
Here is a concise list of some of my favorite books that I believe help better illuminate the rich history and performance of fingerstyle guitar.
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Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow, Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2019).
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Benjamin Filene, Romancing the Folk: Public Memory & American Roots Music (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000).
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Elaine Gould, Behind Bars: The Definitive Guide to Music Notation (London: Faber Music, 2011).
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Claudio Guerrieri, The John Fahey Handbook with a complete illustrated discography and labelography of Fonotone & Tacoma Records, Volumes 1 & 2 (Claudio Guerrieri, 2013/2014).
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Philip Gura, C.F. Martin and His Guitars, 1796-1873 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003).
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Colin Harper, Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British Folk and Blues Revival (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2000).
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Steve Lowenthal, Dance of Death: The Life of John Fahey, American Guitarist (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2014).
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Jeffrey J. Noonan, The Guitar in America: Victorian Era to Jazz Age (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2008).
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Philip R. Ratcliffe, Mississippi John Hurt: His Life, His Times, His Blues (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2011).
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Lorene Ruymar, The Hawaiian Steel Guitar and Its Great Hawaiian Musicians (Anaheim Hills, CA: Centerstream Publishing, 1996).
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Robert Sacré, ed., Charley Patton: Voice of the Mississippi Delta (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2018).
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John W. Troutman, Kīkā Kila: How the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Changed the Sound of Modern Music (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2016).
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Stephen Wade, The Beautiful Music All Around Us: Field Recordings and the American Experience (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2012).
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Elijah Wald, Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues (New York: Amistad, 2004).
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Ian Zack, Say No to the Devil: The Life and Musical Genius of Rev. Gary Davis (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2015).