Customer Reviews

Rise Up Singing: The Group Singing Songbook

5 star:		(79)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In my earlier review here, I gushed about how great this songbook, but added a wish that the songs be indexed by author. In this current edition, that wish has been granted, helping me notice a few songs I'd overlooked before.

Again, this is the best collection of songs you can actually sing, with guitar chords that usually work pretty well (occasional problems there may be in my skill level, not in the book!) There's no current Top 40 (there is some Motown) but these are the songs people have heard and sung and relaxed with and fought with and cried with and fallen in love with.....and been made to think with.

This is the song book to end all song books, with the words to every song you ever sang at camp, with friends, at your place of worship, or with your school chorus. Each one of these songs are precious gems,which makes this book an invaluable treasure chest.Buy it and sing along and rise up singing!

The great thing about this book is its comprehensiveness: you won't find a collection of this size and variety anywhere else.Unfortunately, the book uses a quirky and often difficult-to-understand chord notation that has two main problems. First, I have found the chords to often be, simply, wrong--both to my ear and in comparison to other, more authoritative books. Second, the chords are simply listed--there is no time signature or rhythm information. How long do you play these chords? A quarter-note? A whole? An eighth? It drives me crazy, as I have found several songs unplayable.

I browsed over to this section just becasue I need to replace my copy of Rise Up Singing. After several years of heavy use, mine is falling apart. I disagree with a previous writer, in that I think this book has a wide range of music, ranging from very old songs such as 'The Cutty Wren' and 'The Coventry Carol' to 1910s ('In the Good Old Summertime'), 1930s (Woody Guthrie), Motown, protest songs, and modern folk classics (several songs each from Stan Rogers, Bill Staines, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, and on, and on...). Rise Up Singing owes some of its genes to Winds of the People, an older compilation (I think circulated by the Society of Friends) and it shows.It is certainly slanted more in the direction of those who wish to build a better world rather than those want to retain the status quo, but I find it fascinating to see how that status quo has changed, in protest songs from way back ('The Waulking Song') or about events from way back ('The Diggers') through the battles for universal suffrage and the labor songs of the 1930s and 40s, to problems of the present day. Plus, I just like to sing the songs. My only complaint is that, at least in my mid-1980s edition, the songs are not indexed by author.

When I first came across the first edition, at the Philly FOlk Fest, I literally jumped up and down in excitement. They were sold out and while we waited for a new supply to arrive a friend and I sang our way through the sample book. I had to buy the second edition a few years ago because my original copy was falling apart, quite literally. (But I still have it; couldn't bear to throw it away.) The second ed adds a much-needed songwriter index.

You couldn't play the songs in this book if you don't already know the tune, since only chords are listed for most songs. On the other hand I can't open to any page without finding songs I know (and usually, love). Many of these are songs you won't find in other songbooks. All are singable. Included songs run the gamut of folk music (and that includes trad, Celtic and other ethnicities, folk-rock, singer-songwriter, and on and on) as well as Motown, Tin Pan Alley, a few showtunes, and more. When I first came across the first edition, at the Philly FOlk Fest, I literally jumped up and down in excitement. They were sold out and while we waited for a new supply to arrive a friend and I sang our way through the sample book.

Buyers be aware that the book contains only lyrics and guitar chords, WITHOUT MUSICAL NOTATION. So, readers have no ability to determine the melody of the numerous old songs.

This book is always on the top of the pile on the piano or music stand since it gets constantly referred to in our folkmusic avocation. If you get the paperback, get it coil bound at Kinkos...It needs to be freely openable because it will be opened often.

As the fellow at the store said: "this book should be issued to everyone at birth!"

But be sure to buy the SPIRAL bound version because it will lie flat whereas the "reprint" version won't.

I have bought more copies of this book than I can count. Why? I keep giving my copy away! This is a must for any family that enjoys singing. Every mother or father with a decent voice wlll want a copy after looking it over, it's got so many great songs -- from the shakers, to spirituals, to the grateful dead, to rogers and hammerstein. A few minutes thumbing through this book and you are humming. Every night for 9 years we have sung from a well-worn (and now missing!) copy to our children as they drift off to sleep.

I'm ordering two this round, I'm hoping they will stay in my house for a while. I imagine that someday my 2 children will each want a copy so they can sing the songs that meant so much to them to their own children. I only hope its still in print by then -- or that I have managed to hold onto two copies!

I sang out of this book all the time at camp and it brings back wonderful memories. You can find great songs in here, ones you would not expect to find in a hippie song book. I think anyone who loves to sing wuld benifit from the ownership of this songbook.