REV. Gary Davis/Blues Guitar

This book by Stefan Grossman offers an impressive collection of solos by Rev. Gary Davis. As most of you know, Gary Davis was a blind guitarist who played in a complicated, syncopated ragtime style somewhat reminiscent of Blind Blake. Apparently, Grossman took some lessons from Davis in New York City. The book includes a generous selection of transcriptions, all accompanied by informative comments, an interview with Reverend Davis, and helpful photos of hand positions. Unfortunately, the tablature is a bit of a mess as it is placed on pages separate from the notation. And the tablature does not contain rhythm markings. Thus, to a guitarist who relies on tablature, the interpretation of the rhythms will be frustrating and maybe even impossible. This book is an ambitious effort but with no companion recording it is possibly of marginal value to non-readers. But those who can read basic music notation and have fairly good fingerpicking technique will find a lot of great guitar music here. The songs contain a lot of fascinating ideas that can be added to your own fingerpicking style.

There's enough songs to keep a good guitarist busy and happy for a while. If you're a beginner you'll be frustrated for a while. Other reviewers mentioned a CD. I was expecting a CD based on a user review. If you're expecting a CD don't unless it's explicitely mentioned. The book makes no reference to a CD, neither does ... (except in their user reviews). I don't know where they got the CD from, I didn't. --mike

Fans of fingerstyle guitar will love this CD and the book of transcriptions. Rev. Gary Davis has a distinctive style of playing and singing and is a very (VERY) good guitarist. Be warned that the transcriptions are quite challenging--there are some lengthy ragtime instrumental pieces. A better book for beginners might be Stefan Grossman's collection of Mississippi John Hurt tunes. Still, an excellent publication--the CD that comes with the book would be worth the purchase price by itself.