Elliott Smith: a real guitar hero. Yeah, he's gone now... but before that, he was a great, soulful writer. When you listen to an Elliott Smith CD, you are hearing the poor bastards entire life pouring out through a cheap acoustic guitar and straining high-pitched voice.
One of my favorite songs is Between the Bars which you can watch here in this excerpt from a short film about his life called "The Lucky Three."
More than I like watching and listening to my favorite guitar players, I like seeing how others interpret their songs. Cover versions are often bad (I'm not linking to about a dozen other crappy versions of Between the Bars and you should thank me for it; they're terrible!) but sometimes another artist will really "get it" and provide an even deeper and/or different experience that expands on the original tune.
Here's a great example of what a cover can do for a song: Madeleine Peyroux's soul-evoking jazzy voice over a slow rendition of Between the Bars.
Oh yeah, don't forget to check out the guitar tab so you can learn how to play the song yourself! Good luck and have fun!
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