Guitar: Music, History, Players [Paperback]

Richard Chapman (Author), Eric Clapton (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 18, 2003

From flamenco to folk, classical to country, and blues to rock-and-roll, Guitar: Music, History, Players is a truly definitive look at an instrument that has captured the imagination of generations. In addition to tracing the guitar's origin from over two thousand years ago to the present day, the author focuses on 300 artists, featuring highlights of their performing careers and analyses of their style and technique along with tablature of their most famous songs.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This 240-page book tackles all the angles with admirable thoroughness and conciseness and Specific instruments are well covered, and there are hundreds of fantastic photographs, as well as numerous written examples of particular styles. - Guitar Player --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Richard Chapman is widely recognized as one of the leading figures in the guitar world and an authority on the history of the guitar and its music. He is the author of the highly acclaimed The Complete Guitarist and frequently appears on radio and television around the world.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: DK ADULT; 1st edition (August 18, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078949700X
• ISBN-13: 978-0789497000
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,450,244 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great documentary of the guitar, January 26, 2001

By 

Eileen Galen (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Guitar: Great Players and Their Music (Hardcover)

"Guitar" comes on like a nice, well-designed coffee-table book, albeit on a rich topic: guitars and guitarists. Immediately, it becomes much more than that. Eric Clapton contributed the forward, and author Richard Chapman, an accomplished musician, offers a brief introduction. He has a heartbreaker of a story, told in around fifty words. As an English teenager living in a village in Kent in the '60's he loved the guitar, saved his money, and bought one. His parents disapproved. "When I was 14, all my music and instruments were destroyed and burned by my father (...)" You know you are reading a work of passion and love - and great optimism, for he continues, "but this only gave me a greater determination to succeed."

Chapman surveys the guitar's music, history, and many of its most significant players. There is a gorgeous painting of Segovia, and engravings and pages from medieval manuscripts that show guitars or guitar-like instruments. You read his paragraphs in awe of his ability to tell a lot, briefly. He analyzes the music - pleasingly. You get a little music theory, and I welcomed it. In addition Chapman seems to have a deep store of music-history tidbits. On the roots of slide guitar, we learn that W.C. Handy in around 1903 "passed through a southern railroad station and saw a singer playing slide guitar with a knife, producing what he termed 'the weirdest music I ever saw.' "

The book is divided into Classical, Flamenco, Blues, Country, Folk, Jazz, Rock and Pop of the UK and Europe, Rock and Pop of North America, Latin and World. Within those categories are many subcategories. Lots of great photos. The text is orderly and elegant. Influences and origins are given careful attention. There are color and black and white illustrations - historical documents, appropriate snippets of written music, paintings, and archival material. Famous electric and acoustic guitars - Gibsons, Resonators, Rickenbackers, Stratocasters, Martins, others - are in here. There's an enormous amount of material. The layout and art direction is continuously a pleasure, the captions are consistently informative, and the glossary and index are thorough.

Chapman lets you know at the outset that the vastness of the subject necessitated an enormous amount of culling, and then paring down. He loves the guitar, and can teach it, too - and has put that enthusiasm to great use. It's a first-rate documentary that is scholarly, lively, and greatly satisfying.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars luxurious and learned, August 1, 2002

By 

Ian K. Hughes (San Mateo, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Guitar: Great Players and Their Music (Hardcover)

With its coffee table size "GUITAR: GREAT PLAYERS AND THEIR MUSIC" could easily be passed over as one of the many glitzy but trivial volumes fit for display cases in larger bookstore chains. However, this work by Richard Chapman is not only attractively produced but also extremely thorough in conveying exactly what its title describes.

Chapters are divided into various styles: classical, flamenco, blues, country, folk, jazz, rock & pop ( UK and USA ), Latin & "World". The sketches of the famous and influential players in each of the styles are nicely done, the author having an acutely accurate sense of just what qualities stand out as particularly noteworthy with each guitarist.

To give an idea of the depth of range, profiles are included on:

Andres Segovia, Julian Bream, Nino Ricardo, Paco de Lucia, Baden Powell, Robert Johnson, Freddie King, Lonnie Johnson, Chet Atkins, Tony Rice, Bert Jansch, Richard Thompson, Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, Chuck Berry, James Burton, John McLaughlin, Bill Frisell, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Robert Fripp, Eddie Van Halen, Peter Tosh, King Sonny Ade and Frank Zappa.

Regarding the production aesthetics: Aside from the somewhat gauche cover ( typical of Dorling Kindersley publishers ), the book is tastefully laid out with numerous illustrations and photographs ( at least 50% in color ), some of which are stunningly beautiful.

The short forward by Eric Clapton will hopefully attract readers not normally interested in the "encyclopedic" approach. In the authors ( equally brief ) introduction he puts forth his reasons for writing the book, not the least of which is to inspire people and "point to some of the more obscure and overlooked areas for the benefit of the mainstream reader".

Kudos to Richard Chapman, whose vast knowledge of the guitar, its history and players is shown in quite telling fashion throughout this luxurious and learned volume.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Buy it to learn guitar, September 10, 2005

By 

James Livingston "drlivipr" (Bellevue, NE USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Guitar (Eyewitness Companions) (Turtleback)

An impressive book. It explains in easily understandable terms the range of what a guitar can do. Both theory musicians and players-by-ear can gain from this book.

The artist selection mentioned in other reviews has some rather startling omissions. Leo Fender, while not a player in the traditional sense, merited a one-sentence blurb. Les Paul, the man without whom rock would have been very different, is mentioned as endorsing a Gibson product. Adolph Rickenbacker doesn't even get that much. Everyone will have a favorite guitarist that didn't make the cut, but the omission of these three men is incomprehensible.

One bit toward the end of the book made my head spin. On Page 211, while discussing restringing, Mr. Chapman recommends using wirecutters. Your guitar salesman will love you, and you'll put your repairman's children through graduate school if this advice is followed.

All in all, buy it for the playing tips and take the rest with a grain of salt.