Bassist Leland Sklar and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta are back to add rhythmic fire, but Basilio’s muse is life’s challenges and, of course, super cool gear. You became a mother.
A songwriting blues-rocker in the purist sense, Dudley Taft is succeeding in an era when nothing comes easy for his ilk. His new album, The Speed of Life, required a departure from the norm; while his previous three were recorded at his own studio in Cincinnati, this one used down time during a European tour
The Space Between the Notes
When it comes to blues, Robben Ford has always been inspired by the most profound practitioners of the form and gone his own way with the understanding that true blues…

“Monster” Mike Welch digs deep on “Walking to You Baby” “I was thinking about my late friend, Luther ‘Guitar Junior’ Johnson, and how his records were always direct, full-throttle,…

Little Feat ace plays outro from “You’ll Be Mine” In case you’re wondering how Scott Sharrard got the gig wearing the Little Feat slide shoes once filled by Lowell George…

Scorched-Earth Tones
Philip Sayce’s album Scorched Earth Volume 1 was a live recording from 2016 that displayed the kind of blistering blues-rock ferocity that left many asking, “How does he do that?”…

Spontaneous Composition
“We started as three side men scheduled to back a singer who was a no-show at this bar in Brooklyn,” said Scott Metzger, recalling the origins of the trio Wolf!.…

Jazz star’s tribute to Pat Martino – “The Velvet Hammer” A leading proponent of modern jazz guitar, Sheryl Bailey has recorded with Alan Broadbent, Art Farmer, Urbie Green, Eric Kloss,…
Acclaimed as bassist for The Flower Kings, Jonas Reingold is a master four-stringer. He’s recorded with many artists, including Jon Anderson (of Yes), and has become an integral part of Steve Hackett’s band, re-creating the complex bottom of early Genesis. Twenty years ago, Reingold started the prog group Karmakanic (repeat it slowly a few times),
Tommy Emmanuel is a real guitarist in its truest sense. On Live At The Sydney Opera House, he stands onstage with only an acoustic guitar, and mesmerizes a packed house. His virtuosity employs country, Celtic, and folk fingerpicking styles that lift the spirit. The set is loaded with fan favorites, but a song suggestion from
After landing on American shores in 2002 to study bluegrass, then shifting into a career as a country singer/songwriter/picker, Jedd Hughes has spent 20 years on an alternate – but rewarding – path as A-list session player and touring sideman. While being busy tempered his flow of original music, in 2014, he returned to songwriting.
As a teenager who just wanted to play music, Norm Harris lived with the reality that he and his band weren’t going to be millionaires anytime soon. So he did what musicians do – side-hustled. But when most were manning the counter at a music shop or serving tables, Harris was up at the crack
If you’re making a list of beloved bands with a long string of hook-heavy hits, the Doobie Brothers will surely be on it. Their new album, Walk This Road, features the creative core of vocalist/guitarist Patrick Simmons, vocalist/guitarist Tom Johnston, multi-instrumentalist John McFee, and vocalist/keyboardist Michael McDonald. The news of Walk This Road generated significant
Season 03 Episode 10 In Episode 3.10 of “Buy That Guitar,” host Ram Tuli is joined by Robb Lawrence and Kim Shaheen. Robb’s experience in the vintage market spans from the golden age of electric-guitar innovation to the modern world. Beyond simply studying the history, he lived it, documented it, and played alongside giants who

Tiny Titan of Blues Guitar
Though he is today largely forgotten, blues aficionados recognize Pee Wee Crayton as a legend. “The little man with a big sound” dominated the charts briefly in the years between…
Swiss Precision for Americana
Uwe Kruger’s professional musical career began at age 15, when he and his brother, Jens, left their small town home in Switzerland to busk in the cities of Europe. Quickly,…
Windy City Diversity
James Elkington tweaked the paradigm when he began working at a luthier shop before hitting his stride as a guitarist. Born and raised in a small English village northwest of…
Finds his Subway Rhythm
Subway Rhythm is an apt name for Sylvain Sylvain’s music publishing company. The former New York Doll’s train of thought makes all the stops, a tendency he often acknowledges in…
Ukulele Hero
It’s one of the most unlikely success stories in music. Armed with a four-string tenor ukulele, a young Hawaiian videos himself playing solo in Central Park. His dynamic instrumental arrangement…

Still Climbing!
Leslie West is renowned for his iconic tone and revered as a forefather of classic rock. A true survivor, he’s adjusting after a life-saving leg amputation, but forging ahead and…

Harder Country
Jim Lauderdale has had three busy years. 2021’s Hope, which he calls “a very uplifting album,” emerged from the pandemic. The follow-up, Game Changer, took a more-country/honky-tonk direction, and last…
and the Magnificent Grand Letar
Run down the list of early electric-guitar innovators and an all-male group typically comes to mind – Les Paul, Alvino Rey, Charlie Christian, Merle Travis, and the like. However, Letritia…

Midwest Expressive
Befitting a guitarist from America’s heartland, Charlie Ballantine’s mixes jazz, folk-rock, surf/instro, blues, pop, and country into a simmering pot of guitar sound and style. His instrumental work is beautiful…

Texas Flood
Stevie Ray Vaughan was unknown when he premiered at the 1982 Montreux Jazz Festival. Born and bred in Dallas, he’d played the Texas bar circuit as sideman in Blackbird, the…
Philip Kubicki, a renowned guitar designer and builder who was active in the musical-instrument industry for more than 50 years, died March 18, 2013, at his home in Laconia, New…

For his gig with The Cure, Reeves Gabrels needed a guitar that could cover a lot of sonic territory. The folks at Reverend helped him create the Spacehawk; the latest…
Two-Guitar Story
When Austinites entertain music-loving friends from out of town the typical question is, “Who should we go see while we’re here?” And in a city loaded with good bands, the…

As Kiss reached its apex in the mid/late ’70s, “Space Ace” Frehley became the quintessential guitar hero. Supremely influential to a generation of rock players who followed, he died unexpectedly…

Crowning Achievement
If you dig Rush, you may have heard of a duo from Canada that virtually channels the iconic trio. Known as Crown Lands, singer/drummer Cody Bowles and guitarist/bassist Kevin Comeau…
No pigeonholes, please!
Photo coutesy Steve Hackett. It’s been said that musicians often “follow their muse” at certain points in their careers, but Steve Hackett, who is entering his fourth decade as a…

On Being With Hughes & Bonham
Andrew Watt’s star was rising on the New York club scene when bassist Glenn Hughes took his career up a notch. Hughes and drummer Jason Bonham needed to augment their…

Still Wingin’ It
Fingerstyle guitarist Laurence Juber is best known for his association with Paul McCartney’s Wings, but has recorded two dozen solo and collaboration albums, most recently, Fingerboard Road. He also compiled…

Taking Chances With Kindness
Fans of forward-thinking Telecaster spank and cluck will get a kick out of Jim Campilongo’s new album, Live At Rockwood. What he does with two hands and a guitar plugged…

String Spectacle
The National Guitar Museum, which has toured the U.S. for more than a decade, recently opened an exhibition titled “Medieval to Metal: The Art & Evolution Of The Guitar.” We…

Acoustic Artisan
A defining idiom of ’80s guitar, the Windham Hill label captured a certain audio sound and style of understated acoustic music, lamentably categorized as “new age.” One of its founders…