Product Description

Songs: Don't Think Twice, It's All Right; Blowin' in the Wind; I'll Be Your Baby Tonight; I Pity the Poor Immigrant; Buckets of Rain; Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You; Farewell. Happy Traum's long association with Bob Dylan makes him the perfect instructor to teach these seven Dylan favorites. In nearly three hours of in-depth guitar instruction, he helps you build guitar skills while passing along his unique historical insights and first-hand perspective on the music. Happy shows novice guitarists the basic chords for each of these classic songs, then brings his arrangements to life with movable chord shapes, bass runs, harmony lines and other nuances that will add distinction to everything you play. Each song features a different fingerpicking approach: Traditional three-finger patterns, Travis-style swing, steady-bass blues, Carter Family strumming, and more. Add new guitar techniques to your repertoire, increase your musical proficiency and, most importantly, enjoy the fun and excitement of learning to play these timeless songs. Bonus: Four audio tracks, including rare first-ever recordings of Blowin' in the Wind and Don't Think Twice, It's All Right. Happy Traum's perspective on Bob Dylan's music dates back to their first meeting in Greenwich Village in 1962. Happy's group, the New World Singers, was the first to perform and record some of Dylan's earliest songs, and his duet with Bob on Let Me Die in My Footsteps appeared on Broadsides (Folkways) in 1963. A friend and neighbor in Woodstock, NY, Bob invited Happy to join him in the studio in 1971 to play on three songs for his Greatest Hits, Vol.2 release: Down in the Flood, You Ain't Goin' Nowhere and I Shall Be Released.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52351 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-03-12
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 165 minutes

Customer Reviews

My Favorite Teacher; My Favorite Artist
The title pretty much sums it up for me: Happy Traum is my favorite guitar instructor; and teaching the songs of my favorite artist, Bob Dylan, is the perfect match for me.
Happy Traum is a gifted teacher. It is already a given that he is a gifted musician. I first learned of him when listening to the cuts he did with Dylan for the Greatest Hits II album where he backed Dylan with guitar and banjo. More recently, I have been purchasing just about everything Homespun (Traum's family business of music instruction on DVD) puts out. His fingerpicking, Christmas, and general instruction DVDs are wonderful. His catalog of DVDs are carefully put out in Levels, with some geared towards Level 1 (no experience necessary) and others having multiple DVDs going from Level 1 to Level 3 (intermediate player).

Happy is a Dylan fan and his enthusiasm comes across when teaching. He is like a kind gentleman who comes into your home to teach you. He has the abiliity to simplify material down to understandable breaks, and with the judicious use of the pause button, you really can get MONTHS of guitar lessons in a single DVD. His Homespun video productions (now DVDs) feature some of the best musicians alive today. The camera work is clear, focused, with excellent dual cameras so you can see close ups of the left hand and the right hand.

It is about as close as one can get to hiring one of our country's best musicians into your home for private lessons. To me, these are more valuable than anything I can get locally, in spite of having some good musicians offering lessons here. Here you have the opportunity to "hire" someone good enough to play with Dylan for an incredible bargain. Some of Happy's DVDs will take me months to finish.

My only complaint? I wish he had more songs for us...hopefully, in the future, he will!