Adam Rafferty Teaches
How to Play the Music
of the Jackson Five
Crescent Ridge Publishing
Few music catalogs are
as hook and groove
laden as the Jackson
Five’s. Guitarist Adam
Rafferty has arranged
a few of the J5’s most
well-known hits for
solo acoustic guitar and
released a nice DVD showing us mere mortals
how to tap into some of that Motown
soul. Here, Rafferty explores “I’ll Be There,”
“Never Can Say Goodbye,” “ABC,” and “I
Want You Back,” first by performing the
song completely, and then by taking you
step-by-step through the arrangement. You
can tell from the moment the instructional
section of the DVD begins that Rafferty is
very comfortable teaching and demonstrating
the various concepts used. During the
intro, he emphasizes the need to warm up
and describes a few barring techniques that
help to make the songs not only more musical,
but more approachable, too. Rafferty
also includes a booklet that has each
arrangement written out in both tab and
standard notation with fingerings. As I was
watching the DVD, I ended up relying on
the tab less than I was expecting—and that’s
a real testament to how Rafferty can break
down complicated sections and explain them
in a clear, easy-to-understand manner. One
(very) minor issue I had with the included
booklet is that Rafferty chose not to follow
the standard form when it comes to notating
open strings when using a capo. It was
a little off-putting at the beginning, but I
got used to it pretty quickly. Each of these
arrangements uses a very contrapuntal style
and will require some serious practice, but
in the end, this is a supreme master class on
how to groove, and few musicians could have
pulled it off as successfully as Rafferty does.