J.J. Vicars

Note from JJ Vicars: I first published this in 2009. In the years since Prince’s passing, a lot of "revisionist history" has surfaced. I’m re-releasing this now—un-doctored and verbatim—to set the record straight on the woman Prince called his 'session…

During the late 60's in Los Angeles my father played with one of his childhood heroes, legendary saxophonist Big Jay McNeely, "king of the honkers". I knew his name and some of the larger than life stories surrounding him…

Because Johnny Winter died just as Step Back was being released there has been much hype surrounding it. I wanted to give an objective review so I first listened to it without reading the liner notes, allowing the music to…

Johnny Winter has been one of my biggest guitar heroes from the time I first picked up the instrument right through to the present. The term "Blues-Rock" is too frequently applied to any Rock guitarist who aspires to play Blues…

   My how times have changed. Sitting in a neighborhood coffee shop that I've frequented for the last nine years drove the point home. When job hunting nine years ago I would wake up around 7:00 A.M. on Monday morning, have…

All the New Agers kept going on about this being the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac. I don't believe in astrology but I needed some good news and both Western and Chinese zodiacs were saying it would…

2011 was hardly a space odyssey. More of a slow comeback after a couple years of what both the Western and Chinese zodiacs described as "everything you touch shall turn to shit." While it wasn't without its trials all in…

 My family is from Cuba. My dad is a doctor and my mom is a pharmacist but she's also a piano teacher. I am the youngest. They left during the revolution. I was born in Virginia. It's part of the…

(When did you first meet?) It's hard to remember, back probably in the... I guess Mike was still actually living in Fort Worth probably when I first met him. I think he came down a little after we did, but…

Starting Out

   When I was a young child there wasn't really any Rock 'n' Roll so the music that I heard was just music from the honky-tonks and white Pop music, whatever was popular, Country. The popular music of my…