Customer Reviews

Guitar Man: A Six-String Odyssey, or, You Love that Guitar More than You Love Me

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3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
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Though the premise sounds pat -- a bit like a book proposal: journalist with no musical training picks up guitar with the goal of playing a gig in six months, and then writing about it -- Guitar Man in fact blossoms into an enormously entertaining, and by the end, exciting story. Will Hodgkinson is a funny, charming, smart, ballsy, sympathetic guide to the world of guitar and guitar obsession. Plus he's got taste, too, and common sense, and his own peculiarly interesting (and peculiarly British, I suspect) ideas of what the guitar should be and how to go about learning to play it. For anyone who loves to play but isn't "professional," it's a fantastic lesson on why mistakes don't matter if your heart's in your fingers. And for American readers in particular, the book gives us the pleasure of encountering, in person or legend, Davey Graham, Bert Jansch, our own Jackson C. Frank, as well as understanding that maybe Eric Clapton isn't god after all. Now I need to learn to play "Anji" -- and only regret that I can't hop on over to Bert Jansch's flat for an impromptu lesson.

GUITAR MAN: A SIX-STRING ODYSSEY, OR, YOU LOVE THAT GUITAR MORE THAN YOU LOVE ME comes from a 34-year-old who decides to play guitar even though he's tone deaf and has no rhythm. His quest to become a musician at a later age involves instruction from friends and guitar 'greats' alike, in the process revealing much about the music world's finest figures from PJ Harvey to the eccentric old bluesman T. Model Ford. His odyssey is more than autobiography: it charts the evolution of guitar, methods of playing, and more and takes readers along on a rollicking journey through the music world in the process. General-interest collections will love it; music libraries will find it a fine leisure reader's choice.

As a 40+ wannabe guitarist I finally picked up an acoustic guitar and tried to learn after 20 years of 'thinking about it'. A few months in I literally stumbled across this book in a shop whilst looking for some music so that I could finally answer the question being asked of me, "When are you going to learn to play a real song on that thing?". This book had me glued from start to finish and I am now all fired up again! I am shamed to admit that I had never even heard of the great Davey Graham and many of the other characters that so shaped the guitar.

As earlier reviewers have said, the premise of the book sounds a little cheesey, and perhaps suggestive of an unlikely film script, 'untalented latecomer goes on quest and finds hidden guitar skills on the way', but this book is much more than that. It provides a superb potted history of the guitar from a UK/US blues-folk-rock perspective whilst the main protagonist is honing his new found skills. I found it inspiring. Sure, Will Hodgkinson isn't your average Mr Joe Public, he seems to have indirect connections to several key players, which may be helped by his journalist background, and maybe some of his 'memories' are a little odd - he could only have been 5 or 6 years old when Marc Bolan died so can he really recall his TV appearances? And the coincidence with watching "The Servant" just after a night out with Davey Graham, artistic license perhaps? But, these very minor points aside, to all you ageing wannabe guitarists out there - read it, dust off the old guitar and get strumming!

Now 'all' I need to do now is find out how to play 'Anji'!

P.S Whilst researching on the Web it is interesting to note that Davey Graham is on his uppers again - if this is partly through this book and/or Will's article in the Guardian then this is great for all guitar fans!

Guitar Man does a beautiful job of describing the thoughts of a person learning each element of the guitar. Neither a book nor guitar teacher has ever detailed the mental steps of a novice player like this book does. It is worth enduring the overdone, cliched, melancholly descriptions of the author's travels. I will say that this book will bore a young player with the author's middle-aged man's family and friends stories.

I was, at first amused by the author's rips at Americans, but then the rips became so cliched and nearly prejudice, that I almost stopped reading. People from the South and New York will be particularilly put-off.

If you don't play guitar, if you do, if you want to learn, if you don't care to, if you love music - buy this book! Funny, informative & compleling. Kinda like a better, funnier & more useful version of Nick Hornby's early work (Fever Pitch & High Fidelity).
Buy it

I was totally stoked tearing into Guitar Man. Even though I've played off and on for years, I recently got bit and I'm back for good. Hodgkinson nailed the frustrations and jubilations of playing--and his hunt to get in and get on is terrific. But the second half of the book loses focus. The touchstone players are all, well, touched, and that may indeed be but Hodgkinson gets bogged in their mental illnesses and the book slows. That said, he turns a phrase nicely. I enjoyed the show. But near the end, I was skimming to be done instead of devouring it as I had at the start. I hope he's still playing

Much like the author, I decided to learn to play guitar at the age of 50, and had no musical training in my life.... A big challenge to say the least. So, I've got a lot to relate to here with Mr. Hodgkinson! You'll know what it's like learning about guitars, how they're made, how three chords open the door to hundreds of songs you've loved your whole life.... And how practicing these simple strums over and over will drive your loved ones living with you CRAZY. The author's quest for personal meetings with his musical idols, especially Davey Graham, gush-on a bit too much like a love letter. But overall, a fun book to read for anyone who's loved the guitar, and always wanted to know a few songs rather than air-strumming a silly video game's fake plastic guitar! ....And yes, I can now play "You Can't Always Get What you Want" by the Stones on my pawn-shop Stratocaster. Great book!!!!

WILL/THANKS FOR WRITING THIS WONDERFUL BOOK/I WAS HOOKED ON THE FIRST PAGE/IT IS EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED AND NOW I AM GOING AFTER IT AGAIN WITH A FRESH AND STIMULATED FRAME OF MIND/I CERTAINLY CAN RELATE TO A GREAT DEAL FROM PAGE 1-304/PEACE

Regardless of how long you've played guitar and whether you first took it up as a kid or as an adult you'll recognize something of your own experience in Will Hodgkinson's "Guitar Man".

(And if you don't already play you just might be inspired to give it a go.)

I'd previously read the author's follow-up to "Guitar Man", "Song Man", that documents Hodgkinson's journey to write and record a song in six months - in spite of the obvious obstacles of being neither a songwriter nor a singer. Hodgkinson is by trade a London-based freelance writer and, fortunately, an excellent one; both of his books are comfortable and often hilarious reads.

"Guitar Man" details the author's attempt to learn enough about playing on six strings in six months' time to perform in front of a crowd as part of a band.

Curiously, thirty-something Hodgkinson's musical tastes often seem more in tune with someone 10-15 years older. His near-obsession with what was then called "Folk-Baroque" and, in particular, Bert Jansch's famous reworking of Davey Graham's instrumental "Angie" becomes a running thread throughout "Guitar Man". Indeed, as a longtime fan of the genre myself, the author's interview and subsequent lessons with Jansch were a high point of the book. (Hodgkinson's encounter with Roger McGuinn on the day of an imminent Florida hurricane was also an interesting sub-plot, but knowing more about McGuinn than Jansch it wasn't as informative.)

"Guitar Man" introduces largely the same cast of supporting characters that appeared in "Song Man", most notably Hodgkinson's often inscrutable but always fashionable wife NJ, their two small children and best mate Doyle, who is sure to remind you of someone you know and just might warrant a book of his own someday.

We follow the author as he cobbles together bits and pieces of guitar technique and musicianship mostly by trial and error (don't we all?), further inspired by interviewing and picking the brains of a variety of current and former players, famous and otherwise.

The day of the Big Gig comes and Hodgkinson's description of performing onstage is spot on; the near "out-of-body"-ness of it, the nervous hypersensitivity, and the genuine pleasure at the realization the audience is not only listening but enjoying what you've created. The one secret I hope Hodgkinson has figured out by now is that those feelings never fully go away, no matter how many times you step out there or how cynical about it you become.

The book is at its best when Hodgkinson focuses on his playing, either alone, with his wife in the room, or later in the company of his "band mates". It's less effective when he's describing the historical context of the guitar and its place for example in American musical culture. The trip to Mississippi to retrace Robert Johnson's mythical encounter with the devil is a bit drawn out, particularly since Hodgkinson seems more in sync with 70's glam and punk than country blues. Other writers have done that sort of thing better and the small number of incorrect names and misstatements sprinkled throughout reveal the author to be somewhat less than scholarly about his subject. But, as with playing live, occasional mistakes don't often get in the way of a good performance, so no mind.

If like me you've played for awhile and gotten involved with the complexities of music, you might envy Hodgkinson's naïve enjoyment as he earnestly strums his way through "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and "You Ain't Going Nowhere". Those thrilling first successes at playing something you admire can provide lifelong motivation (I can still recall as a kid playing the intro to "Stairway to Heaven" to a friend over the phone who refused to believe I could actually figure it out from the record. He ran over to my house shortly thereafter to verify in person).

I've now been playing for over (yikes!) forty years and still get a charge out of figuring out some line or chord voicing that catches my ear.

If you find yourself wishing you could recapture some of that early excitement that attracted you to music and the instrument in the first place, a book like "Guitar Man" might be just the thing to inspire you to haul out that dusty case from the closet, wipe the crud from those strings, and wail on, skydog.

And if you enjoy the book, the follow-up "Song Man" makes a great vol. 2.

I picked this one up, figuring I was taking a chance, but it looked good.
Glad I took the chance, I really enjoyed this book.

If you like guitar "stuff" you can't miss. Folk, acoustic, electric, etc., the author's quest to learn the guitar in six months, was quite detailed and fascinating.

In addition, you get insight into some of the English guitar players, names I was not familiar with, so in addition to a great story, I was exposed to new names.

All in all, very well done.