Stefan Grossman explores traditional playing styles through transcriptions of 22 tunes by master Texas blues guitar players.

There are many intellectual curiosities about the blues. It has always seemed a phenomenon that the guitar styles that came out of the South during the twenties and thirties could be differentiated by their regional characteristics. On hearing a strange new artist, one can almost pinpoint his city of origin through his guitar technique. The Mississippi Delta produced a sound distinct from that of Texas. Atlanta had a very popular style that seems to have been confined to that city. The music of Louisiana has a weird voodoo texture, while the Carolinas produced another totally different sound. Music is quite a powerful tool. Words of explanation can never express the impact of a musical experience. I am going to attempt to teach the music of some great guitar bluesmen. It is not going to be isolated and picked apart, but presented with its historical value as well as personal and emotional value. Words will not be my tools for this venture; instead I will incorporate photographs and interview to describe these feelings.

Explores traditional playing styles through transcriptions and analysis of master players - Rev. Gary Davis, Big Bill Broonzy and many others.

This comprehensive book has 260 pages and over 50 fingerpicking guitar solos in notation and tablature in country blues, Delta blues, ragtime blues, Texas blues and bottleneck styles. An extremely comprehensive blues solo collection.Includes access to online audio

Almost 20 years ago Michael Brocken created from his doctoral research, what became both a seminal and contested volume concerning the social mores surrounding the British Folk Revival up to that point in time: The British Folk Revival 1944–2002. In this long-overdue second edition he revisits not only his own research, but also that of others from the 1990s and early 21st century. He then considers how a discourse of folkloric authenticity emerged in the closing years of the 19th century and how a worrying nationalistic immanence came to surround folk music and dance during the inter-war years. Brocken also proposes that the media: records, radio and TV in post-WWII folk revivalism can offer us important insights into how self-directed learning of the folk guitar emerged. Brocken moves on to consider the business structures of the contemporary folk scene and how relationships are formed between contemporary folk business and the digital and social media spheres. In his penultimate chapter he discusses the masculinisation of folk traditions and asks important questions about how our folk traditions are carried and are authorised. In the final chapter he also considers the rise of an exciting new folk live music built environment.