Guitar: An American Life

by Tim Brookes

Book Overview

How did a small, humble folk instrument become an American icon? How did the guitar come to represent freedom, the open road, protest and rebellion, the blues, youth, lost love, and sexuality? In this... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802117961
• ISBN13: 9780802117960
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Guitar - An American Life

This is a wonderful journey through the history and joys of the guitar and the people who enjoy listening, playing and appreciating. The author, Tim Brookes, weaves a clever series of vignettes about the crafting of a custom made guitar in Vermont, in between recanting the evolution of this hardy, stringed instrument. It is no small wonder that certain "twists of fate" in the 20th Century, captured eloquently here, have proven to be the patron of the guitar and its hallowed place in America and the Globe. This was a book I could not put down until it was finished. A masterful bit of prose.

entertaining and educational

(full disclosure: I own a guitar made by Rick Davis, the luthier in the book, and it's my favorite material possession) This is really two books woven together. The first is a history of the guitar... how it developed in American music, and how it became the icon it is today. The second story is about how the author lost a beloved guitar to baggage handlers, and had a new instrument handmade for him - and documented that process along the way. Each story is compelling in its own right, but together, they're more effective than either one would0 be separately. The historical part is imbued with a sense of the author's personal love for guitars, and the personal story is given a sense of academic discipline and rigor. If you love guitars, and are interested in how they are made and how they became so widespread and important, read this book!

The Best "Zen of Guitar" book out there!

This fabulous double account of guitar use and history is a great emotional ride any guitar lover can mentally jump aboard for an entertaining scenic journey. It took me back to the first time I heard flamenco in a music store, and ran home to get my sister so she could hear it -- and the hand-built Villafán classical I bought in Mexico City in 1958, the Conde Hermanos flamenco I bought in Madrid in 1960 and the Ramírez flamenco I ordered there in 1960, and waited for until 1962. Fifteen years ago I bought a hand-built Pimentel here in Albuquerque, for my son. We still have all these hand-made acoustic guitars; they're like members of my family. My point is that I picked up the book as someone long experienced in guitars, already having read widely on guitars, yet found this Brookes book to add to my knowledge and become my favorite. If you're interested in the guitar, there's just no way you can go wrong buying this book. This is an author who really understands the soul of his subject.

A GREAT read I couldn't put down!

You wouldn't believe a book about the guitar could be this enthralling. I got my copy last night, and couldn't put it down until I finished it this morning. Tim Brookes weaves a story with two threads: a step-by-step account of having his own guitar custom-built by Vermont guitar-maker Rick Davis, and the step-by-step story of how the guitar became THE instrument of American music. If you've ever played guitar, or enjoyed listening to it in any of its many musical roles - folk, classical, blues, rock or heavy-metal weapon - you will love this book. The writing is excellent, evocative of many memories - and very, very funny. Example from the Glossary: "Guitar, bass: Low-end instrument, in every sense, to which a guitarist is banished when the band hires someone better than him to take over lead." From Singing Cowboys, Hawaiian slide wizards and exploited black bluesmen to the British Invasion of the 1960s, Heavy-Metal Heroes and pimply punks; Brookes evokes them all. But this isn't yet another book about guitar heroes - this time the hero is the guitar itself. I'm already thinking about starting it over again...

Buy it!

This one-of-a-kind book by Tim Brookes is the book I wish I could have written (assuming I was an actual writer, or similarly gifted). I.E: Presenting factual information (much rarely, if ever, written about) in an entertaining way, so the "laymusician" can enjoy and understand it. The simple Glossary alone is worth the admission price ("DADGAD: A wonderfully clever tuning that has the combined effect of making a guitarist seem not only dexterous but also emotionally complex. Deep, even. Its use is heavily protected by copyright"). Much like T.V.'s The Simpsons, Tim has the ability to boil down indecipherable history and complex truths into a single witty sentence that most of us can understand and relate to. Every other chapter concerns the author's experience in ordering his first custom guitar. Those of you who play and cherish new instruments should enjoy and relate to Tim's journey. The remaining chapters present Tim's unique view of the guitar's American cultural history, in ALL its permutations. Mr. Brookes fearlessly approaches this topic from a fresh, "outsider's" perspective. With it, he hits upon a new simple, obvious (and necessary) explanation of a guitar: "Not a single instrument but a syndrome, a collection of symptoms from a list" (then giving some examples from this list). What all this boils down to is, in effect, two short "novels" - independent stories presented with so much new insight and humor that I was saddened when each ended. -Gregg Miner