Book Description
The only comprehensive history of the guitar, from the Civil War to the present. "I think this book is a must for guitar players and those interested in guitar music."--B. B. King
Customer Reviews:
No other reference like it........2001-12-04
This is my second copy having bought the first edition in the 80's. Finally I have a copy with the color plates! Anyway, if you're a fan of the guitar you have to have this book. If there's anything "wrong" with it, it is that it is now ten years old and I hope Tom Wheeler has plans for a new, 2002, update. I'd buy that one too! I also hope he gets around to mentioning Kustom guitars from the late sixties ( he hasn't so far) and I thought they looked cool back then.
One of the Top 10 Guitar Books.......2001-10-23
This book has got to be one of the top 10 guitar books on the market today. It covers all the major and lesser known U.S. guitar makers from A to Z, including history, models, specs, biographical info, and more. The sections on such well-known brands as Epiphone, Fender, Gibson, Gretsch and Rickenbacker are particularly interesting. With hundreds of great photos throughout, this book is one of the most comprehensive and well-written books available--a must for all guitar lovers.
Essential guide for the guitar collector or hobbyist.......2001-03-24
This book was given to me as a gift. I have referred to it often to answer questions for others, and just to learn about various guitars that I've had interest in. It's like taking a trip to a great guitar store to look at a huge stock of new and vintage guitars. If only I could reach into the pages and actually play each guitar...I would be in heaven.
Indispensible tool for all guitar collectors or hobbyists.
entertaining reference book.......2000-04-30
As a music store owner, musician, and collector, I find this book indespenible. We've worn out several copies over the years. It's as complete a reference as one could possibly expect, and fairly fun to just sit and browse through.
Amazon.com
Authors George Gruhn and Walter Carter are no strangers to fretted instruments: Gruhn runs one of the best vintage instrument stores in the country, and Carter was Gibson's company historian for several years in the 1990s. In the second edition to Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars, the pair have created a useful resource for any lover of fine guitars, banjos, or basses. Though not a price guide, the book will enable collectors to identify the date, stock ingredients, wood, and evolution of their Fender, Martin, Gibson, Gretsch, or Mosrite axes, to name just a few. Many readers will probably want to complement this book with a separate price guide (The Official Vintage Guitar Magazine Price Guide is recommended), and it should be noted that many mass-market manufacturers (Kay, for instance) were left out. But with this book you'll at least know that the stock Epiphone Madrid you bought on the Internet is, in fact, truly stock. A great resource for lovers of collectable six-strings. --Jason Verlinde
Book Description
The original version of this guide has sold over 30,000 copies. This new edition has been expanded by 25% and promises to become an invaluable resource. For collectors, dealers and players, this completely updated "field guide" provides specifications, serial numbers, and more for determining the originality of vintage American acoustic and electric fretted instruments. Detailing thousands of models by every major manufacturer, the book now includes expanded coverage of Martin, Guild, Mosrite, Dobro, Gibson banjos, Fender amps, Gibson amps, plus updates on the latest models from Fender, Gibson, Rickenbacker, and others since 1990.
Customer Reviews:
Much Improved Gruhn's Guide.......2006-02-18
This is a vast improvement over the older version of Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars. I would like the next version to include vintage Sunn amps, heads and cabinets, as well.
Fine! Splendid !!.......2005-09-26
You can get all information quick and without doubt !! I had the first edition, but this second edition is a lot more complete and updated !!!
Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars.......2003-01-05
This book was very limited as far as various makes of guitars. It didn't have any price guides on any of the things listed.
I would think that would be the main information anyone owning a vintage guitar or other musical equipment would be most interested in. This book was useless to us. I wish we could return it. Thank goodness we ordered "The Offical Vintage guitar Magazine Price Guide 2003" It included everything any collector would want to know!!!
Grain of Salt.......2001-07-06
I found this reference to be riddled with ommissions and inaccuracies. The Rickenbacker bass section contains errors in almost every model. A simple check of the Rickenbacker website would have corrected the majority of inaccuracies. Production dates were the most obvious. Now if the book was to be filed under "fiction"...
This is the definitive guide.......2000-08-30
There is no other book, to my knowledge, that does what George Gruhn does here.
First, let me say that I respect Mr. Gruhn's knowledge. There are probably few people in the United States with his encyclopedic knowledge of guitars. I have corresponded with him myself, and he was very helpful
But, I am disappointed in one aspect of the book. I own an 1897 model George Washburn guitar which was made in the nineteenth century by Lyon & Healy. It is a small bodied "Parlor Guitar," with Brazilian rosewood sides and back, spruce top, and ebony fingerboard and bridge. It has beautiful tone, and I love the instrument. It is almost as beautiful as when it was built, and because of the aging of the wood, I'm sure that it plays better.
In this book, Gruhn only briefly discusses Washburn's guitars, and the short reference is buried in the Gibson pages (which is very detailed), because in the late '20s, when the Tonk Brothers acquired the Washburn brand from Lyon & Healy, Gibson built a few of them between 1938-40.
George Washburn (someone has said that his last name was actually Lyon, hence Lyon & Healy) was an American guitar maker, and he built superlative guitars. I've heard that his closest competition at one time was Martin. To give him short-shrift in such a book as this, I find incomprehensible. It isn't as if Gruhn did not know about the guitars--he told me much of what I know about them.
But, perhaps I nitpick. This is a fine book. I recommend it to any guitar aficionado who is buying, selling or trading guitars--especially American-made guitars--or even one who simply wants to learn more about these wonderful instruments.
Joseph Pierre
Book Description
Shortly before his fiftieth birthday, baggage handlers destroy Tim Brookes's guitar, his twenty-two-year-old traveling companion. His wife promises to replace it with the guitar of his dreams, but Tim discovers that a dream guitar is built, not bought. He sets out to find someone to make him the perfect guitar-a quest that ends up a dirt road in the Green Mountains of Vermont. As Brookes awaits his dream instrument, he explores the guitar's mystique: freedom, the open road, protest and rebellion, the blues, youth, lost love, and sexuality. Arriving with conquistadors and the colonists, the guitar found itself in an extraordinary variety of hands: those of miners and society ladies, lumberjacks and presidents' wives, Hawaiians, African-Americans, Cajuns, jazz players, spiritualists, singing cowboys of the silver screen, and Beatles fans. In time it has become America's instrument, the rhythm of its soundtrack. With adoration, Brookes tries to unravel the symbolic associations a guitar holds for so many of us, musicians and non-musicians alike. His quest takes him across the country, talking to historians, curators, and guitar makers¾including the amiable curmudgeon master-guitar-maker, Rick Davis, who takes a rare piece of cherry wood and creates Brookes' new companion.
Customer Reviews:
Great read for guitarists, music lovers and luthier wannabes.......2007-06-27
One of my favorite music-oriented books of all time. The style of alternating chapters between the building of his custom guitar and the role the guitar (and other stringed instruments) played in music history is very well done. I've read it three times -- once as written, once just on the chapters about guitar throughout history, and once on the chapters about the building of his guitar. Not only do I recommend it, I've purchased it as a gift for another guitar friend of mine. Great for acoustic guitarists and enthusiasts, but can be appreciated by any musician
Mixed emotions.......2007-05-17
This review is NOT about the content of the book. I believe it is an excellent work. However, I paid for a "new" book, and the book that arrived had multiple tears in the dust jacket, making it unusable as a gift. The packaging was secure and undamaged, so the book was placed into the container in damaged condition. I did not have enough lead time to send it back for a replacement, as the birthday of the recipient was just a couple of days away from the time it was received. This was very disappointing and will certainly make me think twice about ordering books intended as gifts from Amazon.
Fun, hardly "masterful".......2007-02-28
I must beg to differ with the reviewer who found this a "masterful bit of prose." Although Brookes's book is an enjoyable light read, it's hardly masterful. I noted factual errors and redundancies that suggest a rush to publication; and given its well-defined subject, it's surprising that the book is not more cohesive. We get a few long digressions, such as the story of Buddy Holly's disastrous final tour, that have nothing whatsoever to do with the cultural history of the guitar. The Holly story is well worth telling but I don't see why it's worth telling in this book, and indeed many of the historical chapters feel randomly organized, jumping from one topic to another with no sense of a common thread.
And I find Brookes's fussiness hard to stomach, frankly. He shrinks in repulsion from guitars with sunbursts. He is horrified at the cheapness of guitars at Wal-Mart. I mean, give me a break. The book interweaves cultural history with the story of the building of Brookes's custom guitar, and some reviewers have suggested that it would have been nice to hear more about the latter, but personally I find the whole idea of middle-aged men spending thousands of dollars on elite guitars a little distasteful. I can see how this part of Brookes's story would be appealing to a certain kind of lutherie geek, but to me it's just contrary to the spirit of the cultural history Brookes is trying to represent elsewhere.
Or maybe this is the story of the guitar in America: humble instrument of the poor and dispossessed becomes fetish object of white upper classes.
I'm not sorry Brookes wrote the book -- as I say, it was an enjoyable light read, and if you're a music nerd you probably already know that this is an uneven genre. Brookes's coverage of the Hawaiian steel guitar craze was especially interesting. But there are better books on American music, and I suspect that even this author had a better book in him than the one he's given us.
Guitar - An American Life.......2006-12-26
This is a wonderful journey through the history and joys of the guitar and the people who enjoy listening, playing and appreciating. The author, Tim Brookes, weaves a clever series of vignettes about the crafting of a custom made guitar in Vermont, in between recanting the evolution of this hardy, stringed instrument. It is no small wonder that certain "twists of fate" in the 20th Century, captured eloquently here, have proven to be the patron of the guitar and its hallowed place in America and the Globe. This was a book I could not put down until it was finished. A masterful bit of prose.
A wonderful history of the guitar in America!.......2006-11-20
Tim Brooks interweaves the history of the guitar in America with the equally interesting story of the creation of his own custom guitar made by Rick Davis, owner of "Running Dog Guitars." While the story of the birthing of his own guitar is interesting, Brookes really comes into his own while relating the fascinating history of the musical instrument now known as the guitar.
This is a great read. If you love guitars, or history, or good stories or all of the above you will find this book hard to put down.
Book Description
With its steel guitars, Opry stars, and honky-tonk bars, country music is an American original. The most popular music in America today, it’s also big business. Amazing, then, that country music has been so little studied by critics, given its predominance in American culture. Reading Country Music acknowledges the significance of country music as part of an authentic American heritage and turns a loving, critical eye toward understanding the sweep of this peculiarly American phenomenon.
Bringing together a wide range of scholars and critics from literature, communications, history, sociology, art, and music, this anthology looks at everything from the inner workings of the country music industry to the iconography of certain stars to the development of distinctive styles within the country music genre. Essays include a look at the shift from "hard-core" to "soft-shell" country music in recent years; Johnny Cash as lesbian icon; gender, class, and region in Dolly Parton’s star image; and bluegrass’s gothic tradition. Originally published as a special issue of South Atlantic Quarterly, this expanded book edition includes new articles on the spirituality of Willie Nelson, the legacy and tradition of stringed music, and the revival of Stephen Foster’s blackface musical, among others.
Contributors. Mary A. Bufwack, Don Cusic, Curtis W. Ellison, Mark Fenster, Vivien Green Fryd, Teresa Goddu, T. Walter Herbert, Christine Kreyling, Michael Kurek, Amy Schrager Lang, Charmaine Lanham, Bill Malone, Christopher Metress, Jocelyn Neal, Teresa Ortega, Richard A. Peterson, Ronnie Pugh, John W. Rumble, David Sanjek, Cecelia Tichi, Pamela Wilson, Charles K. Wolfe
Average customer rating:
- AN REAL AMERICAN IDOL
- music, sweet music
- YOU LEARN ABOUT ROY AND THE MUSIC BUSINESS
- Unknown guitar genius.
- We still can listen to his unforgettable music ...
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Roy Buchanan: American Axe
Phil Carson , and
Roy Buchanan
Manufacturer: Backbeat Books
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ASIN: 0879306394 |
Book Description
Roy Buchanan was a "guitarist's guitarist" who shunned fame for a musical odyssey on America's roadhouse circuit with his battered Telecaster - melding blues, country, jazz and rock like no player before or since. This is a compelling road trip through the gritty world of honky tonks and beer joints where this enigmatic journeyman preferred to play. Readers meet the biggest names in pop music and legions of unknowns along the way, from the dawn of rock 'n' roll to Buchanan's puzzling death in 1988. "We just sat there aghast ... It was some of the best playing I've ever heard ... He defied all the laws of verse-chorus-verse and just blazed." - Jeff Beck "Roy was one of the creators in the pioneering of unusual sounds. It seemed as though I was hearing them come first from Roy Buchanan." - Les Paul
Customer Reviews:
AN REAL AMERICAN IDOL.......2007-05-27
THIS BOOK IS FANTASTIC..ROY WAS FANTASTIC....IF YOU ARE A FAN, YOU NEED THIS BOOK..I WILL READ IT OVER AND OVER....
music, sweet music.......2007-04-02
During a recent health low, I was web searching for Phil Carson, someone I'd met at a GD show at Red Rocks in '84. At the time I was convinced he was an archangel of some sort. I guess it wasn't quite mutual. 'S'cool.... But I'm pretty sure this must be the same guy. From the samples on Amazon, this Phil Carson writes superbly. Whether he's my one-time flame or not, I commend him on his delightful writing. Really nice work. I sincerely hope he and his loved ones are well and happy. I am really looking forward to reading this book, and the one about Hispanics in Colorado, since I now teach that unit to my third grade students. (I would even be interested in translating it into Spanish, if it hasn't been done already...)
I had never heard of Roy Buchanan, so I am relishing discovering his music as well as reading the rest of Phil's book.
YOU LEARN ABOUT ROY AND THE MUSIC BUSINESS.......2007-02-11
I like Roy's first records--loud and clear, with the focus on his playing. Later on they tried to make him like Clapton, but it didn't work. I would rate Roy in the top 5 of the people I have heard. I also like Bugs Henderson, Tinsley Ellis, Wes Jeans, and Dave Hole. This book is a very good read. I saw Roy at Park West in Chicago. He did a very short set. It was hard to enjoy him with the female booze hustlers bothering me, but, he seem to be in top form. I still have my ticket, inside Roy's live Japan import.
Unknown guitar genius........2006-11-06
All I ever wanted to know,about the man and his music.Great biografy,have read many books on other artist.If you go through Buchanan`s songs,there are many differt styles he mastered.Country,rockabilly,rock & &roll,instrumentals,pop,r & b,jazz.Saw him live once in Oslo,that was great.My friends say,play the #Telecaster# and die young,but I have to play it,have -blonde 52 reissue.Now I study bossa nova masters,like Lois Bonfa,Joao Gliberto,Jobim etc.cause I got a job with a female singer,playing spanish guitar.There are a few cuts with Roy playing acoustic and they are great.Read the book,by his concert DVD,s,and if you run short,get bored playing the beast,listen to the man.There have never been a guitar player like him,he had his own style,his style will never be duplicated.All american music styles,and Malaguena.The roadhouse king will live on forever.Arnie Buy-ROY BUCHANAN his first and SECOND ALBUM on Polydor,that is a good start.Good reading,good listning and play them over and over,and you will hear his soul.
We still can listen to his unforgettable music ..........2005-09-08
1988 Roy Buchanan decided, to hang up himself with his own T-shirt in a police cell in Fairfax, Virginia, aged 49. In the year 1971 a TV documentation had been sent titled "The Best Unknown Guitarist In The World". Nothing had (and has) changed since then. Buchanan worked as a studio musician for Elvis Presley, Chet Atkins, Ricky Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Stefan Grossman, Tom Paxton. He even got offers by the Rolling Stones [to replace Brian Jones] or by John Lennon [to play his part in the Plastic Ono Band]. Buchanan played the electrical melody guitar like a devil, chased so many notes in second fractions through the amplifier, that one could not count or write down these notes any more. On the other hand he mastered the art, to slow down melody-lines so much at certain points, that one forgets the melody never more: alike Mark Knopfler or Santana, Eric Clapton or Mark perfectly are practicing this way. I will never forget his version of "After Hours". I recorded this pretty piece of music with my tape recorder [turned old now] from the radio in 1959. Roy Buchanan (1939-1988) learned to play the Hillbilly Steel Guitar at the age of nine years, experienced public worships of blacks and whites in the South of the USA. His father was a preacher in the "Pentecostal Church Of God" and he liked to say, that his mother sang better than Billie Holiday. So Blind Boy Fuller or Elvis Presley, Delta Blues or Rockabilly lay in his cradle. He played the guitar lick of "Susie Q" nearly every evening, tantalized by the wish, to arouse the attention of the young ladies. 1963 Roy Buchanan married his girl-friend Judy and lived in the area around Washington. He had to get through his little family occasionally by working as a hairdresser. After a Rolling Stone interview in 1971 finally he became more publicly known. He played in a sold out Carnegie Hall, his first LP appeared and that mentioned television program was broadcast with the title "The Best Unknown Guitarist In The World". He played together with other "claptonesque" guitarists, came into the charts in Great Britain with a CC-Rider version, appeared in Japan and Amsterdam - and then (just back in the USA) hung himself in that prison: The backside of his great musical brilliance was an emotional instability. Though his curriculum vitae ended so sadly, he indirectly remained unchanged for us with his most creative and joyful minutes of his life - because we still can listen to his unforgettable music ...
Average customer rating:
- easy to read, but a bit of a downer
- Pretty Good, But Not Wilson's Best
- Excellent
- A compelling mix of humor and tragedy
- Musical language
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Seven Guitars
August Wilson
Manufacturer: Plume
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Customer Reviews:
easy to read, but a bit of a downer.......2007-01-09
this is a short play - i read it in about an hour. it's okay, nothing that great other than it's based in pittsburgh and if you live here you can pick up some of the flavor. it's not exactly uplifting, but some of the characters are good.
Pretty Good, But Not Wilson's Best.......2006-02-07
In my opinion I feel that Wilson's FENCES is his best play. I've read THE PIANO LESSON and SEVEN GUITARS. August Wilson is an EXCELLENT playwright who truly captures the African American struggle with such humor, satire, irony, hope, and sadness. This was a good read, but not one of his best to me.
Excellent.......2005-06-17
August Wilson is the greatest American playwright. Not the greatest living American playwright, but the greatest, period. His best plays stand comparison with the best work of Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams. No American playwright has produced such a consistent body of work, and no American playwright has attempted a cycle with the scope and ambition of his series of plays. Wilson's subject is the Great Migration, the story of the African-Americans who emigrated from the southern states to the cities of the industrial North and their slow construction of satisfactory lives in the difficult and changing world of 20th century America. Wilson has written 10 plays on this subject, one for each decade of the 20th century, amounting to a fictional history of African-Americans in the urban North. This is, however, history from below. Wilson's heroes are garbagemen, short-order cooks, day laborers, self-taught musicians, and street vendors. One of his great gifts is his ability to use common speech in a way that is consistently interesting, frequently eloquent, and often powerful. He gives poetic voice to people usually regarded as inarticulate and invests ordinary struggles with real but not exaggerated significance. The African-Americans of Wilson's plays are a doubly uprooted people. Uprooted initially by the grievous trauma of slavery that sundered their connection with their native traditions, the emigrants fleeing the Jim Crow south and its brutal racism are uprooted also from their homes, families, and the traditions developed in the aftermath of slavery.
Wilson's overall story is the reconstruction of African-American identity and family life in the cities of the North over the course of the 20th century. Wilson's plays often feature protagonists whose sense of identity and families have been damaged greatly by the oppressions of racism and the atomizing effects of the industrial economy of the North. Over the course of the cycle, Wilson shows characters re-establishing a sense of connection with their ancestors, even back to Africa, and gradually developing the family ties to sustain them. Wilson repeatedly uses supernatural elements in his work, particularly as a device to advance his theme of the importance of developing a sense of historic connection with ancestors, including those originally abducted from Africa. This could easily be hokey, but his matter of fact use of these elements is very effective. Another recurring theme is the importance of music, particularly the Blues tradition developed by African-American musicians, which he sees as a vital and creative force in African-American life, often carrying truths across generations. Some of the most affecting parts of Wilson's work are his demonstrations of the direct and indirect destructive effects of American racism on family life. Even more powerful are those scenes in which his characters overcome these obstacles to reaffirm family connections.
Not all of Wilson's plays are outstanding, but all are at least very good. Readers will differ on their favorites. In my opinion, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Fences, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom are outstanding. The rest vary from excellent (The Piano Lession) to the very good. Cumulatively, they are a really impressive achievement. Mention must be made of the fact that Wilson has been aided by outstanding collaborators. Wilson's plays usually go through a series of versions before the final version emerges. Wilson has had the benefit of working with unusually talented directors, notably the gifted Lloyd Richards, who was responsible in large measure for recognizing Wilson's talent. Wilson has benefited also from the existence of a whole generation of remarkably talented African-American actors. These people made it possible for Wilson to realize his vision. We have all been the beneficiaries of the work of Wilson and his collaborators.
A compelling mix of humor and tragedy.......2001-09-29
August Wilson's play "Seven Guitars" had its Broadway premiere in 1996. The play follows seven African-American characters, both male and female, in Pittsburgh in 1948. The first scene opens after the funeral of one character, and the play then moves back in time to tell his story.
There is a lot of excellent material in this play. Wilson expertly weaves in songs, humor, one character's recipe for turnip greens, and a funny discourse on the difference between Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi roosters. One character, Floyd, is a talented musician, and his arc offers a perspective on African-American artistic aspiration.
Probably the most memorable character in the play is Hedley, a hardworking entrepreneur who is tormented by rage and lust. His dialogue is particularly rich, as he invokes Toussaint L'Ouverture, Marcus Garvey, and traditional African-American biblical interpretation. Overall, "Seven Guitars" is a frequently compelling play with well-written dialogue.
Musical language.......2000-06-09
Although not quite on a par with "Fences" or "The Piano Lesson," Wilson's story of a blues musician and his companions in the late '40s is still a compelling read. As usual, he creates music in the language of his characters, all of whom are distinctly drawn.
"Seven Guitars" recounts the fate of a Pittsburgh blues musician, Floyd "Schoolboy" Barton, who scores a hit record in Chicago, but falls short of capitalizing on his success, either with his music, or with his on-again, off-again love, Vera. Along the way, we meet his musician friends, Canewell and Red, his crusty neighbor Louise, the seductive young visitor Ruby, and the mysterious Hedley, who orates on Marcus Garvey, Ethiopia and Buddy Bolden while he goes about his job butchering chickens for sale on the streets of Pittsburgh.
The play's vibrancy springs not only from the characters' plain-spoken poetry, but from Wilson's knowledge of blues, folk legends, superstitions and from his vivid recreation in print of a particular place: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which he has managed to turn into a place of literary myth.
As in "Fences" and in his play set in the '60s, "Two Trains Running" Wilson relies strongly on a character verging on and descending into madness. In "Seven Guitars," it's Hedley, and the way you feel about the play will be determined in part by your reaction to this character and how Wilson uses him. For me, Hedley's motivation was a bit too murky, and his most important act at the end of the play did not mesh well with the motivation Wilson developed for Floyd, the ambitious bluesman. Because of this problem, "Seven Guitars" lacks the powerful thematic punch of "Fences" and "The Piano Lesson."
Still, this play makes a fine addition to Wilson's dramatic cycle that explores African-American life through the twentieth century. The play confirms his place as one of the great voices in the American theater.
Book Description
Since the guitar was first electrified in the 1930s, it has become an American icon and has transformed the soundtrack of our lives with its wide range of sounds -- from seductive twang to howling distortion. Relatively inexpensive, easy to learn, and fun to play, the electric guitar is a truly democratic instrument. Millions have purchased Rickenbackers, Gibsons, Fenders, and other brands of guitars over the decades, fueling daydreams of fame and fortune.
In The Electric Guitar: A History of an American Icon, scholars working in American studies, business history, the history of technology, and musicology come together to explore the electric guitar's importance as an invention and its peculiar place in American culture. Documenting the critical and ever-evolving relationship among inventors, craftsmen, musicians, businessmen, music writers, and fans, the contributors look at the guitar not just as an instrument, but as a mass-produced consumer good that changed the sound of popular music and the self image of musicians.
Avoiding the familiar stories, The Electric Guitar covers the careers and influence of guitar heroes such as Buddy Holly and Jimi Hendrix, but it also looks at lesser known but equally influential guitarists, such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Ike Turner. It also explains the importance of record producers such as Lee Hazlewood, effects pioneers like Roger Mayer, and electronics engineers such as Jim Marshall -- all of whom played vital parts in constructing the sounds we associate with the electric guitar. From inventor's workbench to factory floor to recording studio, André Millard and his colleagues trace the development of the instrument, its use across musical genres, and its profound impact on popular culture and American identity.
Customer Reviews:
A tribute to the careers and development of the instrument .......2005-01-04
Wondering what could possibly interest that young guitar player who has his own rock band? Interest him with Andre Millard's fascinating The Electric Guitar: A History Of An American Icon, a tribute to the careers and development of the instrument through the lives and contributions of guitar heroes like Jimi Hendrix and more. From the guitar's invention and transitions to its manufacturing, representation, and guitar differences, The Electric Guitar covers it all.
Average customer rating:
- Easily one of the best books I read in 2006.
- better left as a family journal?
- If you're a fan of Breaking Benjamin...
- One of the best Rock Books I've ever read
- Wow...That's what I call a great book!
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Amp'd: A Fathers Backstage Pass (Michigan State University Sesquicentennial Histories)
Gary Fincke , and
Keith R. Widder
Manufacturer: Michigan State University Press
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ASIN: 0870137298 |
Book Description
Most rock stars aren't looking to go on tour with their parents. But that's just what Aaron Fincke - a guitarist with the Hollywood Records' band "Breaking Benjamin" - did....
Set against a backdrop of aggressive rock, frenzied fans, moshing, stage diving, crowd surfing, security brutality, and occasional outright violence, Amp'd: A Father's Backstage Pass follows four years in the life of Gary Fincke's son, Aaron, a rock- and-roll guitarist. From bands such as
Breaking Benjamin (signing with Hollywood Records and releasing CDs in 2002 and 2004),
Strangers With Candy (winning MTV's Ultimate Cover Band Prize in 2000), to
Lifer (signing with Universal/Republic Records and releasing a national CD in 2001), Fincke gives a unique perspective to the bizarre and fantastical world of commercial rock and roll. Aaron's rock life is chronicled first-hand by his father, who attends more than fifty shows, spends time with the bands before and after shows, follows them to national tour sites, and talks intimately with his son as well as the members of the bands and some of their fans and managers. Amp'd emphasizes the character and life of the band members through the eyes of a widely published writer, college professor, and father who immerses himself in the high-adrenaline world of contemporary rock and roll. This is not only a page-turning first-hand account of a lifestyle about which many fantasize, but also a literary narrative that examines the larger issues of celebrity, success, and family.
Customer Reviews:
Easily one of the best books I read in 2006........2007-01-04
Gary Fincke, Amp'd: A Father's Backstage Pass (University of Michigan Press, 2004)
Breaking Benjamin are one of the country's most exciting rock and roll bands presently working. And luckily (for us, anyway), their guitarist happens to have an award-winning poet for a father who really, really digs alternative rock. Said father turns in a quasi-biography quasi-memoir on five years of his son's rock and roll life, from Strangers with Candy (winners of MTV's Ultimate Cover Band contest) to Lifer to Breaking Benjamin. And it's great, great stuff. Fincke takes as much (if not more) pleasure in chronicling his family and friends' reaction to his love of the music as he does in chronicling the music itself, and the chronicling of the music spends as much time talking about the drudgery of day-to-day life as a "rock star" as he does about dealing with labels and being on stage.
Fincke's style is very much indulgent father, and there's rarely a critical eye to be found anywhere in the book, its only weakness. But as far as the whole vastly overdone memoir genre goes, this is by far the best of the lot I've encountered. In fact, one of the best books I've read this year, in any genre. **** ½
better left as a family journal?.......2005-09-13
It is definitely an intriguing concept for a book: a rural PA father's account of his son's rock life as the son gets signed by a major label not once, but twice - and has two national CDs released within 8 months of each other. For a guy who is a professor of English and Creative Writing at Susquehanna Univ., the book is (strangely) not that well-written or compelling. There is hardly any time spent on how both of those bands got signed, the management and politics behind two major-label bands struggling to "make it," and he misspells Lynyrd Skynyrd and Isle of Q several times(!) As the dad, Gary seems to forget that unless you're a family member it's hard to follow who is who and most of his accounts are descriptions of the crowds and bouncers from the shows and surface-level conversations with his son. Although the book is billed truthfully as a father's observation of his son's life, it was frustrating that the book didn't provide more insight into the bands as they tried/try to navigate careers in the music business. Gary's "research" amounts to driving to shows and he pretty much admits that. It *is* interesting to see a dichotomy unfolding: Lifer's demise from outside forces to internal chaos and Breaking Benjamin's slow rise to success from inside out.
Having said all that, it's interesting reading for anybody in the NE PA and Lehigh Valley music scenes and for any young fan who wouldn't be distracted by the mediocre writing and who would salivate at this supposedly "intimate" look at their favorite band (Aaron is the handyman type! The band goes to media training!). I think BB is a great band and singer Ben Burnley is an excellent songwriter. He turns out to be the quirkiest, most-interesting person in the book. It's weird to read a book and know a number of the people and places.
If you're a fan of Breaking Benjamin..........2005-07-31
or are a fan of any band, this book will give you a fathers' insight to how it all begins, and goes along the way.
Gary Fincke doesn't hold anything back in his experience as the guitarists' dad in Breaking Benjamin. If you have never heard of this band, you seriously need to find a radio. They are breaking into the world of Rock and Roll.
You hear a fathers' thoughts,comments, and emotions as the band goes through many changes. An EXCELLENT book for the rocker!!!
I ordered it, and received it 2 days later! AWESOME reading when you have to "limit" yourself to a chapter a night!
One of the best Rock Books I've ever read.......2004-10-21
Your typical book about a rock band is a knock off and a turn off. Some hack writer grabs a stack of promotional blurble and interview pull-quotes together, then rushes a volume out. Often without even nominal assistance of the artist involved, these books are the equivalent of pulp junk food, aimed squarely at the fan for whom even a tiny scrap of information is like sugar. They are also usually dumped into the market place long after the band has become successful, so the quotes are practiced and edited as to present their topics in the best light (or not, depending on the author's agenda). We will also not discuss the fact that most of these books are thrown together by people that simply can't write to save their word processing arses.
Not so with "Amp'd." Dr. Gary Fincke is a Professor of English at a college in central Pennsylvania, a published poet, and story teller. He also loves rock with the passion of most adolescents. So when his guitarist son Aaron began playing guitar and being serious about it, Dad began writing about his kid the musician. As it turns out, Aaron is one of the lucky talents. His band, "Strangers With Candy," won a nationally televised MTV contest, morphed into Lifer and released Lifer. Like most bands in the music business world, they discover that getting a record out is not the key to the kingdom, but then Aaron joins Breaking Benjamin, and lightning struck twice. Breaking Benjamin got signed to Hollywood Records and now have three great rock albums out, "Saturate," "We Are Not Alone" and "Phobia."
Like most bands and musicians, Aaron finds himself being first a local star, then trying to climb the ladder to bigger things. The difference between "Amp'd" and other books about rock bands is there is a minimum of hyperbole involved. Dr Fincke watches from the sidelines as his son plays dive clubs, weird local festivals where I'm sure shouts of "Freebird!" were more to the norm than a bunch of young and aggressive year 2000 rockers would be, and venues that, as Senior Fincke describes them, have fewer sinks and toilets than his house. It's that kind of attention to detail that makes you really (and I know it's an overused phrase) feel like you're right their with him and the bands Aaron becomes involved in.
Perhaps the freshest thing about "Amp'd" is that it isn't an "insiders" view of the music industry, where people that have been working the same deals and scams for years on end try to act like they haven't already been there and done that. Nor is it a disconnected outsider doing emotionless research. It is obvious that Aaron loves making music and Dr. Fincke is equally fascinated by the process. Some of the book's best moments are when Dr Fincke tries to persuade his University colleagues to listen or watch some of Aaron's work, then describes their reactions. These range from mild enthusiasm to utter disdain.
There is also a strong message here in the amount of support that Dr. Fincke and his family invests in Aaron. Where most parents are probably yelling down to the basement to "turn it down," you'll discover that Aaron's family kicked in with money for T-shirts and early CD demos. "Amp'd" is a great read, a fine journal of the creative process and a testament to a family's willingness to let their children explore their creativity. Even if you don't like hard rock, you should be reading "Amp'd."
Wow...That's what I call a great book!.......2004-09-01
Gary Fincke takes a backstage seat on tour with Breaking Benjamin. Amp'd provides wonderful stories about the real life of a great rock band. You don't even have to like rock music to love this book. Gary Fincke shares his emotional roller coaster as he watches the journey of his son, Aaron, and he struggles and eventually succeeds in the world of rock music. The stories are so descriptive I felt like I was along side at every event. Amp'd is truly an enjoyable book and I would recommend it to anyone who has a child trying to make it in a rock band, anyone trying themselves to make it in rock, actually, I would recommend this book to anyone who knows how to read...simply put, it is a GREAT BOOK!
Book Description
If the story of the blues is the story of a people, then the voice behind the story belongs to the guitar. The American Blues Guitar: An Illustrated History looks at the instruments and the players, from the birth of the blues to the present day. A brief history of the blues is included. From Blind Lemon Jefferson's Martin to T-Bone Walker's Gibson archtop, and from B.B. King's ES 335 to cousin Albert's Flying-V, all the classic makes and models are documented here in detail, with superb photography, serial number data, and everything the diehard collector - and interested fan - needs to identify these great American heirlooms. You'll find Leo Fender's original patent, filed in April 1951, of the Telecaster guitar, and an analysis of what makes it one of the great instruments. Among the blues artists discussed is Texan Albert Collins and his Gibson humbucker. Expert commentary explains why the players chose the models they did, how their choice influenced their sound, and how those sounds can be recreated today. The American Blues Guitar: An Illustrated History is indispensable to the lover of the blues.
Customer Reviews:
How the guitar has changed and evolved.......2003-11-14
In The American Blues Guitar: An Illustrated History, musician, journalist, and guitar specialist Rick Batey combines eye-catching color illustrations with an upbeat, involving narration on how the Blues have evolved as an American musical evocation through its unique expression on the guitar. However, the greater part of this informative historical guide is devoted to specific information concerning individual models and types of guitars themselves, as well as some of the more famous singers who played them. The American Blues Guitars is a recommended addition to personal and academic American Music History reference collections and reading lists as being a superbly organized, presented, and involving analytical survey of how the guitar has changed and evolved.
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