Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This may very well be the most divisive book in the folk music community. I have found that people who think of themselves primarily as singers tend to love it because it has the lyrics to 1,200 songs. People who think of themselves primarily as instrumentalists tend to hate it, because the chords are presented in a mysterious, hard to decipher, harder to play notation that gives you no clue as to what the time signature, the tempo, and the rhythm of the song are. The separation of the chords from the lyrics in the text adds to the difficulty. In addition, since only chords and lyrics are presented, the book gives no clue as to what the melody is, so a melody player like a fiddler is out of luck. Its fans will excuse these shortcomings by telling you that to use the book you have to know the song. This makes little sense to me as a guitarist, bassist and fiddler, because if I know the song, I don't need a fake book. Other problems are that the chords listed for some songs are simplified to the point of removing the richness from the harmonies and for other songs are just downright wrong. While it contains a lot of songs, it tends to omit or give short shrift to many of the songs from the darker side of the folk tradition (e.g. songs of rage, hurt, self pity, grief...). The type in the standard-sized edition is pretty small, so if you have any issues with your vision, this book will be hard to read when it is sitting on a music stand, especially under low light. Although the font is a bit bigger in the group leader edition, these 52-year-old eyes still find it tough going. If you are a serious folk musician, you may need to have a copy of this because it is widely used. If you have a choice in the matter there are far better books out there, though they do not contain as many songs.