Customer Reviews

The Best of Stevie Ray Vaughan (Easy Guitar)

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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Recently purchased this book and found much to my amazement that the music in the book is not really close to the recordings. Hal Leonard usually does quality publications, but this one doesn't seem to measure up. Admittedly, I haven't looked over the ENTIRE book, but from sightreading some of his old classics, I'm very suspicious about the accuracy of the rest of the music.

Problems I see
1. Some songs (i.e. Texas Flood, Life Without You) are included without any intro (and I've never heard them played minus the intro before). Some of Stevie's covers may be original music from other artists, but even some of the music with his name on it seems to be simplified or shortened in this manner.

2. During vocal sections on some songs, the guitar part "dissapears" and the written music echoes the vocals or a keyboard(usually the lead instrument). This is quite contrary to what SRV actually played on CD tracks, and frusterating for someone interested in learning the guitar rhythm on these songs.
Pride and Joy, Texas Flood, and Crossfire are examples of this.

3. Songs are missing solos, or have a shortened version of a solo. Texas Flood immediately comes to mind. The sheet music echoes the vocals for two pages, then ends. I understand bluesmen improvise solos, but for a book that advertises solos (something else I hoped to get a little exposure to) it sure goes easy on some songs. Fillers between the vocals are also simplified to one or two chords rather than the fast runs that Stevie uses for most of his music.

I don't know what happened. Maybe I've made some mistake and I missed some fine print. I thought I was getting some music that would help me gain some exposure to Stevie's technique, but it instead appears to be extremely "dumbed down." In the case of all the songs I've looked at in this book, I would deem online tablature (if it exists) to be superior.

This a collection of songs, previously published by Hal Leonard, that spans the career of the blues master. It is not a "how to" book, so it might be intimidating to guitar players who are just starting out. Intermediate and advanced players will enjoy the accurate, easy to read tablature, and the price is about the average cost of one guitar lesson. Excellent!

Bought this book expecting to get good transcriptions to songs - this book is 100% terrible. "Cold Shot" is NOTHING like the song - you should see the tab for the verse. Even a beginner at reading tabs knows that what's being played in the song doesn't come close to the tab. Avoid this book.

I think this book is horrible. As written in a prior review, it's missing large segments - riffs, solos etc. Its really strange. On several songs, after the intro the guitar part gets very basic - its clearly not what Stevie's playing, and I agree with the other review, that it looks like it's listing the vocal melody. Most songs also seem to be missing the solo's. I don't know how this one slipped through the cracks at HL. My only guess is on the cover it says "Easy Guitar". Which in this case seems to mean leave out everything but the basics. That's the only positive thing I could say - if you're looking for a book that gives you "a touch of SRV" maybe this would be good, but even then I think I'd go to a tab site first.

Being a dedicated SRV fan, I was thrilled to find a book I didn't have about SRV but when I recieved this book, it really isn't a book but a "how to play SRV songs" instead which is great if you play guitar but I don't. None of the information available on this book indicated that this is a how to play instead of a book about SRV so be on notice.