Perhaps most importantly, the book had a well laid-out center section thoroughly covering musical theory as it applied to the guitarist. It began with how to tune the instrument, how finger simple first position open string chords, how to convert those chords into barre chords that could be played in any position on the neck, and how to adopt those chords to altered, extended, suspended and diminished chords. Sections on harmonic and modal theory, lead playing and improvising, and a brief section on open tuning followed.

Of course, as good as a book like The Guitar Handbook is (and it's been brought up to date in 1994, as Denyer has updated some of his gallery of greats, and brought some of the technology mentioned in the book into the 1990s), it can only give an overview of each aspect of the guitar. It's a wonderful introduction, not a panacea.

8. The Guitar Player Book: The quote at the start of this article by Les Paul came from The Guitar Player Book, a 1983 collection of interviews from (you guessed it!) Guitar Player magazine. They're a treasure trove of advice from many talented musicians, a few of which are absolute masters of their instrument. And the appendix contains terrific information for anyone shopping for his first electric or acoustic guitar, or bass, as well as how to maintain it. (More on that, in a moment.)

7. Making Music: Back in the mid-1980s, when I was first learning how to write and record my own songs, this was one of the most helpful books, edited by George Martin, with contributions primarily from a host of British musicians. Also published in 1983; its content was wider than it was deep, it had three to six pages on a huge variety of topics: seemingly every instrument used in popular music, songwriting, arranging, and producing - both from Abbey Road Studios, and in the budding teenage musician's bedroom. (It came in handy when visiting a friend of mine a couple of years ago, who had just bought a mandolin, but didn't know how it was tuned. I pointed to his bookshelf and said, "Just open up Making Music; it lists the tuning." And sure enough, it did.)

Like the original version of Rock Hardware, the one area where Making Music now seems hopelessly out-of-date is in the technology, but there are still a wealth of solid tips and ideas here, particularly for the beginner.

6. The Beatles Recording Sessions: Speaking of rule-breaking — and George Martin — The Beatles and Martin broke 'em all in the 1960s, turning EMI's staid Abbey Road Studio into a musical laboratory of the first order. Using Abbey Road's session archives, Marc Lewisohn's book, originally published in 1988, chronologically documents every trip the Beatles made to the recording studio (and not just Abbey Road, although that was their primary HQ, of course), from their first singles, to the last overdubs on Let It Be. Along the way, you'll witness the creative talents of the Beatles, Martin, and his engineers blossom, as a basic four-piece rock and roll combo becomes the most talented group of musicians in rock. You'll also see how the very basic recording technology of the 1960s was taken to its absolute zenith, as the Beatles and Martin constantly went in search of new sounds.