Topic: Mandolin Blues - Rich Delgrosso

[Flatd7]

Rich has done a stellar job with this instructional book. Much of it has been presented in workshops and magazines before, but it is great to have it printed in one book. All the masters are covered from Vol Stevens,Coley Jones and Charlie McCoy to Howard Armstrong, Yank Rachell, Carl Martin and Johnny Young. Some wonderful pictures of Rich with his mentors and lot's of good historical material. The accompanying demo CD is recorded at slower speeds than the originals which will make learning easier. Too bad the book does not come with the originals. You really need to know the originals to appreciate the magic. I highly recommed this book to anyone with a taste for Blues, Rags and Stomps on the Mandolin.

[arbarnhart]

I just got this a few days ago. I wish it had been available a year or two ago; it would have saved me alot of time spent trying to map things over from guitar instruction, pick them up by ear and often getting frustrated in the process. The CD has the instruments split by channel whenever there are other instruments besides the mando so you can isolate the mando part to learn it or play along with the backing track by adusting the balance. A lot of the songs have one or more sections broken out and explained and demonstrated outside the full song (actually most tracks really aren't full songs anyway) so you can work out some of the more difficult or important parts separately. There are a couple of short duets in the intro that are nice, not so much because I expect to play them with another mandolin as much as trade off taking lead with a guitar. There is a good mix of rhythm and lead in the selections. I am not as big on the rags and stomps, but understand why they are there. After a brief intro to playing blues, the book is chronological and goes from the rags/stomps, through a few acoustic blues players and jug bands and has some smokin' electric style blues toward the end. All the mando notes are given in notation and tab. One thing I noticed about the tabs is that Rich is obviously an advanced player and freely switches between scales of different shapes. I am finding some of the songs are easier for me to play if I move around the neck a little and keep the pattern shapes similar. The keys/chords are given so you can clue others in on playing with you. This is absolutely my favorite mandolin blues training/reference book and I am finding it much more useful than the Homespun DVD.

[uncle bud]

Good to hear the reviews of Mandolin Blues. Where does one buy it? So far, I located it at Elderly. Nothing on Amazon.

And I swear the attached image for Steve James' DVD is what came up in my Amazon.ca search. I didn't know Steve was in The Knack.

[attachment deleted by admin]