Customer Reviews

Just Blues Real Book (Just Real Book)

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I have been using fake books since the late 50s when they were underground and illegal because there were no copyrights paid. You bought them from someone who knew someone etc. They had a lot of music but were very poorly produced of course. Tiny print, chord errors, poor selection etc.. We were happy to have them anyway, where else could you get 1000 songs for 25 bucks.

There have been later attempts at legal fake books over the years and I have many of them.

The Warner Brothers Real Books (a take off on fake book obviously) are everything we always wanted the books to be but they weren't. The print format is large and very readable, the selection is very good (not perfect, there are always songs you wish were there), the chords are very accurate and correct. I have not found any errors, I'm not saying there aren't any, just that I have not enountered any. There are alternate chords that other musicians have used and I use them on alternate chorus's. I also use them to help me understand how chord substitution is accomplished. There is some chord theory in the back and a discography of recordings that include the songs in the book. The table of contents and indexes are excellent and useable. Plus they are legal:-).

There are not 2000 songs but there may be as many useable songs, I haven't tried to count.

I also have the Jazz version and the Standards version. I love them and would recommend them to anyone.

This book includes lyrics, chords, melodies and, sometimes, "signature" licks of the songs. I've found the lyrics and chords are pretty accurate. The melodies and licks are much less accurate. This is probably because the blues does not always translate well to standard music notation (or maybe its just sloppy editing?). THerefore, this book is not recommended unless you are familiar with most of these tunes (and can, therefore, "fake" them more accurately).