So Its Sunday night, I’m watching Curb Your Enthusiasm (great show) after a hard days work at Drexel (actually its Sunday, so today was pretty chill) and I pick up my guitar. I thought Id relax a little and write about what ive been up to on guitar. A song that I have been playing these days is the Grateful Dead tune “Friend of the Devil” from the album American Beauty. The music was written by Jerry Garcia and John Dawson, and the lyrics were written by Robert Hunter.
The song is entirely acoustic and has three separate guitar parts. At its most basic, it is a descending G major scale (G F# E D C B A G) base part accompanied by arpaggiated chords. The other two guitars jam over that progression, creating a very deep sounding acoustic folk/country sounding tune.
Along with other Grateful Dead classics such as Truckin’, Ripple, Sugar Magnolia, and Box of Rain, American Beauty is considered by many, including me, to be the best studio album created by the band. The mostly acoustic album is strikingly beautiful at times. Robert Hunters lyrics, Jerry’s singing, and the rest of the bands playing really come alive
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