Reviewed by Dave Massey

As Eric said to Ernie, "You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time" never was a truer word spoken. '40 Contemporary Hits' is an example of tight-rope walking par excellence, an attempt to provide transcriptions of CCM favourites that accurate to the recordings and yet playable by your average Muso. Included are gems like "Lead Me On" by Amy Grant, "Every Heart That Is Breaking" by Twila Paris, and "Miss The Way" by Michael W Smith. The piano arrangements as ever (with this - are good but sparse and will need beefing up. It's good to see here that Word haven't gone for the usual 'Tune in the right hand' approach - what you've got is a fairly tight accompaniment. Your average guitarist however is going to blow a gasket when regularly confronted with a chord like F6 add ("Every Heart" - Twila Paris) or D 2 (No 3) ("Above And Beyond" - Bruce Caroll) or G m7/4 ("Shepherd Boy" - Ray Bolz)...none of which are in any chord dictionary that I know, although they are of course valid and playable...you just need to be advanced enough to know how to work them out. Having said this though there is a strange lack of continuity in that on some songs (notably Amy Grant's), chord boxes put in an appearance with the chords simplified (D2 becomes D, C 9 Becomes C 7 etc.,) - no doubt because these had been published in notational form before. A chord dictionary at the back of this book would have been a welcome addition, or at least an explanation on how to form your own chords. For the less advanced muso this book will be a very frustating buy, the more advanced will find it a useful short-cut to playing some favourite tracks. I appreciate the difficulties in producing a book like this that will cover all bases, but a little more foresight would have added another two stars to my rating.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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