Folksinger's Wordbook (Plastic Comb)

~ Irwin Silber (Author) "The sons of the prophet are hardy and bold..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Child Ballad, John Anderson (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Probably the most comprehensive collection of songs—1000 folk songs, work songs, old favorites and new classics. Thirty-nine sections each containing as many songs as can be found in some songbooks. For schools, camps, and churches.

Product Details

• Plastic Comb: 432 pages
• Publisher: Music Sales Corporation (April 10, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0825601401
• ISBN-13: 978-0825601408
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 9.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #970,207 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lyrics with chord progressions, organized into general topic, November 2, 1999

By A Customer

I purchased this book over 12 years ago and literally wore the thing out. It came out the bindings from use! The binding was changed at some point to collect the pages withing a plastic holder so that it would lay flat. There are thousands of songs included and they cover a wide variety of topics, i.e. blues, farming, work, recreation, socail causes, children, sex and jail songs. It's quite a tapestry but has some limitations. I have played 90% of the songs and some of the chord progressions are plainly wrong, when based on traditional recordings. That is to say that a number of the chords have been vastly overly simplified and transposed for easier guitar / paino / banjo fingering. That might be a plus to the beginners but the experienced player could find the writer's arrangement a bit lazy. The author is a collector but not a person who leans towards accuracy. Carl Sandburg was lazy in the same way and others have come after him to clean up the lack of attention to musical acumen.

It is my hope that the author has corrected the musical errors from the earlier additions and then upgraded the chord prgressions to include more patterns beyond the standard collection of majors, minors and major 7-ths. Since there are no notation related to time signatures, melody lines or tempo, the performer should already have a good idea how the songs sound, otherwise there would be a vast diversity of interpretations. Still is is a good but, but a bit overpriced considering the limitations mentioned above.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wow, what a collection of words!, May 1, 2005

By	Tom Knapp "Rambles.NET editor" (Lancaster, PA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Folksinger's Wordbook has the lyrics to more than 1,000 folk songs. No music, sadly, although it does contain notation for chords. But wow, what a great collection of words!

The table of contents is 13 pages long; the alphabetical index in the rear is 10. Subject headings range from "Bile Them Cabbage Down" (hoedowns, jigs and reels) and "All Over This Land" (songs of green places, big cities, mountain ranges, waterways and prairies) to "The Farmer is the Man" (songs of renters, hayseeds, sharecroppers and workers on the land), "Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms" (pretty self-explanatory, don't you think?) and "Murder Most Cruel" (songs of cruel mothers, jealous lovers, quarreling brothers and other bloody ballads).

Those are just a few of the 39 separate song chapters. Songs are drawn from all over the world, too -- lots of American songs, plenty of Ireland and Britain, plus a scattering of French, Yiddish, German, Mexican, Canadian, Australian and more.

If it's lyrics you want, chances are pretty good you don't need to look much further than Folksinger's Wordbook.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An indispensable treasure for anyone intersted in Folksongs., October 9, 1998

By A Customer

There are a lot of books with folksongs in them, but you'll likely not find anything as comprehensive as the "Folksinger's Wordbook." There are lyrics and guitar chording to over 1000 songs in this volume - and extra verses to old favorites that I had never heard before. There is no musical notation so one will need some familiarity with a song's melody to be able to play it on the guitar. I use it quite often on camping trips where songs the entire group knows the words to are few and far between. I recommend it highly.

Randy