The elegant guitar style of Joan Baez
Although Joan Baez is best known as an extraordinary singer and a committed activist, there’s another side of Baez’s musical legacy that has been a quieter but still deep influence: her guitar style. A skilled and precise fingerstyle player who helped bring parlor guitars into the spotlight, Baez modeled an approach to accompaniment that was—in keeping with her music—not flashy, but effective, elegant, and complete-sounding with no other instruments. Like her singing, Baez’s guitar style is all about clarity.
This lesson takes a closer look at the guitar side of Baez, through a series of examples inspired by standout songs in her repertoire, from her 1960 debut to her Grammy-nominated 2018 release, Whistle Down the Wind. The lesson covers the guitar accompaniment used in:
Mary Hamilton
House of the Rising Sun
Oh, Freedom
The Lily of the West
Forever Young
Diamonds and Rust
Whistle down the Wind
Listen to the original versions in this Spotify playlist, and watch the lesson video above.
Find the complete lesson and tab:
In the May/June 2019 print/digital issue of Acoustic Guitar.
Online (Patreon members only).
In the book Play Guitar Like the Great Singer-Songwriters.
Play Guitar Like the Great Singer-Songwriters
In-depth lessons on the guitar styles of Joni Mitchell, Bruce Cockburn, John Prine, Richard Thompson, Bob Dylan, John Denver, Joan Armatrading, Nick Drake, Willie Nelson, Paul Simon, Lucinda Williams, Bill Withers, Joan Baez, and Neil Young.
