Guitar: Great Players and Their Music

Rating:
Summary: Great documentary of the guitar
Review: "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 There are color and black and white illustrations - historical documents, appropriate snippets of written music, paintings, and archival material.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.

Rating:
Summary: Great documentary of the guitar
Review: "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.

Rating:
Summary: Knowledgeable Author and Very Well Done
Review: This book looked interesting when I picked it up at the store. I bought it and I'm glad I did. It is very thorough with what the title of the book states. It is especially delightful to recognize as you read the book that it was written by a person who is not only very knowledgeable on the history, but also the guitar music theory itself. The way he descibes solos for example in a particular song is done very well and with insight. Very colorful descriptions of guitar playing and different styles in many songs. That's pretty hard to do. Buy it, you will like it too.

Rating:
Summary: luxurious and learned
Review: 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.