Delta Blues Guitar (Book & CD) (Stefan Grossman's Early Masters of American Blues Guitar)

A few disclaimers are in order. First, I bought an older (1969) version of this book, mine did not come with a CD, but this isn't a problem, since I have at least some of the songs on various Blues CDs by the original artists.Second - and this should probably always be mentioned in reviews of music books - this is NOT a book for beginners, you need to have at least, say, 2 years of guitar under your belt.Also, Mr. Grossman does not transcribe entire songs, he transcribes parts of songs in advance. Most Blues follow a pretty simple structure, so if you're an intermediate guitarist, you should be able to figure the rest out for yourself, or, in true Blues fashion, improvise something that's close enough in spirit, if not note for note.Speaking of notes, there's standard notation, which is what I'm using, and then there's a tab-like system of Mr. Grossman's own devise, which shouldn't take too long to get used to for those of you who use tab. It almost seems as though the author was trying to come up with some sort of hybrid between notation and tab.The song selection is pretty good, some of the most important figures of early Delta style are represented, it's a nice, if not too in-depth introduction to playing this fundamental style on guitar.

If you want to learn how to play the Country Blues, this is a great start. A nice variety of artists from Scrapper Blackwell to Josh White. Each artist comes with a little history and couple of songs to represent his style. Blind Blake's Georgia Bound and Jefferson's Easy Rider Blues are a couple of my favorites. The tabs are easy to follow, there's a Cd with instruction and lyrics to the songs. This book is a jem!

Stephan Grossman has many years experience playing guitar and learning Blues Guitar from the masters. His books reflect his knowledge and experience. The pieces are actual transcriptions of various Country Blues artists, and they include clear explanations, background information, and even a CD of the artists playing each song. You couldn't go wrong with this or any of Mr. Grossman's method books.

Old time blues beginnings. Lots of fun.

Easy to understand & an all around good book of early country blues lessons.... BUT I really didn't like the fact it's written in non-standard tab notation. The songs are over simplified & to me, this seems to take away from sounding like the original recording.

Because it is not to forget the beauty of the blues originals

Anything that has grossman involved in it is bound to be a hit with people who like things with grossman involved in them.

Very good

A good selection of delta blues song. I was interested in Charlie Patton in particular.

These books are good and if you put the time and effort in there is everything there you need.

Love this series of books. There is a lot of infomation to get you understanding Delta blues. It is not a book of technique or teaching for beginers, I like to think of it as a quick stroll through some of the early Delta blues players and their individual styles. It is not a note for note transcription of the included CD but a "get the gist of the song" tab and you work on the rest of it. I love this format because you get a lot of information (CD/backround story on the artist/TAB) in a book that fits in your guitar case. If it was a fully TABbed book of the CD it would be a massif brick with mostly repetative tablature that most of us wouldn't bother going through.

This book is very helpful to study delta blues music, the transcriptions are accurate though you always must refer to the records to get the feel and the meaning of this music.