Paul | Guitar Lessons and Performance - Paul Elwood

How to play love and marriage

Play “love and marriage” on guitar. “Love and Marriage” was introduced by Frank Sinatra in the 1955 television production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, which aired on Producers’ Showcase. Sinatra went on to record two versions of the song. The first was recorded for Capitol Records on August 15, 1955 and became a major chart hit. (A competing version by Dinah Shore also achieved popularity.) This first recording appeared on the 1956 album This Is Sinatra! The second version was recorded for the Reprise Records album A Man and His Music on October 11, 1965. The Capitol version was later used as the theme song for the 1987–1997 Fox TV sitcom Married… with Children.

Paul2026-10-28T19:12:17-04:00

The way you look tonight

How to play the way you look tonight. This was very early on for Art and myself and one of the first trio gigs we had! Of course, something had to go wrong… Patrick Kersson’s car broke down on the way to Whiting so he couldn’t make it! So we quickly figured out which songs in the set we could do as a duo and frankly, we didn’t do too bad a job of it. There are real advantages to playing with a solid pro like Art Baguer!

“If you really love guitar, you’re going to spend every waking hour stroking the thing.” – Frank Zappa

Paul2026-10-31T10:58:01-04:00

How to play la grange

How to play la grange . This part 1 lesson is for solo guitar fingerstyle or voice accompaniment. A great tune, with a cool, identifiable and easily playable lick.

“La Grange” is a song by the American rock group ZZ Top, from their 1973 album Tres Hombres. One of ZZ Top’s most successful songs, it was released as a single in January 1974 and received extensive radio play, rising to No. 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1974. The song’s title and lyrics refer to a brothel on the outskirts of La Grange, Fayette County, Texas (later called the “Chicken Ranch“). The brothel is also the subject of the Broadway play and film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

The first time ZZ Top played the song in La Grange was during the Fayette County Fair, on September 5, 2015. In March 2020 the song re-entered the Billboard charts following the release of the documentary ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band from Texas.

Paul2026-10-29T08:27:56-04:00

why play guitar?

Why play guitar?

There’s a pretty good article by Mike Duffy on the Fender website that talks about some of the real benefits of playing music. Fender consulted Daniel Levitin, author of “This is your brain on music” who stated that, “Playing an instrument can… improve a person’s overall well-being. Playing even five minutes a day can lead to a range of physical, mental and emotional benefits.” According to Levitin, after 60, playing an instrument can help you retrain and remap neural circuits that are inclined to atrophy, which sounds to me like it almost certainly helps you to stay sharp! Plus, playing guitar is just plain good fun.

What about guitar lessons for kids?

Well, learning to play an instrument teaches patience, focus,

Paul2026-10-29T08:26:37-04:00

Goals for guitarists

Goals for guitarists: short, medium and long-term

We might consider both “entertaining millions” and “knowing how to play any song I want to learn” to be “long-term” goals. You’ll met those some time in the future. Long-term goals are great because they define a possible endpoint of your path, and they’re far enough away that we can move toward them if they change, which they probably will. “Playing any song I want to” could easily morph into “playing finger-style guitar in the style of Django Reinhardt ” as you progress in your ability, understanding and appreciation of your instrument. Of course, it’s also a good idea to have medium and short-term goals too, so you can make sure you are on track to that farther-off goal (of entertaining millions, perhaps?).

One way to look at guitar-playing medium-term goals is to think ahead 6 months or so. Let’s say you found a pretty good guitar teacher and you’ve been studying together for the last 6 months. How does that look, guitar-wise? Do you know how to play maybe a half-dozen songs you couldn’t play before? Do you have […]

Paul2026-10-29T08:25:30-04:00

What a wonderful world

what a wonderful world

“What a Wonderful World” is a song written by Bob Thiele (as “George Douglas”) and George David Weiss. It was first recorded by Louis Armstrong on August 16, 1967. In April 1968, it topped the pop chart in the United Kingdom,^[3] but performed poorly in the United States because Larry Newton, the president of ABC Records, disliked the song and refused to promote it.

After it was heard in the film Good Morning, Vietnam, it was reissued as a single in 1988, and rose to number 32 on the Billboard Hot 100.^[4] Armstrong’s recording was inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

Composition and production

Thiele, using the pseudonym George Douglas, co-wrote the song […]

Paul2026-10-29T08:24:55-04:00

Alice’s Restaurant

download pdf lyric, notation, tabs and chord sheet

“Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” is a 1967 satirical, talking-blues folk song by Arlo Guthrie, lasting over 18 minutes. It is a largely true story about a 1965 Thanksgiving littering arrest, its impact on the Vietnam War draft, and a restaurant run by Alice Brock in Stockbridge, MA. The song is a popular Thanksgiving tradition often played on radio stations

Paul2026-11-01T09:50:50-05:00

Don’t know why

Download the Chord/lyric sheet

“Don’t Know Why” is a song written and composed by Jesse Harris that originally appeared on his 1999 album, Jesse Harris & the Ferdinandos. A cover of the song was the debut single of American singer Norah Jones from her debut studio album, Come Away with Me (2002).

Jones’ version of “Don’t Know Why” was released on January 28, 2002, peaked at number 30 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and was a critical success. The single went on to win three Grammy Awards in 2003 for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. It remains Jones’s biggest hit single in the United States to date, and her only one to reach the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. “Don’t Know Why” was also a modest hit abroad, reaching number five in Australia, number 24 in New Zealand, and number 59 in the United Kingdom. The song was ranked number 459 in Blender magazine’s “500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born”.

Jones’ piano-playing has been compared to that of Floyd Cramer, having a “style and grace, a musical maturity not found in many keyboard players today.”