The Folk Songs of North America in the English Language
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Customer Reviews
Rated 5 starsMusically and Editorially Superb
A great piece of work from Lomax, the Lomax collaborators, and publisher Doubleday. Large format, decorative cloth over hardback boards, with a heavy-duty binding. Many illustrations. 317 songs. 623 pages. 16 page introduction by Lomax. Chapter introductions by Lomax or his team. Multiverse lyrics and alternate lyrics. Color front pastedown map showing the locations of different Song Style Families. Color back pastedown...
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Rated 5 starsIndespensible
I became really interested in a written compilation of folk music after having bought an excellent folk collection released by folkways. I picked this book out of only a few that looked decent and my guess is it may be the best single volume for the layman. I'm very pleased with the range of folk music and short histories.
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Rated 5 starsIf you love real folk music, this is a good book to have.
I bought this book when it was new 45 years ago. I learned to play the guitar and sing folk songs by going through the pages of this book and trying to do as many as I can. Some caught on, some didn't. Decades later I started to seriously listen to blues and banjo music, fiddling, and old time ballads. I started study old time music seriously. I bought this book again and went through it. So many songs well known by...
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Rated 5 starsA great repository of over 250 folk songs with melody lines
This is the folk singer's Bible. There is a short synopsis of each song and the song listing includes the lyrics and a melody line as well as chords. There is an appendix written by Peggy Seeger that describes basic picking techniques for guitar and banjo. Each song is labelled with suggested techniques from that appendix. Finally there is a chord transposition chart included.A wonderful resource for the beginning ...
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Rated 5 starsGreat book of folksongs and stories about them.
This is a book that is the symbol of the work that Alan Lomax has put into collecting folksongs. The book is one of the greatest, and what some folksingers read and memorize. It is well worth whatever anyone would sell it for, and probably more than that. It also has a discography of some of Lomax's favourite folk albums up to 1960. A good investment.
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