B.B. King - Guitar Play-Along Volume 100 Book/Online Audio (Guitar Play-Along, 100)

~ The "B.B. King: Guitar Play-Along #100" books/CD presents 8 popular B.B. King songs in both standard and tab notation. The transcriptions contain everything B.B. plays as well as the lyrics. Although I have not gone through every transcription note-by-note and compared them to the original B.B. King version, the transcripts appear to be reasonably accurate. Besides, I doubt that B.B. plays the song note-for-note the same as every time.~ The CD provides complete run-through of each tune (without vocals) with guitar, rhythm section, and where necessary a brass+reed section. After playing the tune the first time, the tune is repeated without lead guitar. This second run-through is your opportunity to play the lead. As a learning aid the disc can be slowed down without pitch change when played on any PC or Mac (the software to do this is provided on the disc.)~ One of the eight songs ("Please Accept My Love") in this book/CD combo also appears in the Hal Leonard Guitar Signature Licks book/CD "B.B. King - Blues Legend: A Step-by-Step Breakdown of His Guitar Styles and Techniques (Guitar Signature Licks)" by Dave Rubin. The other seven songs ("Just Like A Woman", "Paying The Cost To Be The Boss", "Rock Me Baby", "Sweet Little Angel", "Sweet Sixteen", "Why I Sing The Blues", "You Upset Me Baby") appear in the Hal Leonard Guitar Signature Licks book/CD "B.B. King - The Definitive Collection (Guitar Signature Licks)" by Wolf Marshall. Note: the transcriptions from this book do not agree exactly with the transcriptions by Rubin and Marshall, but they are close enough.~ So why buy this book/CD combo if you have the Signature Licks books? The major advantages are that the CD here provides complete versions of the songs (not just the introductions and solos), the CD here provides you with "minus-guitar" tracks, and the CD here provides you with the opportunity to play the tracks at any speed. For these reasons, the book/CD combo is recommended as a great place to start learning how to play eight of B.B. Kings best known songs. Having the lyrics so you can sing along may or may not be such a great idea, depending on your voice.

Good instructions and backing tracks.

I agree completely with DRL's review. Great CD, fine selection of songs from easier to hard, well-transcribed. I started with "Please Accept my Love" and "Rock Me Baby" because they're less technically challenging, and am working my way up to the much tougher "Sweet Little Angel" and "Sweet Sixteen." Really fun and rewarding. This collection is an ideal follow-on course to John Ganapes' fantastic "Blues You Can Use" book. In fact, if I could just start all over again, I would use Bert Casey's "Electric Guitar Primer" to introduce myself to guitar, Ganapes' book for building intermediate skills, and then Hal Leonard's Blues Play-Alongs to advance, particularly this one devoted to a single artist. Someone using this approach could save a couple of years of erratic effort, as well as a small fortune avoiding mediocre guitar instructors. Ganapes brilliantly teaches the technical fundamentals of the blues, but BB sho' nuff teaches the feel. It is incredible what expressiveness that man can squeeze out of just a single note. I highly recommend this book.

The whole solo for Sweet Little Angel is so soft you can't hear it over the backing track. And that's the best song in the book! When I contacted Hal Leonard they said they were aware of the situation but that they had purposely recorded it that low to match the original recording. This is the biggest bunch of malarkey I've heard in a long time. I'm sure they're taking this position solely because they don't want to do a product recall.

Bought for my blues loving, guitar playing spouse. I like the blues too, but this one - and some others - was particularly for him.

always wanted to learn how to play his songs

The picture quite clearly shows that the book is supposed to include audio files, I look for this icon on all Hal Leonard books as I don't own a CD player. This is false advertising and now I have no way of getting the audio files.

If you the blues, then you will love this mini library of songs.

...das Buch stellt eine sehr gute Quelle für Blues-Improvisation dar!

As advertised.

Great book & speedy delivery

大好きなBBのフレーズがタブ譜でわかりやすくモチベーションは上がります。雰囲気を掴むのに最適な一冊です。

Just be warned , there is no CD you have to stream or download the backing tracks . Not a problem for me , but maybe for you . The description should be updated.