Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The Rough Guide to World Music was published for the first time in 1994 and became the definitive reference. Six years on, the subject has become too big for one book- hence this new two-volume edition. World Music 2- Latin and North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific has full coverage of everything from salsa and merengue to qawwali and gamelan, and biographies of artists from Juan Luis Guerra to The Klezmatics to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Features include more than 80 articles from expert contributors, focusing on the popular and roots music to be seen and heard, both live and on disc, and extensive discographies for each country, with biography-notes on nearly 2000 musicians and reviews of their best available CDs. It includes photos and album cover illustrations which have been gathered from contemporary and archive sources, many of them unique to this book, and directories of World Music labels, specialist stores around the world and on the internet.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

These eye-popping volumes, which omit the glossaries but otherwise update and expand to twice the size the marvelous single-volume 1994 edition (LJ 1/95), give general audiences over 160 articles on pop, folk, and non-Western classical musical traditions from nearly every country in the world and many borderless ethnic groups or national musical subdivisions. (Jazz and much of U.S. commercially popular music are not included.) The articles, written in British English by more than 100 contributors and delivered with opinionated snap and multicultural spice, provide historical background, cultural context, interviews with musicians, quotations from lyrics, discographies (including CDs, some highlighted for "first purchase"; cassette tapes; and a few vinyl discs), and black-and-white photos of selected musicians. Each volume includes information on contributors (a mix of scholars, journalists, producers, and fans), a directory of record labels and shops, ads for recordings and magazines, and many references to web sites. Highly recommended for public libraries and for any music library as a guide to recorded sound collection building.ÄBonnie Jo Dopp, Univ. of Maryland Libs., College Park (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Fans of Buena Vista Social Club, among others, should appreciate this guide, a companion to the volume that was published in 1999 and covers Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Mark Ellingham founded Rough Guides in 1982 and has created many of the series new ventures over the years, including The Rough Guide to the Internet , The Rough Guide to World Music , and, only a little ashamedly, The Rough Guide to the Da Vinci Code.