The Big Acoustic Guitar Chord Songbook Series

If you’re looking for acoustic guitar songs to play, then you can save a lot of time by getting one of the many guitar songbooks that are available. These typically contain lots of very popular songs that most people will recognise, from a variety of genres.

One of the best known and most successful collections of this type is The Big Acoustic Guitar Chord Songbook series, which started off as a single volume and has now evolved into a whole series, offering hundreds of great songs to play on acoustic guitar.

The books contain lyrics, original chords (with chord boxes showing you how to play the chords for each song), and supplementary playing guides which give more help with playing the songs.

Let’s take a more detailed look at the most popular different books within the Big Acoustic Guitar Chord Songbook collection.

This is the original book in the series, and was published back in 2000. It contains 192 pages and over 60 songs, ranging from classic rock from the 50s, 60s and 70s to modern day hits. The artists and songs covered include:

• Robbie Williams – Angels
• Abba – Fernando
• Bob Marley – No Woman No Cry
• Leonard Cohen – Sisters of Mercy
• The Jam – That’s Entertainment
• The Corrs – Runaway
• John Lennon – Imagine
• Elvis Presley – Love Me Tender
• Oasis – Wonderwall
• The Beatles – Here Comes The Sun

And many more (you can see the full table of contents at Amazon – see the link to the right)

This ‘Gold’ edition was published in 2001, and contains hit songs from the last quarter of the 20^th century. The emphasis is firmly on classic rock here, making it a great choice for those who love the hits of the 60s and 70s. Again, it has 192 pages, and a similar number of songs to the original book.

Among the artists and songs in this book are:

• The Mamas and The Papas – California Dreamin’
• Supertramp – Give A Little Bit
• The Rolling Stones – Not Fade Away
• Bob Dylan – Tangled Up In Blue
• The Kinks – Waterloo Sunset
• Nick Drake – Pink Moon
• Joni Mitchell – Both Sides, Now
• Simon & Garfunkel – America
• Gram Parsons – Hickory Wind
• Cat Stevens – Wild World

There is also a follow-up volume, called The Big Acoustic Guitar Chord Songbook Gold Part 2. This is similar to the first ‘Gold’ book, and contains another 70+ songs from the same era.

The Platinum Edition was published in 2001 and contains over 80 more modern songs arranged for acoustic guitar, including:

• Fairground Attraction – Perfect
• Coldplay – Yellow
• Cast – Walkaway
• Blur – This Is A Low
• Embrace – Fireworks
• The Levellers – Just The One
• Muse- Unintended
• Everything But The Girl – I Don’t Want To Talk
• The Divine Comedy – Songs Of Love

As with the ‘Gold’ Edition, there is a second Platinum volume, called The Big Acoustic Guitar Chord Songbook Platinum Edition 2. This contains over 70 songs from the 80s onwards from contemporary artists in many genres.

The Best Acoustic Guitar Chord Songbook is a huge volume, this time containing over 100 songs from the 60s to the present. There’s a very wide variety of artists and styles in here, making it a great choice for those with eclectic tastes, or who just want to broaden their musical horizons. The contents include:

• Sonny & Cher – I Got You Babe
• Suede – The Beautiful Ones
• Van Morrison – Brown Eyed Girl
• Oasis – Champagne Supernova
• The Police – Every Breath You Take
• David Bowie – Starman
• Cyndi Lauper – Time After Time
• The Beach Boys – Wouldn’t It Be Nice
• Eric Clapton – Wonderful Tonight

This is another large book, with over 200 pages and 100+ songs ranging from the classic rock era to the early 21^st century. The tracks in this book include:

• The La’s – There She Goes
• Natalie Imbruglia – Torn
• Bob Dylan – Forever Young
• George Michael – Faith
• The Jam – English Rose
• The Who – I’m Free
• The Cranberries – Linger
• David Gray – Babylon
• Donovan – Catch The Wind

This book also has a sequel, called The Great Acoustic Guitar Chord Songbook 2. This was published in 2004, and contains another bumper edition of acoustic guitar music.

The above titles all contain a mix of songs from various genres (although the ‘Gold’ books are focused on classic rock. If you’re looking for more specific types of music, there are also songbooks in this series that focus on particular styles and song types, such as love songs and country music.

This book of love songs with acoustic guitar chords was published in 2005, and contains a massive 256 pages with over 100 songs from the last few decades, including:

• U2 – All I Want Is You
• Elton John – Candle In The Wind
• Madonna – Frozen
• The Beach Boys – God Only Knows
• Danny Williams – MoonRiver
• Prince – The Most Beautiful Girl In the World
• Chris DeBurgh – Lady In Red
• The Bee Gees – Words
• The Righteous Brothers – Unchained Melody
• Frankie Goes To Hollywood – The Power Of Love

Country music fans are also well catered for with this series, as there are two books of country music songs: ‘Classic Country’ and ‘Alt.Country’. The first, as the name suggests, contains hits from the greatest names in traditional country music, including Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette and others. The Alt.Country book contains songs that are inspired by traditional country music, but which also incorporate elements of rock, folk, blues and other traditions.

Songs in The Big Acoustic Guitar Chord Songbook: Classic Country include:

• Willie Nelson – Always On My Mind
• Don Williams – I Recall A Gypsy Woman
• Kenny Rogers - Lucille
• Loretta Lynn – Coal Miner’s Daughter
• George Jones – The Door
• Glen Campbell – By The Time I Get To Phoenix
• Mary Chapin Carpenter – He Thinks He’ll Keep Her

Songs in The Big Acoustic Guitar Chord Songbook: Alt Country include:

• Jay Farrar – Barstow
• Billy Bob Thornton – Angelina
• Calexico – Crystal Frontier
• The Jayhawks – Bad Time
• Gram Parsons – A Song For You
• Hurt – Johnny Cash
• Grant Lee Buffalo – Mighty Joe Moon