AS VOTED BY TOTAL GUITAR READERS
Back in June, TG posted a poll on guitarworld.com to find out your views on the greatest acoustic guitar songs of all time. There are, of course, so many to choose from, and our shortlist of 120 landmark tracks covered early blues, folk and rock ’n’ roll classics to modern pop hits and rock epics. There was just one simple rule for inclusion: in every song, the acoustic guitar should be a significant feature. With a massive 75,000+ public votes cast, here we present a rundown of the Top 50 Acoustic Guitar Songs as chosen by you. We start by listing the tracks from number 50 to 21, before going into more depth with the songs that received more votes. As we get into the top 10, we provide lessons on the key techniques employed by those icons of guitar – and hopefully you’ll be feeling inspired to try out a few ideas for yourself.
38 Classical Gas
Why’s this song in a boxout? Well, truth be told, and we hold our hands up here – we forgot about it! But this much loved nylon-string classic still received enough public votes, unprompted by us, to catapult it into our Top 50. A Mason Williams signature tune on which he delivers pure fire on a Cordova classical guitar, Classical Gas is a seminal guitar piece that was released just as the tastes of popular music were being shaped by the holy trinity of 60s free love, LSD and – what else? – Baroque chamber pieces! It has been re-recorded, reworked, covered by everyone, most notably the great Tommy Emmanuel. Even so, the original still sounds fresh, transcendent, a time-capsule. That owes something to its structure, the tricks Williams plays with meter, and the exemplary production/ arrangement from Mike Post. It’s effectively a sonata, with the intro establishing a melod
