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Re: The Who Guitar Chord Songbook



 SCHRADE in Akron and Denis, re:

>> Anyone heard of this?  A friend said they saw it in the new releases 
section
>> of a local store - sounds like a greatest hits type thing with guitar 
chords
>> shown but targetted more at beginners (which I am...).
>>
>> Denis.
>
> There's a new one out called THE WHO: THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION.
> I got it off Amazon.uk.com.  It's your basic guitar chord book.  I don't 
really
> play the guitar, but a friend of mine who does said that the "older" (maybe
> out of print) WHO guitar chord book is better.  It's called THE WHO ANTH-
> OLOGY.  Both books look pretty much the same to me.  Hardly any pictures
> (they're instuctional, you see) but atleast the lyrics are there !

Having not seen the one Denis originally referred to, I'll assume it's the 
Hal Leonard Easy Guitar series (used to have a white cover) being reissued or 
something. If so, it's piano and melody arrangements for greatest hits. 

Beginner or not, I'd recommend staying away from all Hal Leonard books if you 
want to learn how to play Who songs the way Pete played them. The Easy Guitar 
series and the Anthology (the gold book, which I believe is still in print) 
are arranged for easy piano with some guitar chords thrown in. Much of it is 
transposed to easy piano keys. I suppose they're a starting point -- 
especially if you want to really dig in and teach the songs to yourself. 

The Definitive Collection -- the four-volume set from Hal -- was supposed to 
match the quality and depth of The Beatles Anthology "dictionary" (which is 
brilliant, btw). However, it fell waaay short in accuracy and correctness. As 
I said before, the only thing *definitive* about the set is that you've spent 
$100 on wasting valuable bookshelf space. And, if you're looking for a lyric 
source from those books, best look elsewhere, as they're worse than the 
Japanese Polydor liner note lyrics. 

It all comes down to the fact that these books fail miserably in 
understanding Pete's style. Until you've got that, you'll never capture how 
Pete played the songs. 

Litgo