Customer Reviews

Birth of the Groove: R and B, Soul and Funk Guitar: 1945-1965 (Inside the Blues)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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Five stars and I stand by every one of them. For me, this is the perfect book focusing more on rhythm than on lead guitar. But of course it's not about rhythm guitar in the (boring) strumming sense. This is a book on double stops, licks and fills. Instead of teaching you how to play one hundred notes in three seconds, this book teaches you how to play one note at the exact right point in time.
Yes, it's about timing, about economical use of notes. In short, the secret of what makes music funky and groovy.

I am an intermediate player, but I do think even better players might find it interesting. The book is also a guide to a lot of great guitarists who haven't been put in the spotlight like Clapton and Hendrix. The session men behind a lot of great music who know how to play for the song not to ruin it with stupid solos.

33 songs/examples on the CD. I have only gotten til example 7 yet, but I'm really looking forward to doing more. Each new thing might take me a day or two to master, but I already feel I'm making great progress.

In short, for me this book makes practising fun. And well, that's a whole lot more than could be said about all other books around.

Great historical info, tips on recordings etc.


UPDATE (years later): I'm still very happy with this book. I went through almost the whole book in my honeymoon phase. In fact, now it's probably time to go back through this book again and do a refresh. A comment to this review expressed disappointment to the fact that many of the licks are very short. He's right about that. For me it was the exact right book at the right time in my development. I really got a fresh start into electric guitar after having played acoustic (mostly strumming) for many many years. Short licks and phrases that I managed to master in a day or two turned out the perfect practise companion. In that sense it's also a book you'll work yourself through quickly and not have that lasting quality. In that way it could seem expensive and disposable - but I compare price/value to how much I've improved with paying for lessons. And in that way - this book has been my best investment in tutorship ever. The short examples for me was what makes this a good practice book. I'm a better player after it and it has opened up my fretboard to a lot more lead/rhythm-stuff that I never managed to get into before. After all, I've bought many books before where the examples and songs are so long that I never manage to get through them.

As a result of my enthusiasm over this book I ordered a few more books by the same author. They still look really tempting, but so far I haven't really gotten around to finish them like with this one. Maybe because the examples in the other ones are longer...

This book as others of Dave Rubin covers some great "unsung" guitar players contains essays and biograpic data and also some rare photos - in many cases material i have not found anywhere else. Thats why i as a fan and also collector of books about my favourite music dont regret buying.

Unfortunately the choice of the material that is tabbed out is somewhat disappointing. Very short, about three pages or less on each player and IMO not really essential licks but rather mediocre.

A wasted chance to make a great book.

This is well worth the money. All of the examples demonstrate great licks you can add to your playing and you can even upload the cd into iTunes for easy access.