Did Johnny Smith actually write "The Complete Johnny Smith Approach to Guitar"?

[noober]

There's this interesting review about the book on Amazon. I searched and didn't see much else to justify it. Can anybody confirm or deny this? https://a.co/d/5ftCsC1

"Having interviewed Mr. Smith ten years ago, he told me he didn't write this book and his playing style had nothing to do with what is in this book [...] Staff guitarists at Mel Bay publishing wrote this book, [...] If you were ever fortunate enough to go to one of Mr. Smith's clinics, he would tell everyone in attendance this fact as well if they brought this book with them."

Regardless I've got the book on order and am looking forward to digging in!

[AllanAllen]

Different book I think. He has some older out of print books that he supposedly didn't completely write or didn't like the editors changes and the currently available spiral bound complete Johnny Smith book is his work.


....I think, it's been a while since I went on my Johnny Smith kick.

[ruger9]

We seem to have conflicting reports here....

[AllanAllen]

We seem to have conflicting reports here....

I could easily have them mixed up. I never got the book. The grant staff thing was too intimidating at the time.

[sgcim]

I could easily have them mixed up. I never got the book. The grant staff thing was too intimidating at the time.

He did believe the guitar should be written in two clefs, so I'd say it was "Aids To Technique". but who knows? The interview should clear it up.

[sgcim]

There's this interesting review about the book on Amazon. I searched and didn't see much else to justify it. Can anybody confirm or deny this? https://a.co/d/5ftCsC1

"Having interviewed Mr. Smith ten years ago, he told me he didn't write this book and his playing style had nothing to do with what is in this book [...] Staff guitarists at Mel Bay publishing wrote this book, [...] If you were ever fortunate enough to go to one of Mr. Smith's clinics, he would tell everyone in attendance this fact as well if they brought this book with them."

Regardless I've got the book on order and am looking forward to digging in!

It's not a good book. Other than the two clef idea, it doesn't have much of what that blurb promised.
Atch the interview, that clears most things up.

[noober]

There’s a lot of good other reviews on Amazon so figured I’d give it a shot. I really like the Johnny Smith exercise booklet now sold through Django books. The one-off review in the original post is the only place I’ve seen this anecdote that he didn’t write the book so am not yet convinced it’s totally accurate.

eBook: Johnny Smith Aids to Technique for Guitar: Intermediate and Advanced Studies - DjangoBooks.com

[deacon Mark]

Johnny said in an interview years ago in Guitar Player magazine he wrote the book. The only way he could do this was to get in his boat and put out trout lines and then sit in cabin and write. He believed in reading in actual pitch not up and octave. He was the sight reader of sight readers. Played the trumpet too when he was away from the guitar. But the best think is he really enjoyed fishing and flying airplanes more than playing the guitar.

So he did write the original Johnny Smith Approach to guitar. Between Tedesco, Mottola, and Johnny Smith exist probably the finest true sight readers on the guitar.

[noober]

Johnny said in an interview years ago in Guitar Player magazine he wrote the book.

Oh cool! I’ll have to dig up that interview.

He did say in the interview below that in “Aids to technique” there was a paragraph about picking from the elbow, and that the publishers misinterpreted his technique and that the paragraph in there was all wrong. He said he wished that paragraph was never published, that players should never pick from the elbow but just use it as a hinge to move across strings. Makes a lot of sense to me.

I wonder if the Amazon review commenter maybe got his story mixed up (and embellished) and JS was actually just talking about a single paragraph in a different book.

[sgcim]

Oh cool! I’ll have to dig up that interview.

He did say in the interview below that in “Aids to technique” there was a paragraph about picking from the elbow, and that the publishers misinterpreted his technique and that the paragraph in there was all wrong. He said he wished that paragraph was never published, that players should never pick from the elbow but just use it as a hinge to move across strings. Makes a lot of sense to me.

I wonder if the Amazon review commenter maybe got his story mixed up (and embellished) and JS was actually just talking about a single paragraph in a different book.

Yeah, that elbow picking thing was very controversial. It screwed up a lot of players (like me) that thought that was the way to sound like JS.
But it was carried on by certain players from Philly, like Dennis Sandole and his students. They wound up using a combination of elbow picking
, and mostly economy picking like Joe Sgro and Jimmy Bruno.

[Cunamara]

So, according to the official biography of Johnny Smith, by Lin Flanagan, Johnny did personally write the content for the Mel Bay two volume book. He did not write the "Aids to Technique" book that came out many years earlier (or did not write all of it; I'd have to go digging back through the biography to double check); trying to remember who did write it and I'm drawing a blank. I think part of what Johnny was miffed about was he never got any reimbursement for his name being used for the first book.

There was a similar story about the first George Van Eps book. Apparently he got wind that someone else was writing a book about his guitar style, and he hurried and wrote one up quickly to get published before the unauthorized book did. And, like Johnny Smith, years later, wrote a pretty comprehensive and massive book in three volumes.

There are valuable things in the earlier Johnny Smith book as well as the earlier George Van Eps book (Rob McKillop has a useful series of videos on YouTube demonstrating the Van Eps exercises); the later books are gold mines if you can sit and work through them. Johnny's three octave scales are definitely worth getting under your fingers, slightly different than the Segovia scales (they're designed for plectrum rather than finger style, so that makes sense).

[sgcim]

So, according to the official biography of Johnny Smith, by Lin Flanagan, Johnny did personally write the content for the Mel Bay two volume book. He did not write the "Aids to Technique" book that came out many years earlier (or did not write all of it; I'd have to go digging back through the biography to double check); trying to remember who did write it and I'm drawing a blank. I think part of what Johnny was miffed about was he never got any reimbursement for his name being used for the first book.

There was a similar story about the first George Van Eps book. Apparently he got wind that someone else was writing a book about his guitar style, and he hurried and wrote one up quickly to get published before the unauthorized book did. And, like Johnny Smith, years later, wrote a pretty comprehensive and massive book in three volumes.

There are valuable things in the earlier Johnny Smith book as well as the earlier George Van Eps book (Rob McKillop has a useful series of videos on YouTube demonstrating the Van Eps exercises); the later books are gold mines if you can sit and work through them. Johnny's three octave scales are definitely worth getting under your fingers, slightly different than the Segovia scales (they're designed for plectrum rather than finger style, so that makes sense).

I think he had different fingerings and position changes in each book for the 3 octave arps, and I learned both of them.
Lin Flanagan told us he was going to come out with another JS book that dealt with only technique, but I never heard of a release.

[ruger9]

But the best think is he really enjoyed fishing and flying airplanes more than playing the guitar.
.

I always found that incredible. Guitar wasn't even his first love yet he was THAT good. Amazing.

[jmgalich]

Yeah, that elbow picking thing was very controversial. It screwed up a lot of players (like me) that thought that was the way to sound like JS.

You can add me to that list.

John Galich

[Navdeep_Singh]

He wrote the book. he and my guitar teacher were old friends, and sent him a draft, at the time. My teacher’s critique was why he used the grand staff to denote the material, when, sadly, even most guitar TEACHERS can barely read the treble clef. He wasn’t opposed to it, of course, but noted that it would hurt sales.

I will always remember a guitar lesson interrupted by Mr. Smith’s phone call. He called to tell my teacher that his wife passed away. Man, that was heavy.