My Kingdom for a Guitar is a novel based on the remarkable life of Cameroonian-born writer and musician Francis Bebey. Born in Douala, Cameroon, Bebey studied in Paris and New York. He found fame when his first novel, Le Fils d'Agatha Moudio (Agatha Moudio's Son), was published in 1967, and that fame continued to grow with the release of his first album in 1969. He would go on to become one of the best-known singer-songwriters of Africa, whose groundbreaking style merged Cameroonian makossa with classical guitar, jazz, and pop. Narrated by Bebey's daughter, Kidi, My Kingdom for a Guitar is a tribute to her late father and his family. Through a combination of recollections and fiction, it offers the reader a chance to witness the admiration of a daughter for her father and the love of a man for his music.

My Kingdom for a Guitar is a novel based on the remarkable life of Cameroonian-born writer and musician Francis Bebey. Born in Douala, Cameroon, Bebey studied in Paris and New York. He found fame when his first novel, Le Fils d'Agatha Moudio (Agatha Moudio's Son), was published in 1967, and that fame continued to grow with the release of his first album in 1969. He would go on to become one of the best-known singer-songwriters of Africa, whose groundbreaking style merged Cameroonian makossa with classical guitar, jazz, and pop. Narrated by Bebey's daughter, Kidi, My Kingdom for a Guitar is a tribute to her late father and his family. Through a combination of recollections and fiction, it offers the reader a chance to witness the admiration of a daughter for her father and the love of a man for his music.

An illustrated guide to over 450 different guitars, from early acoustics to the latest electrics.

In The Grail Guitar: The Search for Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze Telecaster, Chris Adams takes readers on a fascinating mystery tour to determine whether a Fender Telecaster bought secondhand in a London music store in 1973 was the one used by Jimi Hendrix to record “Purple Haze” in January 1967. The only clues are its left-handed tuners and the salesman’s chance remark that the guitar was brought into the shop by a Hendrix roadie. But these are enough to set the author off on this intriguing journey into Hendrix history. With firsthand details from model Linda Keith, who discovered Hendrix in New York, Adams recounts how the rising star left for London with a white Stratocaster belonging to Keith Richards. The man who made Hendrix’s pedals explains how this Strat failed to make the “Purple Haze” recording session and how it was replaced by a borrowed Telecaster. As Adams tracks down the surviving musicians, they shed light on the fate of that Telecaster and gradually the two guitars begin to merge into one. Throughout, Adams weaves his own story as a rock musician and tells how, against the odds, he managed to hold on to this remarkable instrument. Here is a riveting story of one man seeking the truth about a cultural artifact that changed rock history, a story for rock fans and guitar aficionados, treasure hunters and antique dealers, as well as anyone who likes a detective story.

(Book). Guild guitars have been around since the early 1950s, and by the beginning of the '60s, the company had established a solid reputation for its electric and acoustic archtops, which are still widely regarded today. Despite this enduring popularity, little was known about the history of Guild. The Guild Guitar Book is the result of years of intensive research and countless photo sessions. It includes a thorough history of the company and its guitars, including serial numbers, specifications, original prices, and all the information needed to date Guild guitars. Features hundreds of photos, with a beautiful 40-page color section. Now Back in Print!

It whispers, it sings, it rocks, and it howls. It expresses the voice of the folk—the open road, freedom, protest and rebellion, youth and love. It is the acoustic guitar. And over the last five decades it has become a quintessential American icon. Because this musical instrument is significant to so many—in ways that are emotional, cultural, and economic—guitar making has experienced a renaissance in North America, both as a popular hobby and, for some, a way of life. In Guitar Makers, Kathryn Marie Dudley introduces us to builders of artisanal guitars, their place in the art world, and the specialized knowledge they’ve developed. Drawing on in-depth interviews with members of the lutherie community, she finds that guitar making is a social movement with political implications. Guitars are not simply made—they are born. Artisans listen to their wood, respond to its liveliness, and strive to endow each instrument with an unforgettable tone. Although professional luthiers work within a market society, Dudley observes that their overriding sentiment is passion and love of the craft. Guitar makers are not aiming for quick turnover or the low-cost reproduction of commodities but the creation of singular instruments with unique qualities, and face-to-face transactions between makers, buyers, and dealers are commonplace. In an era when technological change has pushed skilled artisanship to the margins of the global economy, and in the midst of a capitalist system that places a premium on ever faster and more efficient modes of commerce, Dudley shows us how artisanal guitar makers have carved out a unique world that operates on alternative, more humane, and ecologically sustainable terms.

Chet Atkins: Me and My Guitars is, without a doubt, the most comprehensive and enlightening book on Chet Atkins ever published. A friend of Atkins' for 40 years, Russ Cochran was privy to stories from Chet that even the most knowledgeable Chet fan would never know about. Chet tells it all in his own words about his childhood, his playing influences and early struggles to find work, along with insight into the guitars he used and endorsed along the way. The book includes full-color photos of Chet and his guitars, many only previously seen in a limited collector's edition. Photographer Wolf Hoffman manages to expertly capture the images of some very famous guitars played by Chet, including his first Sears Roebuck Silvertone, custom made D'Angelicos, the Gretsches, and the prototype models of the current Gibson Country Gentleman guitars. Over 60 guitars in Chet's private collection are photographed in Chet's home and his office on Music Row. Chet speaks about each of his important guitars - including the Gibson L-10 which his brother Jim gave him - telling the story of his career as seen through his guitars. More than just a pictorial review of his guitars throughout the years, it's a fascinating look inside the mind of history's greatest guitar player. This book will appeal to guitar collectors and Chet Atkins fans everywhere. Full-color and B/W photos throughout.

John Banville, the Man Booker Prize–winning author of The Sea and Ancient Light, now gives us a new novel—at once trenchant, witty, and shattering—about the intricacies of artistic creation, about theft, and about the ways in which we learn to possess one another, and to hold on to ourselves. Equally self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating, our narrator, Oliver Otway Orme (“O O O. An absurdity. You could hang me over the door of a pawnshop”), is a painter of some renown and a petty thief who has never before been caught and steals only for pleasure. Both art and the art of thievery have been part of his “endless effort at possession,” but now he’s pushing fifty, feels like a hundred, and things have not been going so well. Having recognized the “man-killing crevasse” that exists between what he sees and any representation he might make of it, he has stopped painting. And his last act of thievery—the last time he felt its “secret shiver of bliss”—has been discovered. The fact that the purloined possession was the wife of the man who was, perhaps, his best friend has compelled him to run away—from his mistress, his home, his wife; from whatever remains of his impulse to paint; and from a tragedy that has long haunted him—and to sequester himself in the house where he was born. Trying to uncover in himself the answer to how and why things have turned out as they have, excavating memories of family, of places he has called home, and of the way he has apprehended the world around him (“one of my eyes is forever turning towards the world beyond”), Olly reveals the very essence of a man who, in some way, has always been waiting to be rescued from himself.

(Book). For 30 years, Guitar World magazine has served as North America's leading publication for rock guitarists and with more than 325 issues under its belt, the world's bestselling guitar magazine is showing no signs of slowing down. In this extraordinary book, the complete history of Guitar World is chronicled from July 1980, when the very first issue, which featured Johnny Winter on its cover, took the guitar-playing community by storm, to issues from 2010 featuring the likes of Jimi Hendrix, John Mayer, Keith Richards, and many other guitar icons. Frank Zappa, Eddie Van Halen, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Kurt Cobain, Jimmy Page, and Eric Clapton are just some of the artists who have sat down with Guitar World over the years: the full transcripts of these legendary, revealing interviews are here. This lavishly illustrated edition takes you behind the scenes of such monumental events as Nirvana's Unplugged performance, Stevie Ray Vaughan's funeral, and the making of Led Zeppelin IV , and includes Guitar World 's great dual interviews: Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck, Tony Iommi and James Hetfield, Steve Vai and Joe Satriani, and more. Rock music has gone through many changes since 1980 bands have come and gone, musical styles have shifted dramatically, heroes have fallen and through it all, Guitar World has been there, reporting on the events of the day and interviewing the musicians who keep the genre alive. It's all here, in The Complete History of Guitar World .

The definitive guide to the acoustic properties of all types of guitars and how to record and process their sounds, from microphone selection and placement to using effects and much more.