Traditional, Country and Electric Slide Guitar (Book and Record)

Rating:
Summary: The Perfect Introduction
Review: If you have fooled around with an acoustic guitar, learned a couple chords, and are a huge fan of the Delta blues styles of Son House, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Elmore James, and Mississippi Fred McDowell, then this is the book for you. I learned more from this book than I did from several years of private guitar lessons.

Roth shows you how remarkably simple it is to play bottleneck guitar once you have the basics down. He offers several scales and transcriptions of popular blues songs ("Come On in My Kitchen", "(I Believe I'll) Dust My Broom") that help you learn with minimal frustration. The accompanying CD is extremely helpful--you can learn only so much about music from words alone. He shows you how to play in all the alternate tunings, and when to apply the tunings to particular styles. He teaches you techiques for both acoustic and electric guitar. You also get the feeling that he's wants to teach you how to play not because he was commissioned to write a book, but simply because he loves the music.

Roth also includes a section on the country/bluegrass style of bottleneck. While my passion lies in the blues, I've learned a great deal from this section as well--particularly how to play lap style, and how to play those great southern gospel songs ("Will the Circle Be Unbroken?").

As with any musical instruction, you should approach this book with some creativity. For example, I prefer to use the slide on my ring finger, while Roth suggests you use your pinky. I think the ending to "Come On in My Kitchen" sounds better when played at the 12th fret, rather than the 5th. But once you get the basics down, you'll develop techniques that work best for you. From there, you'll be able to slap on a record of your favorite slide guitarist and by using what Roth has taught you, you can play right along with him!

I highly recommend this book to any casual guitar player with an interest in learning bottleneck. You may not become the next Robert Johnson or Dickie Betts, but you'll certainly impress yourself and your peers with your new guitar skill (which, between you and me, is surprisingly easy!!).

Rating:
Summary: This book is [not good]
Review: The author obviously loves the blues and knows all there is to know, unfortunetly the CD that comes with the book jumps all over the place and doesn't help at all. None of the transcriptions are recorded. The exercises aren't executed clearly. This is a good book if you read music. If you don't your [out of luck]. Blues is an oral tradition, you'd think a little more time would have been spent recording and playing the examples.

Rating:
Summary: Learn bottleneck with Arlen's afro
Review: This book is a great introduction to slide guitar and has quite a lot to offer intermediate to advanced players too. Starting with licks, progressing to (very) simple songs and eventually getting into complete (but simplified) solos as recorded by greats like Tampa Red and Robert Johnson, it even has a small section on slide guitar in standard tuning (for wimps, of course). Just beware the pictures of Johnny Winter and Arlen Roth at the end, or you may find yourself dying of laughter.