The Ultimate Book of Blues Guitar Legends: The Players and Guitars That Shaped the Music

In creating a survey and compendium of blues through the lens of arguably its dominant instrument, Brown (Ultimate Heavy Metal Guitars) has embarked on a monumental task and managed to strike an admirable balance likely to please most blues fans. This colorful celebration of a vital, endlessly reimagined, and influential American genre covers early acoustic stylists through contemporary players who push the boundaries of the form today, focusing generally on electric guitarists. Scores of musicians are highlighted in chapters such as “60’s Blues Power” and “Bell-Bottom Blues,” which include photographs and a paragraph or entire page overview for each instrumentalist. Purists may question why three pages are devoted to Eric Clapton while only one paragraph covers Jimmy Rogers. Jazz buffs will be disappointed, too, by only having one page for a giant range of performers and no mention of Herb Ellis or Jim Hall, but the emphasis is clearly on more popular adaptations, chiefly rock music. Even though the work covers over a century of evolution, by nature, it cannot be truly complete, as contemporary artists propel the venerated, evergreen music to new heights.