BEST BOOKS ON GUITAR

Welcome to our Guitar Bookstore. Thank you for supporting our blog by purchasing guitar books through our Amazon Store. Our guitar book recommendations include guitar history books, books about guitars and books by and about legendary guitarists from small format to guitar coffee table books.

These great books about guitars and the authors I have selected here for you, have taken special care to artfully combine the history of the instruments with superb illustrations. So if you’re looking for a guitar history book, here are some Must Have Books for Guitar Players that are in my library and that I deeply treasure and am proud to display on my coffee table and I think you or the guitar player in your life will also treasure and enjoy some of these guitar history books.

2021 Holiday Rick’s Picks for Books About Guitar

BOOKS ABOUT GUITARS

THE OFFICIAL VINTAGE GUITAR MAGAZINE 2022 PRICE GUIDE

This is simply the definitive guide to have to know what a guitar is worth and is the industry standard guide everyone in the guitar business uses to gauge guitar prices. If you are doing any buying, selling or collecting of guitars, you simply must have this Guide, published annually by Vintage Guitar Magazine and written by Gil Hembree and Alan Greenwood and a panel of vintage guitar experts made up of some of the best vintage guitar dealers in the world.

Do You Feel Like I Do? A Memoir by Peter Frampton with Alan Light

Here’s a new memoir from guitar legend Peter Frampton. On the heels of what was probably his last tour, this memoir was years in the making and a great book for Peter Frampton fans.

“Within the contents of this book, I wanted to include items from my personal archive that have played a part in my career over 60 years, to illustrate the detail behind the detail.” - Jimmy Page

In a new text of over 70,000 words, Jimmy Page guides the reader through hundreds of rare items, many of which are previously unseen, and others of mythic status, such as the Gibson double neck guitar, his dragon-emblazoned suit, his white embroidered poppy suit, and the outfit worn in the concert film The Song Remains the Same.

Also included are handwritten diaries, correspondence, rare vinyl pressings, previously unpublished photographs and much, much more. Jimmy Page has personally selected each piece to be photographed in this book, which has been created with his full participation.

The result is Jimmy Page: The Anthology. Both reflective and revealing, it is quite simply the legendary musician’s most comprehensive and fascinating account of his life to date.

LES PAUL BOOK - In His Own Words

Besides Leo Fender and Paul Bigsby, the advanced design and impact on the future of music from 1950 to today pretty much starts with the one and only Les Paul. His career as the most famous guitarist in the world in 1950 and his lifelong inventive nature brought his vision of the electric guitar to a new level of prominence in music. Life has never been the same.

I was honored to receive a gratis copy of this book “LES PAUL IN HIS OWN WORDS” from the Les Paul Foundation. It is an amazing personal account of Les in his storied playing career, marriage to Mary Ford, his dealings with Gibson, his friendship with Leo Fender (and how the Les Paul guitar was almost produced by Fender!) and the real inside story about the epic guitar he envisioned and made into reality.

PLAY IT LOUD EXHIBIT BOOKS

In 2019, the Play It Loud Exhibit at the New York Metropolitan Museum was a spectacle to behold. Assembled in one place were the instruments that led to the creation of electric amplified music and the birth and evolution of Rock and Roll.

THE BIRTH OF LOUD

“A hot-rod joy ride through mid-20th-century American history” (The New York Times Book Review), this one-of-a-kind narrative masterfully recreates the rivalry between the two men who innovated the electric guitar’s amplified sound—Leo Fender and Les Paul—and their intense competition to convince rock stars like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton to play the instruments they built.

In the years after World War II, music was evolving from big-band jazz into rock ’n’ roll—and these louder styles demanded revolutionary instruments. When Leo Fender’s tiny firm marketed the first solid-body electric guitar, the Esquire, musicians immediately saw its appeal. Not to be out-maneuvered, Gibson, the largest guitar manufacturer, raced to build a competitive product. The company designed an “axe” that would make Fender’s Esquire look cheap and convinced Les Paul—whose endorsement Leo Fender had sought—to put his name on it. Thus was born the guitar world’s most heated rivalry: Gibson versus Fender, Les versus Leo.

While Fender was a quiet, half-blind, self-taught radio repairman, Paul was a brilliant but headstrong pop star and guitarist who spent years toying with new musical technologies. Their contest turned into an arms race as the most inventive musicians of the 1950s and 1960s—including bluesman Muddy Waters, rocker Buddy Holly, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton—adopted one maker’s guitar or another. By 1969 it was clear that these new electric instruments had launched music into a radical new age, empowering artists with a vibrancy and volume never before attainable.

In “an excellent dual portrait” (The Wall Street Journal), Ian S. Port tells the full story in The Birth of Loud, offering “spot-on human characterizations, and erotic paeans to the bodies of guitars” (The Atlantic). “The story of these instruments is the story of America in the postwar era: loud, cocky, brash, aggressively new” (The Washington Post).

GUITAR: THE WORLD’S MOST SEDUCTIVE INSTRUMENT

An obsessive, full-color book presented in an irresistible slipcase, Guitar features 200 instruments in stunning detail. Here are icons, like Prince’s Yellow Cloud, Willie Nelson’s “Trigger,” Muddy Water’s Thunderbird, and “Rocky,” lovingly hand-painted by its owner, George Harrison. Historic instruments—Fender’s Broadcaster, Les Paul’s “Log,” the Gibson Nick Lucas Special, the very first artist model. Hand-carved archtops, pinnacles of the luthier’s art, from John D’Angelico to Ken Parker. Stunning acoustics from a new wave of women builders, like Rosie Heydenrych of England, who’s known to use 5,000-year-old wood retrieved from a peat bog. And quirky one-of-a-kind guitars, like Linda Manzer’s Pikasso II—four necks, 42 strings, and a thousand pounds of pressure.

Marrying pure visual pleasure with layers of information, Guitar is a glorious gift for every guitar-lover.

BOOKS ABOUT FENDER GUITARS, THE FENDER COMPANY AND LEO FENDER

Occasionally, the world produces one of those rare thinkers that alter the course of history.

Disney reinvented entertainment, Einstein revolutionized science, Edison lit up our lives with the light bulb, Bell got the world talking with the telephone … and Fender revolutionized music.

If you think about it, Leo Fender has influenced every person on earth today – at least everyone who has ever heard a song.

Guitar Player Magazine declared that Clarence Leo Fender is the father of the solid body guitar. Not only did he invent it, but Leo’s guitars were used by everyone from Elvis Presley, to Eric Clapton and from Jimmy Page to Jimmy Hendrix. Indeed, Rolling Stone Magazine published a list of the world's top 100 guitarists, and 90 of them used one of Leo's guitars on stage, and the others used guitars that copied Leo's inventions and concepts.

Leo Fender was shy, had one glass eye, and was nearly deaf. Yet, from the small town of Fullerton, California, he built an iconic worldwide empire that is worshiped by the rock stars themselves. The highest price ever spent for music memorabilia was not for Michael Jackson’s glove, original Beatles’ handwritten lyrics or even Elvis’ killer pantsuit. It was for a Fender Stratocaster, which sold for a staggering $2.7 million.

Written by the wife of the late Leo Fender, for the very first time, this book provides a rare look into the wonderful mind and world of this quiet genius.

FENDER: THE GOLDEN AGE 1946-1970

Leo Fender's guitars have arguably had the greatest influence on modern music than any other make of guitar. Over 250 guitars in every model, style and finish are lovingly photographed and detailed, from the greatest to the rarest - Strats, Teles and the infamous Marauder. Includes hundreds of never-before-seen images from recently unearthed archives and specially commissioned shoots around the world. Working with a worldwide network of collectors each model has been photographed specially for the book and alongside these exceptionally rare guitars are reproductions of Fender ephemera - the largest collection anyone will have ever seen. Tracing the history and influence of the company, in an easy-to-read format, with a level of detail no other book can rival. These vintage guitars are among the most loved and collectible instruments in the world.

FENDER: THE SOUND HEARD ROUND THE WORLD

This book takes us back to Fender's beginnings with the most comprehensive collection of Fender historical photos, product shots, patent drawings, and advertising materials ever published. Whether you are a musician, a lover of Fender lore, an instrument collector, or a curious history buff, your search ends here for the ultimate and definitive book presenting the complete, unedited Fender story. * Rare photos of Leo Fender on bonus disc * The largest collection of Fender historical photos, product shots, patent drawings, and advertising materials ever published

THE FENDER ARCHIVES

Welcome to The Fender Archives part history, part archive, part scrapbook, and part treasure chest. You are invited along on a research expedition, a sort of archeological dig through several sites: file folders in Fender's offices; the family archives of Don Randall; author/curator Richard Smith's collections; the photo galleries of John Peden and Fretted Americana; jammed metal cabinets in a sweltering warehouse near the Corona factory; and the home of the late Bob Perine in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, just blocks from the beach where he and Ned Jacoby took now-iconic photos of high school kids, surfboards, palm trees, and chrome-clad rocket-ship guitars in Shoreline Gold and Daphne Blue and Candy Apple Red. The Fender Archives looks at the company from the inside. Handwritten letters, production totals, personal logbooks, in-house memos, Leo Fender's drawing-board sketches, financial reports-such documents are freed here from long confinement in cardboard boxes and filing cabinets, dusted off, and promoted from background to spotlight. The Fender Archives sheds new light on the inspirations for revolutionary instruments and amplifiers, their sometimes difficult births and growing pains, the environment into which they were unleashed upon the world, and the motivations and personalities of key players.

FENDER THE INSIDE STORY

A behind-the-scenes account of the Fender Electric Instrument Company by its former general manager. White traces the company's entire history, from Leo Fender's beginnings as a radio repairman up to the eventual sale of Fender to CBS, and beyond. Includes stories about the development of the Telecaster, Precision Bass, and Stratocaster, as well as insights into Leo Fender's unique personality. It is packed with more than 100 historic photos and illustrations, instrument diagrams and specifications, and anecdotes about artists such as Merle Travis, Bob Wills, Speedy West, and Tex Ritter. 7-1/4″ x 9-1/4″

From the same "dream team" that created The Fender Stratocaster Chronicles ( Vintage Guitar magazine's 2004 Book of the Year) comes this new publication covering the other side of Fender's legacy, the instrument amplifier. Revered as much as one's guitar, the Fender amplifier gets its due in this full-color, richly illustrated book. Features over 400 images, including legendary guitarists such as Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Neil Young, Pete Townshend, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Muddy Waters, and Dick Dale, and two CDs featuring over 120 tracks that make terms and topics come alive.

The world's most famous guitar had a golden anniversary in 2004, and this official, authorized book/CD package offers the best photos, quotes, facts and sounds to properly celebrate this achievement. From Buddy Holly to Jimi Hendrix to today's hottest players, the Fender Stratocaster defines rock'n'roll for generations of fans and players. Special features include exclusive photos from the world's greatest guitar collection, as well as a CD with musical examples of famous Strat sounds and styles hilariously performed by Greg Koch even spoken excerpts from the author's interviews with the Strat's beloved inventor, Leo Fender. This book also recognizes that the Stratocaster's deeper significance lies in the music that guitarists have created with it. You'll hear what Strat players have to say about their instrument, their music and each other. The Fender Stratocaster both reflects and influences popular culture worldwide. The Stratocaster Chronicles focuses on the people who brought it into the world, the designers and builders who refined it, and the players who have taken it from there.

Fender’s Stratocaster is arguably the number-one instrument icon of the guitar world. When introduced in 1954, its offset space-age lines, contoured body, and three-pickup configuration set the music world on its ear—it was truly unlike any guitar that had come before. In the hands of the world’s most beloved players, the Stratocaster has since become a popular weapon of choice among rock, blues, jazz, and country players and, not coincidentally, is also one of the most copied electric guitars of all time.

In this authoritatively written, painstakingly curated, and gloriously presented tribute to the 60-year-old Fender Stratocaster, author Dave Hunter covers the guitar’s history from concept, design, and model launch through its numerous variations and right up to the present. The story is illustrated with archival images of Stratocasters and their players in action, studio shots of Stratocasters of varied vintage and provenance, memorabilia associated with famous players, and profiles of over 30 noted Strat slingers through the ages. Influential rock’n’ rollers like Buddy Holly, Hank Marvin, Ike Turner, and Dick Dale; blues players like Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robert Cray, Bonnie Raitt, and John Mayer; metal gods Richie Blackmore, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Dave Murray; esteemed rockers Jeff Beck, David Gilmour, Ronnie Wood, Robbie Robertson, Rory Gallagher, Mark Knopfler, and Wayne Kramer; and post-punk heroes The Edge, John Frusciante, and Billy Corgan are all included. And so, of course, is Jimi Hendrix. With its unprecedented level of detail and stunning visuals, The Fender Stratocaster is the only book tribute worthy of the world’s greatest guitar.

VIC DAPRA BURST BELIEVERS LES PAUL GUITAR BOOKS

Vic DaPra has authored many books and the Burst Believer Series is his best selling series on original late 1950s Gibson Les Paul Bursts. Vic is an amazing guy who works with the Gibson Custom Shop to develop Artist Series, Collector's Choice Series and other limited special model Les Paul runs for Gibson. Vic is a friend and you can watch our interview and read our article about Vic by clicking here. Vic is a good friend of Guitar Stories USA and one of the nicest and most knowledgable guys in the guitar business.

The original best seller by Vic DaPra.  Truly great and a must have for the Les Paul Burst lover in all of us.

THE BOX SET WITH BURST BELIEVERS I & II PLUS PLENTY OF BONUS MATERIALS

Tony Bacon Guitar Books

Author Tony Bacon has written many great guitar books from more of a historical perspective with must know facts about the great guitars and their often unknown stories from behind the scenes.

I love this little book. Small but a great comprehensive reference. A great mini sized general reference of the many types of guitars ever made. Very informative and portable!

Andy Babiuk Guitar Books

All guitarists love gear and especially the gear history of the greatest bands. Author Andy Babiuk is a great author of some of the best band gear history books ever written. Not only does Andy deal in rare vintage guitars and gear but he’s also a great musician and bassist. He’s currently in a band called “The Empty Hearts” with Elliot Easton (The Cars) and Clem Burke (Blondie). These are premium higher end books but the research and personal knowledge Andy puts into them makes them priceless.

THE BASS GUITAR BOOK

When it comes to books about guitars we can’t forget the Bassists and the incredible advancement in the 1950s that is the electric bass guitar. As a Bassist since 1976, I can tell you that I played upright Bass in Jazz bands and I hate them! When Fender came out with the modern electric bass guitar, it was a game changer.

Geddy Lee of the band RUSH is by any musician’s standard, one of the greatest Bassists to ever play the instrument. He has finally written a book about bass guitars and takes us deep into his huge personal collection of vintage, rare and amazing bass guitars.

If you are a Bassist or love one, this is a book they will cherish forever.

NON-AMAZON GUITAR BOOK ALTERNATIVE

For anyone who does not shop at Amazon, we offer great guitar books that include an additional shipping and handling charge. We understand not everyone shops on Amazon and are happy to offer online payment and ordering at our secure online store here on the Guitar Stories USA website. Just Message us if there’s something you would like that’s listed in our Amazon Store but not here at the moment.