The Legend.

In the decades since his passing, on December 8, 1980, John Lennon’s legend has continued to grow, both for his contributions to the Beatles and his accomplishments as a solo artist. Even so, he is rarely singled out for his acoustic guitar playing. This is perhaps due to the spotlight-grabbing abundance of “stand- alone” acoustic Beatles cuts written by Paul McCartney, such as “Blackbird,” “Yesterday,” “Michelle” and “Mother Nature’s Son.” They are simply distractions to the even more beautiful songs featured on some of his solo albums.

Lennon—wielding his Gibson J-160E or Martin D28—is the man behind many other Beatles acoustic classics, including "Norwegian Wood," "Julia," "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" and "Dear Prudence." But what allowed these tracks to be magic? Lennon used a version of Travis picking, a somewhat country-flavored fingerstyle approach named after session musician Merle Travis, to shape much of his acoustic output. Lennon’s favorite pattern was an open C chord, beginning with bass notes, to focus on the pick-hand thumb’s activity.

This style brought life to his purely acoustic solo album that is very underrated to the general public. So many people see Lennon as the Beatles front man and nothing else, this is so incorrect. You see, although Lennon was electric on stage with the three other Beatles, there was more to him behind the black suite and classic songs. Just by listening to his acoustic album you can feel the beauty and creativity through the music.