The 80s were a great period for rock music and I do remember the good old 1984 (or was it 1985) when I first heard “The Summer of 69” on the radio. I really liked the guitar sound in this one and especially the opening guitar riff, which was really catchy. Bryan’s voice sounded awesome as well. In fact, I have always liked the light natural hoarseness in his voice. It is really a gift that made him and still makes him stand out from the other singers. The song also had some really nice backing vocals and beautiful nostalgic lyrics, although at that time Bryan was claiming that the song is about sex, but I knew all the time that this was just a marketing move and about 25 years later he finally admitted that officially on the “In The Studio” radio show.
So, after I heard Summer of 69 on the radio for several times, I saw the video airing on MTV and I was pretty impressed by its quality and the wide variety of filming scenes. But it wasn’t only me – the video got nominated for Best Male Video for the MTV Music Awards later in that year and I still believe it remains one of the classic 80s rock videos up to this day. That’s not a big surprise though taking into account the fact that it was filmed by renowned Irish director Steve Barron – that’s the guy standing behind the production of music videos like Dire Straits’ Money For Nothing, Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean and A-Ha’s Take on Me to name a few – some of the best videos from that period.
When I picked up the guitar a few years later, I immediately wanted to learn how to play Summer of 69 and although I wasn’t a great guitar player at all, it turned out that this fantastic tune was not only extremely fun to play, but also one of the easy guitar songs that a beginner will benefit from learning. I repeatedly practiced the opening lick and tried to copy Keith Scott’s guitar sound. It is a bit of a challenge for a beginner to master this guitar lick at first using Scott’s sound, because it is lacking the gain a beginner is used to count on. With the gain lowered, you have to press harder with your hands and that was really tiring for me at first, but after several months I managed to master it and I was really happy from the fact that I have learned one of my all time favorite guitar songs from my teenage years.
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Each Song Includes Step By Step Videos For Lead & Rhythm Guitar
Learn to play this complete song and Jam with our live band. You can choose to learn and play either the Rhythm Guitar or Lead Guitar and Jam with us. Each song has separate step by step tuition videos to take you through every single part of the song.
Plus all our songs have accompanying downloads for full Song Structure, Chord Diagrams and Tab for lead solos. And all the teaching and Jam session videos can either be viewed online, or downloaded to your PC.
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Tags: Andy Partridge, BandJammer, Bryan Adams, Guitar Songs, Learn Guitar, Summer Of 69
May 9, 2012 at 7:41 am 
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