Peter Paul & Mary – Early Morning Rain (1966)

Hear Gordon Lightfoot singing Early Morning Rain.

Early Morning Rain Lyrics:

In the early morning rain, with a dollar in my hand
With an aching in my heart and my pockets full of sand
I’m a long way from home, and I miss my loved one so
In the early morning rain with no place to go

Out on runway number nine, big 707 set to go
But I’m stuck here on the ground where the cold winds blow
Well the liquor tasted good and the women were all fast
There she goes my friend, o she’s rolling now at last

Here the mighty engines roar, see the silver bird on high
She’s away and westward bound, high above the clouds she’ll fly
Where the early rain don’t fall and the sun always shines
She’ll be flying o’er my home in about three hours time

This old airport’s got me down, it’s no earthly use to me
Cause I’m stuck here on the ground, cold and drunk as I might be
You can’t jump a jet plane like you can a freight train
So I’d best be on my way in the early morning rain

Technorati Tags: Early Morning Rain, favorites, fingerpicking, fingerstyle guitar, folk, Gordon Lightfoot, lyrics, Peter Paul & Mary, songs, video

When you watch this, check out the guy over on the right (to Gordon’s left) that is doing some great fingerpicking.

More about Gordon Lightfoot (and his song, If I Could Read Your Mind).

Technorati Tags: Early Morning Rain, favorite songs, fingerpicking, Gordon Lightfoot, guitar

Gordon Lightfoot is a legend with his beautiful guitar playing and baritone singing voice. Many people are familiar with his song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, but that is not my favorite song he’s written. His over 40-year music career has earned him a place in music history, as well as many awards. He has inspired many other musicians with his music and songs – in fact, he helped influence the entire folk-pop genre and these artists: Jim Croce, Jimmy Buffett, Bob Dylan and Dan Fogelberg. This is one of the better sounding versions I could find at Youtube (most sound awful for some reason!)

This is a sad song about the breakup of his first marriage. I just think it is a great song that I can listen to over and over again. I wanted to post it here because he uses some nice fingerpicking on this tune.

Gordon Lightfoot — If You Could Read My Mind lyrics

©1969 by Gordon Lightfoot

If you could read my mind, love,
What a tale my thoughts could tell.
Just like an old time movie,
‘Bout a ghost from a wishing well.
In a castle dark or a fortress strong,
With chains upon my feet.
You know that ghost is me.
And I will never be set free
As long as I’m a ghost that you can’t see.
                                       
If I could read your mind, love,
What a tale your thoughts could tell.
Just like a paperback novel,
The kind the drugstores sell.
Then you reached the part where the heartaches come,
The hero would be me.
But heroes often fail,
And you won’t read that book again
Because the ending’s just too hard to take!
                                       
I’d walk away like a movie star
Who gets burned in a three way script.
Enter number two:
A movie queen to play the scene
Of bringing all the good things out in me.
But for now, love, let’s be real;
I never thought I could  feel this way
And I’ve got to say that I just don’t get it.
I don’t know where we went wrong,
But the feeling’s gone
And I just can’t get it back.
                                       
If you could read my mind, love,
What a tale my thoughts could tell.
Just like an old time movie,
‘Bout a ghost from a wishing well.
In a castle dark or a fortress strong.
With chains upon my feet.
But stories always end,
And if you read between the lines,
You’d know that I’m just tryin’ to understand
The feelin’s that you lack.
I never thought I could feel this way
And I’ve got to say that I just don’t get it.
I don’t know where we went wrong,
But the feelin’s gone
And I just can’t get it back!

This sounds even better if you want an audio only version:
If You Could Read My Mind

Also see Early Morning Rain by Gordon Lightfoot.

Technorati Tags: favorites, fingerpicking, Gordon Lightfoot, guitar, If You Could Read My Mind, lyrics, music, song

Learn awesome blues guitar tips and techniques straight from Music City USA, Nashville, Tennessee, where Steve Krenz is “da man” who can teach you to play the guitar or to play the blues. This is a step-by-step course that uses videos to teach you (in depth), starting from basic progressions to playing advanced blues solos. You can add some blues riffs to your repertoire and learn the chords and notes that form the basis of blues music. Basically – it’s AWESOME!

So, you ask: How can I start to master blues guitar? Well, this is the way to avoid many starts and stops and frustrations with finding content online. This set of DVDs is full of the examples for you to watch and listen to – and you will finally learn to be a blues guitarist. And you will be able to play like the pros. Here are the elements that get you there:

• 6 DVDs of over 8 hours of lessons and practical instruction
• Jam Along DVD & CD with over 20 songs in various styles for you to practice and learn
• In-depth interviews with legendary blues guitarists Jack Pearson & Johnny Hiland that will inform and inspire you
• Downloadable book & access to and exclusive online community forum
• On-screen music and key ideas that are easy to follow
• Thoroughly and simply demonstrated and explained essential blues guitar techniques

Learn to Play Blues Guitar Today!

Includes 7 DVDs – 6 Lesson DVDs,
1 Jam-Along and Interview DVD
plus Jam-Along CD & Downloadable Lesson Book

Disclosure: I do not accept advertising and the opinions expressed here are my own. I am not paid to write reviews or to give opinions. I will be compensated if you purchase a product described here through one of the website links, but I will in no way allow that to impact my reviews.

Technorati Tags: blues, Blues Guitar, dvd, guitar lessons, home, instruction, Learn and Master, learn guitar, lessons, play guitar, review, spotlight, techniques, tips, videos

Griff Hamlin’s latest package, Playing Through The Blues – A Guide For The Lead Guitar Player. There just are not enough blues guitar lessons to choose from and this product has me quite excited because it is so different from anything I have seen in a long time. That is why I have taken the time write this blog post about it.

Learning the blues can be a frustrating task. It seems so simple, but only a handful of people seem to know the tricks to really pull off the great blues guitar sounds. Griff and his team have put together what I believe is a really
thorough, step-by-step method that has actually been tested and proven on his own guitar students over the past several years.

The main book provides all of the scales, techniques, theory, and tricks that you’ll need. It follows a simple and logical progression. Each chapter builds on the one before it. At the end of each chapter, you’ll be told exactly what you need to be able to do before moving on to the next chapter. You can’t fail with this.

The best part, however, is the audio examples and jam tracks. Every audio example comes with a full speed and slow speed version, so you can play along easily at first, and pick up the pace as you get better.

There’s also 4 complete solos that really sound like they are from your favorite blues songs. You could memorize them and totally use them at your next blues jam or gig. They demonstrate all of the techniques throughout the book, and give a very good “real world” example of the techniques and approach.

Also, there are 6 jam tracks that come with the package, so once you get going you can just play along with the band. And the tracks are really good
quality, just like you’re jamming with a real band. It’s a lot of fun.

As a bonus Griff has included an excellent book full of turnaround and ending licks. Some of them are pretty straight forward blues, but a couple of them are real head-turners.

As you can tell, I’m really impressed with this package as a whole. The testimonials on the website prove that I’m not alone. This is a very well thought out, tested, and put together system.

Don’t just take my word for it though, take a look for yourself at: Playing through the Blues. This course only costs $47 and it is well worth it! Plus, you are going to get lifetime updates as a member. Also, if you decide to try this course and are not completely satisfied with this system within 8 weeks, I you can get your money back, no questions asked.

Disclosure: We do not accept advertising and the opinions expressed here are our own. We are not paid to write our reviews or to give our opinions. We will be compensated if you purchase a product described here through one of our links, but we in no way allow that to impact our reviews.

Technorati Tags: blues lessons, Griff Hamlin, guitar lessons, online, playing blues guitar, technique, through the blues, tricks

This is just too good not to add – Youtube video of Cat singing Moonshadow. Nice combination of fingerpicking and strumming in a song, too.

Moonshadow – by Cat Stevens

D                                                    A7     D
Oh, I’m bein’ followed by a moonshadow,

G                              A7    D        
moon shadow, moonshadow

D                                              A7       D
Leapin and hoppin’ on a moonshadow,

G                            A7     D
moonshadow, moonshadow

G     D   G    D         G
And if I ever lose my hands,

D       G           Em       A7
lose my plough, lose my land,

G     D   G    D         G
Oh if I ever lose my hands, 

    Em A7 D F#m Bm  
Oh if————-

Em                  A         D
I won’t have to work no more.

And if I ever lose my eyes,
if my colours all run dry,
Yes if I ever lose my eyes,
oh if….
I wont have to cry no more.

And if I ever lose my legs,
I wont moan, and I wont beg,
Yes if I ever lose my legs,
oh if…. I wont have to walk no more.
And if I ever lose my mouth,
all my teeth, north and south,
Yes if I ever lose my mouth,
oh if….
I wont have to talk…

Did it take long to find me?
I asked the faithful light.
Did it take long to find me?
and are you gonna stay the night?

I just want to point out that by posting music by Cat Stevens, A.K.A. Yusuf Islam (and his birthname is Steven Georgiou), I am not making a political statement. What he believes is not something I wish to comment on – this blog is about love and peace, so don’t come in and post nasty comments (which i have seen where his music is posted). Let’s just enjoy the music, ok?

Technorati Tags: Cat Stevens, chords, favorites, fingerpicking, guitar, lyrics, moonshadow, Yusuf Islam

Suzanne Lyrics and chords:

G
Suzanne takes you down
To her place by the river,
Am
You can hear the boats go by,
You can spend the night beside her,
G
And you know that she’s half crazy,
And that’s why you want to be there;
Bm
And she feeds you tea and oranges
C
That come all the way from China;
G
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her,
Am
She gets you on her wave-length
And lets the river answer
G
That you’ve always been her lover.

Chorus:
Bm
And you want to travel with her,
C
And you want to travel blind,
G
And you know that you can trust her,
Am
For you’ve touched her perfect body
G            Am
With your mind.

And Jesus was a sailor
When He walked upon the water,
And he spent a long time watching
From a lonely wooden tower,
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see Him,
He said, “All men shall be brothers, then,
Until the sea shall free them,”
But He himself was broken
Long before the sky would open,
Forsaken, almost human,
He sank beneath your wisdom
Like a stone.

Chorus:
And you want to travel with Him,
And you want to travel blind,
And you think you maybe trust Him,
For He’s touched your perfect body
With His mind.

Suzanne takes you down
To her place by the river,
You can hear the boats go by,
You can spend the night forever,
And the sun pours down like honey,
On our lady of the harbour;
And she shows you where to look
Amid the garbage and the flowers.
There are heroes in the seaweed,
There are children in the morning,
They are leaning out for love,
And they will lean that way forever,
While Suzanne holds the mirror.

Chorus (with Judy Collins’ variation on the lyrics):
And you want to travel with her,
And you want to travel blind,
And you think maybe you’ll trust her,
For she’s touched your perfect body
With her mind.

There don’t seem to be many online videos of Judy Collins singing this. I found one of the best recordings on a little known site: Wolfgang’s Vault. I really like this site for hard to find music – their focus is on rock ‘n roll memorabilia and concerts. Here the audio of a live 1973 concert (Masonic Auditorium, San Francisco, CA) with Judy Collins singing Suzanne while playing guitar.

Legendary concert performances available for download at Wolfgang’s Vault

Technorati Tags: audio, Guitar Fingerpicking, Judy Collins, Leonard Cohen, live concert, recording, song, songs, Suzanne

One is Elizabeth Cotten – see her play in this video where she is 92 years old playing her most famous song Freight Train. (Sometimes her name is misspelled as Cotton.)

She wrote that song when she was 12 after she taught herself to play the guitar. You can’t really see it in the video, but she is left-handed but playing a right-handed guitar upside down. That is one amazing woman!

Another blues or folk pioneer was Etta Baker. Here she is in an interview with David Holt.

Etta’s music is called Piedmont blues. She also played guitar into her 90s!

I hope enjoy watching these ladies play as much as I do!

Technorati Tags: Acoustic Guitar Fingerpicking, blues, Elizabeth Cotten, Etta Baker, folk, Freight Train, Guitar Fingerpicking, Railroad Bill, songs, video

I learned to play the guitar from a folk musician and I guess it kind of stuck with my through my life. I even like bluegrass music and any country tunes that sound more like folk songs.

What is it about the music from this genre that I like so much?

Well, I like the ballads that tell a story – the sadder the better it seems. I like the funny old folk songs too, such as Four Nights Drunk. Some songs that I at first thought were funny turned out upon closer study to be really quite sad. One of those is the song about Rye Whiskey. When I was a kid, and I heard that part about “If  the ocean was whiskey and I was a duck, I’d dive to the bottom and never come up” I thought it was funny. I had to get a bit older to realize that was about committing suicide and now that song is too sad for me to listen too.

So, Folk music has the appeal of being about real people and real situations. I suppose they were the soap opera’s or dramas of their day (way before radio or television). I like their simplicity – they can easily be played well by one person with their guitar – no large band is needed to make a song sound good. And I like the way most of this music can be played with fingerpicking. Either arpeggios or a plucking pattern work well for most of them.

I’ll have to look up more of my favorites and post more about those. Also I will post about favorite songs for fingerpicking!

Technorati Tags: favorites, fingerpicking, fingerstyle, folk musicians, guitar, music, songs

Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking.

The article goes on to explain that fingerpicking is a kind of fingerstyle guitar method that is also called thumb picking, alternating bass, or pattern picking.

I really did not know there was such a distinction, and really I just love the kind of guitar music that uses this kind of fingerpicking, especially the pattern picking.

Some examples of my favorite music (I particularly love folk music) are the songs by Peter, Paul, and Mary. The country music songs I tend to like  use this style of guitar playing, too (even if country music isn’t my most favorite genre).

Another genre of music that has fingerstyle or fingerpicking in many songs is the blues. With blues on guitar, a finger picking style can imitate the way the song sounds on the piano.

I learned to play guitar when I was 10 years old, and it wasn’t long after playing my first songs that my teacher started to show me how to finger pick. Wow, it just seemed to work for me, so I don’t approach it as scientifically as I have seen some people explaining it. I basically learned a standard pattern that worked for certain songs. But now I improvise quite a bit and make up my own patterns, depending on what song I am playing.

Technorati Tags: Acoustic Fingerstyle Guitar, blues, country, fingerpicking, folk, pick, playing