The Music of the Grateful Dead Arranged for Fingerstyle Guitar

Pick up a guitar at a party and along with the usuals (everything between "Stairway to Heaven" and "Ghost Riders in the Sky") someone is bound to request a Grateful Dead tune. Buy this video, learn the riffs, and you'll have the crowd singing along in a memory lane haze of hemp and tie-dye in no time. Guitarist Fred Sokolow, himself from the San Francisco scene that spawned the Dead, is an accomplished player with the ability to create simple-to-play parts that don't sound exceedingly spare. This tape is a great choice for Dead fans who know their way around the fretboard a little, but would like to learn some of the tricks, such as how to play the extra beats in "Uncle John's Band" or the rock-and-roll turnarounds in "Alabama Getaway." Each song (including "Friend of the Devil," "Truckin'," "Touch of Grey" and others) is played through in regular time, followed by a note-by-note breakdown. With many of the Dead's tunes in an acoustic guitar-friendly nether land between bluegrass, folk and blues, this video is a welcome addition for gitter-plunkers with a Dead bent. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Block)