Topic summary
Fake book
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Lead sheet.
History
The first two volumes, Fake Book Volume 1 and Fake Book Volume 2, issued in the late 1940s and 1950s, together comprised about 2000 songs dating from the turn of the 20th century through the late 1950s. In the 1950s the Modern Jazz Fake Book, Volumes 1 and 2 was issued, and Fake Book Volume 3, containing about 500 songs, came out in 1961. The music in Fake Books 1, 2, and 3 was photocopied or reset with a musical typewriter from the melody lines of the original sheet music. Usually chord symbols, titles, composer names, and lyrics were typewritten, but for a number of songs these were all photocopied along with the melody line.