great choices, i always wondered how ani pulled that off
I did a single act for years, just me and my trusty Alvarez accoustic. Someone said try anything and I agree. I was always surprised by what songs an audience would accept with just guitar. Traditionaly in the days of yore I did Jim Croce songs, James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot, Simon and Garfunkel, Jackson Brown, VAn Morrison. They lend themselves to acoustic pretty well.
I also did some Wallflowers, Gin Blossems, Hootie, and anything more current where acoustic plays a major role. Dave MAthews is good.
Also don’t be afraid to interpret the song for yourself. Don’t be locked into trying to do it “like the record” Some fast rock songs make nice slower acoustic songs and some mid tempo stuff works well up tempo. HAve fun.
The Malaguena Salerosa is a favorite of mine, personally.
Hotel California is always a safe bet for guitar music.
These Boots Are Made For Walking is usually fun to sing
I’d say play the Legend of Zelda theme just for kicks and giggles. Bonus points if you play the lyrical version someone made up a few years back.
Anything by Paul Gross (Ride Forever, 32 Down On The Robert MacKenzie, etc.) tends to be great on a guitar.
I think a number of the songs on the Buffy musical could make for good guitar fare.
You might try some John Prine. Best folksinger ever, and a good guitar player. His early album, John Prine, is one of the greatest folk albums ever made.
“Everlong” - Foo Fighters
I am ont familiar with his stuff. Gimme a few suggestions…
Here are some classic Prine songs:
Sam Stone
Hello in There
Illegal Smile
Paradise
The Great Compromise
Donald and Lydia
Souvenirs (awesome acoustic duet with Steve Goodman)
Angel From Montgomery
Mexican Home
He’s a fantastic songwriter, both music and especially lyrics - widely regarded as one of the best.
Dang it, I hate it when people agree with me. I’m tryin’ to make some trouble here.*
What you want to look for is what makes the song special to you. For example, when I play Solsbury Hill (Peter Gabriel), the key for me is the line “You can keep my things, they’ve come to take me home.” My whole performance is focused on that one spot. You might be more interested in the 7/4 or the guitar lick or whatever–you’ll have to make that call when you choose what to play and how to play it.
- :):):):)
Pretty much anything by Billy Bragg
I’ve found that you never know what will be a good song for just one guitar. A friend of mine has a bar with an Open Mic Night, and he starts the night off with a couple covers on his acoustic. His “Take On Me” by A-Ha was terrific, especially since I spent the first verse thinking, “What the hell is that song?”
Play some Skynyrddddd!!!
**WordMan and NoCoolUserName ** and others have given good advice (**Sam Stone ** just had to suggest Prine, of course; I would add Spanish Pipedream to his list, it’s simple and fun). Pick songs you love, whether or not they are “meant” to be played on one guitar. Back in my solo days in bars, I used to love doing Springsteen full-band songs like Rosalita and Blinded By The Light by myself. And when someone asked for Stairway or Freebird one too many times, if I had had enough beers, I would play the whole stinkin’ song by myself. It wasn’t good, but it was revenge.
You might also want to check out John Hiatt. Have fun!!
Samba Pa Ti…Carlos Santana makes his guitar cry on this one. Freeking beautiful.
“Angeles” has some wicked fast picking. It’s fun, but a little exhausting.
For some reason, “Jimi Thing” has been a default song to play for a long time. It’s just got a unique finger rhythm to it that is rather pleasing.
A couple other ones I love to play:
Josh Rouse “Feelin’ No Pain”. A simple 4 chord song (G D Am C) (See also Jane’s Addiction’s “Jane Says” or Violent Femmes “Blister in the Sun”)
Nickel Creek “The Lighthouse Song”. A bit tricky flatpicking, but worth it.
John Wesley Harding “When the Sun Comes Out”. I love descending bass lines on solo acoustic (See also: Alison Kraus’ “Sleep On” or Five for Fighting’s “Last Great American”).
Janis Ian “At Seventeen”. It’s fun to play a song that’s pretty instantly recognizable and the chord voicings are fantastic. (See also: Joni Mitchell “Big Yellow Taxi” or Lisa Loeb’s “Stay”.)
Cameo’s “Word Up” is a fun song to play because no one ever expects it acoustically. (See also: Nena “99 Luftballons” or Dire Straits “Money for Nothing”)
For some standard “everyone will know what you’re playing” songs:
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd - Not too hard to combine the two guitar parts at the beginning.
Margaritavile - Jimmy Buffett - You’ll probably get a lot of rolled eyes, but eventually they come around and sing with you.
Blackbird - The Beatles - Surprisingly easy to play. When I play with the CD, I usually find myself playing too fast. Slowing it down makes it even easier.
Hurt - Johnny Cash - The NIN cover is easy to play and very recognizable.
Surrender - Cheap Trick - It’s pretty easy and rather toe tappin’.
Island in the Sun - Weezer - Mainly chords and pretty easy to sing.
My Sharona - The Knack - Another toe-tappin’ tune.
Friday I’m In Love - The Cure - ditto
For some not so standard but very nice tunes:
Mike Rayburn (Google him) does a great version of Pachebel’s Canon on a single guitar. It is truely amazing. Has to be heard to believe. He has the sheet music/tab for sale on his site for $5.
The Rain Song by Led Zeppelin is beautiful. It’s recorded in an alternate tuning, but I found a book that had it for standard tuning. It’s really difficult to play in standard tuning
Songs I’ve wanted to do on an acoustic guitar:
Thunderstruck - AC/DC - Maybe I need to work on my forarm muscles, but I could never get very far doing this song on the acoustic. All those hammer-ons and pull-offs are tough on those thick strings.
Always with You, Always with Me - Joe Satriani - I always thought this would be cool on an acoustic.
My Immortal - Evanescence - It needs a very good singer to go along with it.
Hope this helps
Great stuff guys. Too bad we don’t live close enough to jam…wait a minute…SD Jam Sessions?
Anyway, here are a few I like to play. Maybe you will check them out.
Dolly Parton - Welcome Home (you will cry. I promise.)
Lyle Lovette - If I Had a Boat, The Road to Ensenada, Which Way Does That Old Pony Run
Dave Matthews - Bartender (very simple, dropped D) , Grace is Gone, Typical Situation
Counting Crows - Round Here, Rain King, Goodnight Elizabeth
Carbon Leaf - Mary Mac
U2 - All I Want is You
…and more…but keep your suggestions coming!
The subtleties of intricate guitar pickin à la the greats like Leo Kottke and Ani DiFranco*, or even standard country, blues, jazz, folk, and prog are mostly beyond me. I can get a grip on classical playing just because I taught myself music theory and classical sight reading on piano for years.
I approached guitar with an intellectual grasp of music theory instead of the organic feel of this nation’s roots guitar traditions, unwritten and often based on open tuning. I’ve known several guitarists who never learned anything but open tuning. I approached it from the other end and I wound up more comfortable with classical tuning, which is what all beginner guitar classes teach anyway, AFAIK. I never took a guitar class, so I never learned to play the “right” way. I just tried different stuff and I came up with offbeat compositions that might have sounded wrong to other ears, but performance worthy or not, I enjoyed exploring avenues of musical progression that others might not have thought of. Thus does culture progress, only if people keep trying out stuff that hasn’t been tried before.
I still have way more chops on piano than guitar, so I enjoy far more scope to go crazy in a barely controlled way with scales, rhythms, and modulations. In guitar improvisation I mostly look for new ways to invent melodies within familiar scales, a more understated scope for creativity, but valuable to practice.
My first composition for guitar was written for a composition class at the Cleveland Institute of Music when I was 15 before I even got a guitar. It used a 12-tone row and included piano and cor anglais. It sounded weirdly dreamlike. But you know what, within one year after that, once I got a guitar in my hands, I started to ROCK ‘N’ ROLL.
My latest guitar exploration is how to translate an electric hard rock tune like “Giant” onto acoustic 12-string. Well, it makes the chords twice as loud, which is about as much as I can get unplugged.
*Her playing, for all its virtuosity and brilliance, sounds kind of spazzed out to me (and her vocals usually even more spazzed out). She explores the edges of her music a lot, and when her sound gels it’s wonderful, but she makes me work hard to get to the wonderful place. Maybe she’s really allowing herself to go crazy in a controlled way, one of my favorite methods of brainstorming new compositional ideas.
I have no idea if you’ll like her, but Happy Rhodes has tons of songs that are just guitar/vocal or guitar/vocal/electronics. She’s self-taught so it’s not virtuoso stuff, but I love it and they should be pretty easy for you. You did say “he” but what the heck. I haven’t pushed Happy in a post for a while now. Your post will do. 
If you can stream, you can sample these songs to get a feel of what she does in her acoustic songs. If you like one (any or all) of them and want to learn them, you can download the songs (yes, I have her permission to share her music). The lyrics are here.
A lot of these songs are from her album The Keep, which is mainly a compilation of acoustic versions of multi-instrument songs that are on other albums. Some are from RhodeSongs, another compilation with a few acoustic versions. Some are from her first few albums, which are compilations of songs she recorded while working at a recording studio (she recorded her own songs to learn the equipment, never knowing that they would someday be compiled as albums).
Some of these songs have 2 guitars, Happy on acoustic, and Kevin Bartlett on electric, but most are just Happy. These are from the late 1980s and early-mid 1990s. And, oh yeah, she writes a lot of songs about death and depression and monsters and aliens and other fun stuff.
Feed The Fire (Acoustic version)
Temporary and Eternal (Acoustic version)
Prey of the Strange (the very first song she ever recorded)
Life On Mars (not a Bowie cover)
Ashes To Ashes (Bowie cover)
Save Our Souls (Acoustic version 1) (it’s about aliens, not god)
Save Our Souls (Acoustic version 2)
The Yes Medley (yes, Yes covers)
These are from the “recording studio” albums. If they sound simplistic, please remember that at the time they were recorded, they weren’t meant to be on albums, she was just learning the equipment. I think they’re pretty wonderful anyway, but I’m way biased. I discovered her just a couple of years after these were released.
Under And Over The Brink (alternate version)
There are many more (she has 10 albums, though some are very electronic) but I have to go. Enjoy! (I hope)
Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” sounds nice to a guitar. I really don’t like Cohen’s original version, but the one in Shrek (sung by Rufus Wainwright) is beautiful. Simon and Garfunkel’s “American Tune” is also a good guitar song. And James Taylor’s “Sweet Baby James.”
Dear Lord I have been listening to/playing this song for the past hour.
Gorgeous. Thanks…