Play Like A Legend Book/CD Set Bill Monroe Tunes & Songs for Mandolin

by Joe Carr

Mel Bay is pleased to present the first-ever book focused on mandolinist and "Father of Bluegrass Music" Bill Monroe. Author Joe Carr dissects Monroe's unique approach to the mandolin through analysis of the icon's stylistic nuances, licks and repertoire. Included in the book are transcriptions, new "in the style of" arrangements, chord voicings and rhythm/backup patterns and more. Further, this book includes 32 never-before-seen photos of Monroe in performance with his band the Bluegrass Boys and special guests. This book, complete with audio, will take the mandolinist back to the roots of bluegrass through its iconic founder's stylings.

Genres: Music

80 pages, Spiral-bound

First published September 1, 2011

Reviews

[Garrett Cash · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joe Carr has stated before that his desire with this book was to write the mandolin book that explains Monroe's style in such a way that it will be frequently talked about in the same sentences with Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo: Revised and Enhanced Edition. While this book is extremely good, I wouldn't say that the comparison is completely valid for one main reason. The song selection. While the book does a fantastic job of transcribing Monroe's solos over the years in such a way that you can better understand how his style worked, one of the main reasons why Scruggs's book is so great is because almost every song you could want is in there. With this book, classics like "Blue Moon of Kentucky", "Rocky Road Blues", "Crying Holy Unto the Lord", etc. are not featured at all. Of course, with the knowledge you gain from learning all the solos in this book you could easily apply Monroe's stylistic techniques and figure out those solos for yourself, but to write a book that is supposed to be a definitive Bill Monroe mandolin book without some of those classics is just absurd.