Rockschool: James Taylor – Fireandrain

Songwriting and fingerstyle finesse go hand in hand, as TG and Rockschool unpick this classic from an undisputed master

Bringing early chart success to the American singersongwriter, Fire And Rain appeared on James Taylor’s second studio album Sweet Baby James and peaked at no. 3 in the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1970. The track features Taylor’s fingerstyle mastery, requiring a capo at the 3rd fret in order to play in the key of C major. Note that in this Rockschool arrangement, the fret numbers shown in the tab relate to where the capo is placed, so the 3rd fret becomes fret ‘0’, 4th fret becomes ‘1’, and so on. In this genre, acoustic guitarists often use a capo and/or alternate tunings, and it is a great skill to be able to re-visualise the fingerboard for these purposes. The detail in the fingerstyle part is apparent from the introduction, with open chord triads on the top three strings, utilising the open bass strings to outline the harmony. Take your time to prepare your picking hand fingering patterns so they are consistent.

FULL TRACK + BACKING (TRACKS 28-29)

This song comes with a full demo track and a backing track (minus guitar) on your CD. Simply insert the disc in your player, press play and jam along, guitaraoke style!