Mushin Way

Even in Michael Chapman’s vast and wildly diverse catalog of releases, Playing Guitar the Easy Way is an outlier. Issued in 1978 during his association with Criminal Records, this is the innovative and storied guitarist’s instructional album. Like all things Chapman, this one has a twist or two. For starters, it can be listened to on its own. The music is played on acoustic six- and twelve-string guitars—there is even an electric piece in “English Musick”— that come off as standalone originals and/or original derivations on folk standards. This is also one of (if not the) very first guitar instruction recordings—with an accompanying booklet of tablature—to showcase the use of different tunings such as the now ubiquitous DADGAD.