Author: John Ganapes
Level: Advanced Beginner / Intermediate

This book has managed to gain some popularity over the last couple of years and deservedly so. What I like about Blues You Can Use is it's hands on. It's probably not for the absolute beginner guitarist but if you have the basic chords down and are ready to take the plunge into the world of blues lead playing then the examples shouldn't be too difficult to follow. There's plenty in here for the beginner to intermediate and even advanced blues guitarists should find some useful stuff in here, if nothing else but for dissecting the solos. No guitarist is too good to pick up new ideas, but if you're advanced then you know that already.

Blues you can use is based mainly around solo examples. There are a few tips and introductions to the basics associated with each example lesson and I'm glad to say it's not overdone. If you own one of the "got them all" books then you don't want the same stuff repeated over and over in every other guitar book you buy. So yes, there is a bit of that in here but if it's stuff you know already then you can skip over it and jump straight into the examples, which is where we gain most of our experience anyway.

Each lesson is a full length solo packed with plenty of ideas to pull out of them, not the quick one bar cliché licks you get in many of the other guitar instructional books. If you are into the blues then this book is worth every penny, more like this wouldn't go amiss for the self taught guitarist.

The only snag I have with Blues You Can Use is the jam tracks. The quality is not bad, good enough to get inspired but unfortunately (and this is almost unforgivable) the solos can't be panned fully out so you don't get a blank canvas to practice with. This won't stop you applying the ideas to other jam tracks that you own but you shouldn't have to. Learning the blues is all about jamming and improvising so this was a bad move. Would it stop me buying it? Absolutely not! I give it 7/10 Only because of the jam tracks otherwise I would have given it a 9!

Check out Blues You Can Use at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk