Customer Reviews

All Music Guide to Rock (Amg All Music Guide Series)

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The amg books are quite exceptional but this one is really something. There are a few omissions I noted (Rotary Connection and Fanny)yet the proof is in the pudding. Prove it to yourself by finding an artist with several works you have a view on and see what their writer says...often the observations are right on whether you fully agree or not. The reviews and bios are quite interesting, and it is a volume to get lost in...a real treasure. A few artists will get more attention than you might like, but it leaves all other volumes like it in the dust.

I've found the "All Music Guide" to be such a useful research tool, that I start lapsing into an "info-mercial-esque" tone when I begin extolling its virtues: "Hi. My name is Alan, and I'm a freelance music writer. When I'm assigned to write about a band that I know next-to-nothing about, I always turn to the 'All Music Guide'. This mammoth music encyclopedia is not only useful, but a ton o' fun! Let's say that I need a quick factoid about some rock group that I despise--like, I dunno, The Scorpions. I just pull out my 'AMG', turn to page 329, and voila; I quickly learn that Scorp's, co-founder Michael Schenker quit the band in 1973 to join fellow metal-meisters UFO. Wow...UFO! But they don't call it the 'All Music Guide' for nothin'; flip over to page 1351, and you'll find incisive reviews of almost every available record by legendary jazz saxophonist/heroin addict Art Pepper. If you only buy one music research book this year, make it 'All Music Guide'." In all seriousness, this thing has saved me hours of net-surfing, in addition to helping me avoid a few hundred research sojourns to Tower Records trying to find out what year Buddy Guy's first record was released.