A Treasury of Favorite Show Tunes - and More for Piano and Guitar

It's a great songbook for someone like me who cannot play piano very well. I knew almost all the songs, which is not very often true with other books. I also like the spiral binding so the book stays open on my keyboard. A good buy.

I was looking for a book of old songs that residents in a nursing home would enjoy. This book has a lot of the old songs that they remember and has been a great enjoyment for them. I have enjoyed the songs as well.

I bought this book for my 89 yr. old piano playing mother. She plays in her park twice weekly for their meetings, etc. and the park only had 1 songbook. She complained that there were no music stores nearby for her to get anymore books. So, I have been trying to increase her collection based on what people ask her for. This time it was some "Cowboy songs" and this book fit the bill very well. It arrived just in time for her coffee hour performance and she was very pleased with the selection of songs. Believe me, she is a harsh critic and would have told me if it was "crap"!! Thank goodness for the store as we are on different coasts!

I purchased this for an older friend of mine who resides in a nursing home. Because of a stroke, she cannot speak clearly and it is very difficult to visit her because conversations are nearly impossible. However, she can still sing fairly well. The day I gave it to her, she turned to the first page and we started singing every song we recognized. (I still don't know how I know some of these songs, especially the older ones. She's 82 and I'm 53.) An hour and a half later, we had sung every verse of 90% of the songs in the book. I highly recommend it to anyone who knows someone who likes to sing. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because the cover is rather flimsy paper, which I did not expect. I covered it in clear contact paper before I gave it to her to try to protect it from potential damage in the nursing home.

Great collection of sing along songs across generations. Couldn't believe how many songs were included! Love that it is spiral bound. Arrangements are easy-intermediate but are pleasant and accurate. Would definitely recommend!

I purchased this songbook so that I could play the guitar and have sing-a-longs at the nursing home where I work.
Great selection of songs and love the spiral binding. Perfect and just what I was searching for!

I have about 20 of these books now and have gotten them for friends and students. As a voice teacher I am always on the lookout for easy, fun songs to sing. I have discovered that our traditional American songs are not taught in schools anymore; this book has them most of them. This is a great book for them and for my non-American students who want to learn them.

Also, I'm a big proponent of group singing; I throw parties where much group singing is done. I have used these books at family functions, adult parties, etc., and everyone has a wonderful time. Even the "non-singers" join in and rediscover the joy of singing.

The accompaniments are very simple and good for beginners. Chords are given so that improvisation is possible if desired.

I highly recommend this book.

I purchased this book to expand my collection of traditional popular music and it doesn't disappoint in its great diversity. The accompanying historical information about each song enriches the cultural experience while the illustrations add a nice finishing touch to the book. Speaking of nice finishing touches, the lay flat binding is awesome; I wish every music book had this format!

Be aware that the arrangements may not be challenging enough for the more advanced musician. Nonetheless, I believe this book is well suited for pianists of all levels and ages: beginners will improve their sight reading and playing skills, intermediate players will find some nice harmonic gems, particularly in the show tunes section. Finally, advanced players can benefit by using it as a fun improvisation and re-harmonization practice tool.

Enjoy!

I love the book... lots of great, easy to play and sing songs! I almost gave it a four star rating because the cover is not real sturdy. But even at that, I would highly recommend purchasing it, because the price was right!!! It's a wonderful book of oldies but goodies!!! It would be well worth it even at a higher price.

I rented it from the library and liked it so much I've decided to buy it. I wish I could dock it 1/4 star - as an amateur pianist, the lack of fingering impedes my progress but the quality of the scores certainly make up for it.

This is a wonderful, varied collection of more than 150 familiar songs. The piano accompaniments are full-sounding and interesting, but easy to sight-read, and almost all are printed on a single double-page spread (so you don't have to deal with page-turning while playing). I use them for sing-a-longs at nursing homes, where they're very popular and make me sound much more expert than I really am. Some of the songs also work for plain piano music during meals there. I've recently bought a second copy for my son and grandchildren to have in their home. I heartily recommend the book.

Great collection of songs, organized by topic. There are lots of recognizable tunes and a few I didn't know. My only complaint is that the piano accompaniment is much easier to play than the guitar accompaniment. I don't have a piano at home, just a guitar!

I am disappointed in this collection. I bought it to play at a senior center, based in other reviews. The repertoire is mostly good for this purpose, containing familiar sing- along favorites, but the arrangements are so simple they are not interesting, and are pitched much too high. These are arrangements I would come up with myself using basic I, IV, V chords.

This is an interesting collection of songs, but it could have been a lot more comprehensive. There are plenty of songs in the public domain that are available, and it would have been nice to see them here.

The inside is nicely illustrated (my 3-year old loves it), and I like the way the songs are grouped. A lot of the songs are unknown to us, in particular some of the old show tunes. It would have been better with more songs and fewer illustrations.

The pages of the book are spiral bound, and the thick one-piece cardstock cover is hooked into the spiral rings on the back, so that the cover wraps arourd the spiral rings and convers them. This allows the book to lay flat and the publisher can print on the spine and it looks like a normal book on the shelf. However, the result of the design is that the spine and cover is not firmly fixed to the book and it's VERY easy for the spine and corners to get bent up. We returned the first book because of the damage and we'll return the second book too.

The packaging was better the second time, and the damage was such that I suspect the book was already damaged prior to shipping. If the book was for me I might keep it, but since it's a gift I'm probably going to return it.

It might be fine for folks that are not as picky and careful with thier stuff as wee are, but we take such good care of our books that even paperbacks look new after having been read two or three times.

I haven't seen this book of sheet music, so I can't evaluate it--that's why I'm giving 3 stars--but here is its table of contents, thanks to the library at stonybrook.edu.

Table of Contents:
American patriotic songs. Battle hymn of the republic ;The caisson song (The caissons go rolling along) ;The star-spangled banner ;Dixie ;America, the beautiful ;Yankee Doodle ;When Johnny comes marching home ;Anchors aweigh ;You're a grand old flag ;Over there ;Marines' hymn ;This land is your land ;America (My country 'tis of thee)

Western, cowboy, & hoedown songs. Red River Valley ;Buffalo gals ;The farmer is the man ;Git along little dogies ;The old Chisholm trail ;Home on the range ;Oh! Susanna ;Sweet Betsy from Pike ;She'll be comin' round the mountain ;Clementine ;Turkey in the straw ;Jesse James

Children's songs. Hush little baby ;Twinkle, twinkle, little star ;The wheels on the bus ;This old man ;Old MacDonald ;Eency weency spider ;B-I-N-G-O ;All the pretty little horses ;If you're happy and you know it ;The noble Duke of York ;Skip to my Lou ;Brahms's lullaby

Blues, jazz, & ragtime. Careless love ;Alexander's ragtime band ;House of the rising sun ;Bill Bailey ;Frankie and Johnny ;St. Louis blues ;Pretty baby ;Swanee ;Put your arms around me, honey ;Lonesome road

Film & show tunes. Meet me in St. Louis; Give my regards to Broadway ;The aba daba honeymoon ;Ain't we got fun ;Look for the silver lining ;Alice blue gown ;I'm just wild about Harry ;For me and my gal ;As time goes by ;When Irish eyes are smiling ;You made me love you

Barbershop & sing-along songs. After the ball ;A bicycle built for two (Daisy Bell) ;The band played on ;By the light of the silvery moon ;Carry me back to old Virginny ;Paper doll ;Moonlight Bay ;In the good old summertime ;My bonnie lies over the ocean ;Down by the old mill stream ;Sweet Adeline ;When you were sweet sixteen ;Take me out to the ball game ;It ain't gonna rain no mo'

Hymns, gospel songs, & spirituals. Jacob's ladder ;Amazing grace ;He's got the whole world in his hands ;Nobody knows the trouble I see ;All my trials ;Simple gifts ;Swing low, sweet chariot ;Shall we gather at the river ;Joshua fit the battle ;This little light of mine ;When the saints go marching in ;Gimme that old time religion ;Rock of ages

Christmas & other holiday songs. The first Noël ;Adeste fideles ;Silent night ;Deck the hall ;Joy to the world ;We three kings ;Jingle bells ;God rest ye merry, gentlemen ;The twelve days of Christmas ;We gather together ;O little town of Bethlehem ;The dreidel song

American folk songs. Aura Lea ;Shortnin' bread ;The blue-tail fly (Jimmie crack corn) ;Shenandoah ;Buttermilk Hill ;I've been working on the railroad ;Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah ;On top of Old Smoky ;Down in the valley ;Poor wayfaring stranger ;Camptown races ;Old folks at home (Way down upon the Swanee River) ;Erie Canal ;Banks of the Ohio ;The yellow rose of Texas ;If I had a hammer (The hammer song) ;Tom Dooley ;Goodnight, Irene ;Oh, them golden slippers! ;The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald ;Bottle of wine ;Blowin' in the wind

International folk songs. Ach! du lieber Augustin ;Black is the color ;Cockles and mussels (Molly Malone) ;All through the night ;Alouette ;Mary Anne ;Blow the man down ;Auld lang syne ;Greensleeves ;Danny Boy ;La cucharacha ;Hava nagilah ;Loch Lomond ;I know where I'm going ;Drunken sailor ;Scarborough Fair ;The John B. sails ;Those were the days ;Michael, row the boat ashore ;Kum ba ya ;Barbara Allen.

This was even nicer than I expected. It's great for intermediate level players. The arrangements are beautiful and just challenging enough to sound nice without being too difficult. There's a great variety of songs, and I love how it's divided into different chapters for each category.

I purchased this book to play the songs with a guitar and I am very disappointed by the over simplified chords. Every song has the same 2-3 chords, it is too basic, I want to actually play more than 2-3 chords per song. This will be a dust collector for me. Yes, the book is visually nice and good quality but it will just collect dust... It would be nice if there were chord diagrams somewhere on the page for quick reference.

This is a great songbook, except for one significant flaw. In the "American Patriotic Songs" section, it inexplicably includes "Dixie." I was shocked. This is a song closely associated with the single most destructive, anti-American movement in our history: the Confederacy. To include "Dixie" is an insult to Lincoln and the Union soldiers who fought so long and hard to defeat the treasonous movement that it represents. I understand that many people enjoy the song as a paean to Southern heritage. Fine. But "Dixie" is most certainly not an "American Patriotic Song." Even Ole Miss has banned it from its football games, so I'm not sure how these authors saw fit to put it in alongside the "Star Spangled Banner" and "America the Beautiful."