Best Bluegrass Fake Book

[Chip Stewart]

I'm thinking about starting to attend a monthly Bluegrass jam, and I'm trying to decide which Bluegrass fake book I should buy. Anyone have any suggestions?

[Gan Ainm]

Matt Flinners is a great mix of songs and tunes. He emphasizes it's a "Real Book". Hal Leonard Pub.
It's good start. Have fun.

[John Flynn]

I would attend a few jams first and see what they're playing. I have been to jams advertised as bluegrass and they often turn out to be country music jams with some bluegrass and old-time thrown in. Also, just about every regular jam of any kind I've been to there is someone there who keeps a list of the standard tunes they do and is willing to share it. The lists are never perfect, but they usually cover about 80% of what gets called.

In the Internet Age, I don't see as much use for fakebooks anyway. Just about every bluegrass, old-time and country standard is available online. If you get TablEdit or TefView you can get most of the instrumental stuff on Mandozine.

[UsuallyPickin]

The Flinner Real Book is excellent. And the suggestion of going to the jam and listening to what is played and what keys are being used will guide you in which book to purchase. R/

[EdSherry]

Jack Tuttle (who teaches at Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto CA) has a couple of good BG fakebooks as well, one entitled the "Really Good Book of Standard Bluegrass Lyrics," the other entitled the "Equally Good Book of Standard Bluegrass Lyrics." $25/each from Jack (NFI). I got them before the Flinner book (which I think is fine) came out. Also Pete Wernick's "Bluegrass Songbook," which has been around a while, but is still useful.