Guitar: Great Players and Their Music

An excellent book on guitar history! A must have for guitar enthusiasts.

Great for understanding the evolution of the guitar & music in general. The book is becoming a bit dated because it's lacking the absolute latest musicians, but is still a SOLID book.

Would have been 5 stars but...The book is wrong on the "Stones." Rolling Stones legend Bill Wyman objected again recently, saying it was the late guitarist Brian Jones who created the group. “Brian Jones was the founder and true driving force of the band.” Rolling Stones legend Bill Wyman has forced officials to change the wording on a blue plaque honoring Jagger & Richards after condemning it as “disgusting”. Wyman told BBC Radio 5 Live saying it was Jagger and Richards “disgusting” said Wyman. He added: “It should be to Brian Jones. Wyman said it’s wrong. I don’t like history re-written."Mick and Keith didn’t create the Stones, they were part of it, like all of us. Brian wanted to form a blues band and enlisted each member one by one. He gave us the name, he chose the music, the members and he was the leader.” Council leader Jeremy Kite said: “A new plaque will makes it clear that this is where Mick met Keith before going on to be part of the Stones.”URL: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/rolling-stones-legend-bill-wyman-5954759 Hear Bill Wyman on BBC 5 on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf40Snnn2_w (Research it and find out for yourself who Jagger and Richards really are, they edged out and fired Brian Jones and neither attended Brian's funeral about 1 month later.) I will, as always, keep listening to the Rolling Stones when Brian Jones, alive, playing so many different instruments played so well. p.s. Bill Wyman took notes for years (I read it as his quote somewhere) and he has written 2 essential books: "Stone Alone: The Story of a Rock 'n Roll Band" & "Rolling With The Stones"

"Guitar" comes on like a nice, well-designed coffee-table book, albeit on a rich topic: guitars and guitarists. Immediately, it becomes much more than that. Eric Clapton contributed the forward, and author Richard Chapman, an accomplished musician, offers a brief introduction. He has a heartbreaker of a story, told in around fifty words. As an English teenager living in a village in Kent in the '60's he loved the guitar, saved his money, and bought one. His parents disapproved. "When I was 14, all my music and instruments were destroyed and burned by my father (...)" You know you are reading a work of passion and love - and great optimism, for he continues, "but this only gave me a greater determination to succeed."Chapman surveys the guitar's music, history, and many of its most significant players. There is a gorgeous painting of Segovia, and engravings and pages from medieval manuscripts that show guitars or guitar-like instruments. You read his paragraphs in awe of his ability to tell a lot, briefly. He analyzes the music - pleasingly. You get a little music theory, and I welcomed it. In addition Chapman seems to have a deep store of music-history tidbits. On the roots of slide guitar, we learn that W.C. Handy in around 1903 "passed through a southern railroad station and saw a singer playing slide guitar with a knife, producing what he termed 'the weirdest music I ever saw.' "The book is divided into Classical, Flamenco, Blues, Country, Folk, Jazz, Rock and Pop of the UK and Europe, Rock and Pop of North America, Latin and World. Within those categories are many subcategories. Lots of great photos. The text is orderly and elegant. Influences and origins are given careful attention. There are color and black and white illustrations - historical documents, appropriate snippets of written music, paintings, and archival material. Famous electric and acoustic guitars - Gibsons, Resonators, Rickenbackers, Stratocasters, Martins, others - are in here. There's an enormous amount of material. The layout and art direction is continuously a pleasure, the captions are consistently informative, and the glossary and index are thorough.Chapman lets you know at the outset that the vastness of the subject necessitated an enormous amount of culling, and then paring down. He loves the guitar, and can teach it, too - and has put that enthusiasm to great use. It's a first-rate documentary that is scholarly, lively, and greatly satisfying.

With its coffee table size "GUITAR: GREAT PLAYERS AND THEIR MUSIC" could easily be passed over as one of the many glitzy but trivial volumes fit for display cases in larger bookstore chains. However, this work by Richard Chapman is not only attractively produced but also extremely thorough in conveying exactly what its title describes.Chapters are divided into various styles: classical, flamenco, blues, country, folk, jazz, rock & pop ( UK and USA ), Latin & "World". The sketches of the famous and influential players in each of the styles are nicely done, the author having an acutely accurate sense of just what qualities stand out as particularly noteworthy with each guitarist.To give an idea of the depth of range, profiles are included on:Andres Segovia, Julian Bream, Nino Ricardo, Paco de Lucia, Baden Powell, Robert Johnson, Freddie King, Lonnie Johnson, Chet Atkins, Tony Rice, Bert Jansch, Richard Thompson, Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, Chuck Berry, James Burton, John McLaughlin, Bill Frisell, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Robert Fripp, Eddie Van Halen, Peter Tosh, King Sonny Ade and Frank Zappa.Regarding the production aesthetics: Aside from the somewhat gauche cover ( typical of Dorling Kindersley publishers ), the book is tastefully laid out with numerous illustrations and photographs ( at least 50% in color ), some of which are stunningly beautiful.The short forward by Eric Clapton will hopefully attract readers not normally interested in the "encyclopedic" approach. In the authors ( equally brief ) introduction he puts forth his reasons for writing the book, not the least of which is to inspire people and "point to some of the more obscure and overlooked areas for the benefit of the mainstream reader".Kudos to Richard Chapman, whose vast knowledge of the guitar, its history and players is shown in quite telling fashion throughout this luxurious and learned volume.