This is a good book for learning a fantastic guitar style which was almost totally unknown to me before. This is pre-war acoustic "country" (as opposed to "city") blues. These are very cool songs, very playable by anyone who has the fingerpicking basics down.

The Complete Country Blues Guitar Book has tabs for a wide variety of blues styles, including Delta, Rag, Texas, and bottleneck. The one point that keeps me from rating it 5 stars is the CDs, one of which was defective. I contacted Mel Bay Publishing by e-mail, advised them of the problem, and they promptly sent me a replacement along with a nice apology. That issue aside, I am very pleased with the overall collection. Get this if blues is your thang...

I haven't played guitar for about ten years, and got this book to get myself back into it. It's great, I can't put it down, and I'm actually learning the pieces!
Defintely recommended, but not for a complete beginner.

Stefan Grossman has been the world authority on fingerstyle blues guitar for decades now, and this book is the biggest compendium of his work as an educator. He tabs out fifty-seven (fifty-seven!) songs in a variety of styles and tunings, enough to keep any student busy for a year or more.

This isn't so much a method book--though I taught myself to play country blues from it--as a large tab compendium with helpful tips about each song. Each song has at least one fully-transcribed verse. Many have intros and outros, and some are complete arrangements. Most of the book covers the alternating bass and ragtime traditions of the Memphis and Piedmont blues, but there are seven Delta tunes, and excellent seven-song chapter on Texas blues, and even a good number of bottleneck tunes. Most of the songs are old standards ("Crow Jane","Vestapol","Hard Time Killin' Floor") taken from the original recordings by artists like Reverend Gary Davis, Mance Liscomb, and Blind Blake.

The "handwritten" tab is large and easy to read--you'll never be able to go back to that tiny Hal Leonard/Guitar Player tab after this. There are lots of photos of old bluesmen as well as atmospheric old-South pictures from the Library of Congress collection. It's so attractive I keep it on my coffee table. The CDs feature Grossman playing the tabbed arrangements (and then some) as well as original Blind Lemon Jefferson tracks. They're listenable in their own right, even if you aren't learning the guitar!

If you're interested in pre-war blues guitar, and you already known how to play five or six chords (remember, this book teaches country blues, not guitar), this is easily the best bang for your music buying buck.