Essential James Taylor

Lessons

• Lesson 1: Soldiers by James Taylor - Guitar Lesson

  Soldiers is a very short song from James Taylor’s 1971 album Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon, which also included You’ve Got A Friend.
  
  The tune is in 3/4 time and is mostly strummed in a basic style similar to what he does in Sweet Baby James, but includes a couple of the classic fills he uses on A chords in particular. This is a great starting point for his songs.

• Lesson 2: Fire and Rain

  Fire and Rain was James Taylor's break through song from his 1970 album Sweet Baby James. It featured his distinctive fingerpicking style, which is very challenging for intermediate, and even advanced intermediate players. This lesson breaks down the way he plays the verses and choruses, although he varies it quite a bit with every performance.

  We also include an alternate way of playing the first two measures, which are highly embellised and typical of James' style. The alternate Line 1 in the tab is a bit easier and approachable.

• Lesson 3: You’ve Got A Friend - James Taylor - Guitar Lesson

  Carole King’s song, You’ve Got A Friend has been the most requested lesson here at TG for a long time. Of course, we are talking about James Taylor’s definitive version as heard on his album Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon. Like most of James’ arrangements, this showcases his beautiful fingerpicking style at its best.
  
  The lesson goes over the chord progression and the specific way to play many of his embellishments but, as with most of his songs, the variations are endless and really need to be created or recreated every time the song is played. The student must already be comfortable with standard patterns and random altering of them, as well as random arpeggio patterns to get the most out of this lesson.

• Lesson 4: Sunny Skies - Guitar Lesson

  Sunny Skies is one of James Taylor’s least complex songs, on one hand. On the other, it is one of his most complex. It is from his 1970 album Sweet Baby James and basically uses only two chords (the least complex part) but very unusual picking (the most complex part). This lesson goes into great detail on counting and feeling the rhythm for this bouncy tune. There are also some thoughts on singing it, which bumps up the difficulty level a notch or two.

• Lesson 5: You Can Close Your Eyes - Guitar Lesson

  You Can Close Your Eyes is an early James Taylor song, released in 1971 on his album Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon. James’ picking style is fairly free form and this lesson goes over some of his standard techniques and licks, including transitioning from Travis picking into finger-strumming styles. The point is to change it a bit every time but play the fills and bass lines accurately.

• Lesson 6: Millworker - James Taylor - Guitar Lesson

  James Taylor wrote Millworker for the Broadway musical Working. It was unusual from a couple angles, it was written from a 19th century woman’s perspective, and it came to him very quickly once the story unfolded.
  
  He recorded it on his 1979 album Flag and it uses some of his normal fingerpicking techniques but something he rarely uses as well, chord changes over a constant bass note.
  
  It is done in Dropped D tuning and includes some light strumming along with alternate bass picking and playing the same bass note on the last beats of a measure without hitting it again on the first beat, which is where the chord is played.
  
  The chord shapes are relatively easy but the right hand may be a bit challenging to get it to sound smooth.

• Lesson 7: Mexico

  Mexico was the lead track on James Taylor's 1975 album Gorilla. It has a happy-go-lucky feel extolling the praises of the country as if he were reliving great memories of times spent there. By the end we realize he is just wishing he could visit sometime in the future. Like many of his tunes, it features a distinctive and catchy intro, which is heavily syncopated and will be a challenge for most guitar students to master. His accompaniment techniques also use some of his signature fingerpicking patterns and percussive playing.

  The song is played with a capo at the second fret and has sections in three different keys. The lesson is very detailed and shows many of the types of variations Taylor plays, particularly in live performances, but the student is encouraged to start with specific examples, experiment with their own variations, and play it freely and slightly different every time.

• Lesson 8: Copperline

  James Taylor's 1991 album New Moon Shine opened up with another one of his songs based on childhood memories in North Carolina. Copperline conjures up images similar to Carolina In My Mind and Sweet Baby James, to name just two. The song includes one of his signature accompaniment styles that we might even consider frailing, to borrow a term from the banjo world. James uses the thumb for bass notes and brushes lightly with the fingers on the middle and higher strings.
  The lesson includes all the parts and goes over some of the unorthodox left hand fingers that he uses commonly. One of these is important to getting the right sound with a hammer-on into the D chord when coming from a Bm7. Otherwise, we find a lot of typical James Taylor moves and chords, as well as a capo at the second fret.

• Lesson 9: Sweet Baby James

  Here is James Taylor's classic cowboy/campfire song played pretty much the way James did it.

• Lesson 10: Something In The Way She Moves - Guitar Lesson

  Something In The Way She Moves is one of James Taylor’s earliest, and most popular songs. It first appeared on his debut album (on Apple Records) in 1968. It is a great example of his free-form picking style that incorporates arpeggios, Travis patterns, and strumming into a seamless blend of sounds. This lesson explains and demonstrates the techniques in split-screen, slo-mo detail, and encourages you to add them to your toolbox, making them your own.

• Lesson 11: Oh! Susannah

  James Taylor included his fingerpicking/jazz version of Stephen Foster's early American folk tune Oh Susannah on his 1970 album Sweet Baby James. The arrangement opens with a Travis style fingerpicking version of the melody, then follows with some jazzy chords accompanying his free-form vocal.
  This lesson covers all of it but some familiarly with arpeggio patterns will be helpful.

• Lesson 12: Carolina In My Mind - James Taylor - Guitar Lesson

  In 1968 James Taylor was one of the first young artists signed to the Beatles new label, Apple. He recorded an album that is largely forgotten today, compared to his subsequent success with Warner Brothers. Carolina In My Mind is one of his earliest songs that was resurrected for his 1976 Greatest Hits album, and a classic example of what we love about his songs.
  
  His fingerstyle is free form, making it difficult, and pointless to duplicate, but all guitar players can benefit from the principals if they can adapt the techniques.
  
  This lesson tries to do that in a somewhat structured manner. We look at standard chord shapes as well as James’ unorthodox fingerings, and work on strumming through the progressions before tackling some specific details that define James’ sound.

• Lesson 13: Steamroller

  James Taylor's 1970 album Sweet Baby James put him on the musical map for life. The big hits were Fire And Rain and Country Road but Steamroller Blues showed him branching out in a different direction (which he did not take often, maybe ever again?). It is a standard 12-Bar Blues tune in E (but capoed to III making it G), and uses a a standard shuffle pattern in 12/8 time. The beauty in this tune lies in his simple fills that follow each line of lyrics.

  The lesson covers exactly the way he played the first verse, along with the tag at the end, but also goes in the blues scale and how to make your own fills in a similar way.

• Lesson 14: Anywhere Like Heaven

  Anywhere Like Heaven was one of the deeper cuts on James Taylor's 1970 album Sweet Baby James, but it is very typical of his style of picking and embellishing guitar chords, most of which are open in this case. It is played in the key of G without a capo.
  The lesson goes very deeply into James' picking patterns and tendencies.

• Lesson 15: TG Live - Sweet Baby James Special

  Totally Guitars hosted this live lesson for approximately 100 students on August 16, 2025. The subject and focus was on the intros to songs from James Taylor's 1970 album Sweet Baby James. The complete lesson with attachments is available at Totally Guitars.

  Neil covered:
  1. Sweet Baby James
  2. Anywhere Like Heaven
  3. Sunny Skies
  4. Blossom
  5. Fire And Rain
  6. Country Road

• Lesson 16: Blossom

  Blossom is a very bouncy little ditty from his 1970 album Sweet Baby James. The studio recording was done with a capo at the 5th fret but live versions were done in other places and frequently slower than the original. This lesson is done with a capo at the 2nd fret.