A stunning visual guide to the guitar - with detailed profiles of everything from the legendary Martin flat-tops to Fender's twelve-string electrics and everything in between. The Ultimate Guitar Sourcebook tells the full story of every major type of guitar. With a chapter devoted to each branch of [...]

(Book). The fourth in a series ( The Fender Book, The Gibson Les Paul Book, The Rickenbacker Book ), The Bass Book offers a complete illustrated history of bass guitars from Fender's first in the 1950s through the models of the next 40 years that formed the foundation for modern music. The bass guit[...]

A glorious portrait of an iconic musical instrument and its makers and players. Launched by the fledgling Fender company in 1950, the Telecaster has become the longest-lived solidbody electric guitar, played by everyone from Muddy Waters to Chrissie Hynde. All who play know that the key to the Telec[...]

In California in the early 1950s, the Fender company introduced the world's first electric bass guitar. They couldn't have known it then, but their Precision Bass started a revolution in the sound of popular music. This book explains exactly how. The two-guitars-bass-and-drums lineup that would defi[...]

This landmark book details exactly which guitars, drums, amplifiers and keyboards The Beatles used at the key points of their relatively brief but entirely revolutionary career - from the formation of the Quarry Men in the 1950s to the dissolution of The Beatles in 1970. It provides a fascinating fr[...]

Fender is the most successful modern guitar maker, and this revised and updated book celebrates 60 years of the company's instruments. It tells the complete year-by-year story of Fender's development from the early years until the present day, accompanied by an unrivalled gallery of colour photograp[...]

Leo Fender's company changed the course of popular music in 1954 when they introduced the Stratocaster. Since then it has been played by everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Buddy Guy and Jeff Beck. In this book, new interviews with important Strat players from every decade illustrate the Strat's versatili[...]

To many vintage guitar fans, it seems inconceivable that Gibson dumped the Sunburst Les Paul in 1960 and, during the following year, introduced a completely new design, the one that we know now as the SG (solid guitar). At the time, however, it made good business sense. Sales of the Les Paul were fa[...]

Until the launch of the Flying V and Explorer in 1958, electric guitars were supposed to look like guitars. Suddenly, Gibson turned conventional design upside down, almost literally, by using straight lines and angular body shapes, changing the way electrics could look and, in the process, creating [...]

This new version of Tony Bacon's story of the Fender Telecaster shows how the world's first commercially successful solid body electric guitar still attracts musicians more than 60 years since its birth in California. Today, it is more popular than ever, and for many guitarists it has overtaken the [...]

Is the sunburst Gibson Les Paul Standard really the greatest electric guitar ever made? This books aims to answer that question.[...]