Fortunate Son guitar lesson – CCR

Genre:

Difficulty:
Length: 8:46

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Wikipedia page
Artist website
Music video

• Double stops
• Power chords
• Slides
• Strumming

Fortunate Son is one of the most memorable songs from Creedence, and best of all, it is easy to play. I would call it a low-intermediate song in terms of difficulty.

In this guitar lesson on Fortunate Son, you'll have the opportunity to learn the entire song, so you'll be able to play along with the original, or get together with other musicians and play with them as well.

We'll start out by learning the iconic riff to Fortunate Son. It involves sliding to specific note pairs. These notes are actually 7ths in the key of G. I have a lesson on YouTube on the riff, in case you're not a premium member. To get access to the entire tutorial, tabs, and backing track, you need to be a premium member though.

After the riff, we'll learn to play the verse and chorus chords to Fortunate Son. I'm using power chords to keep things simple, but if you want to practice your barre chords, you can use those as well. Just mind the major and minor chords in the key of G if you use barre chords.

As I mentioned, this is a great song to learn, no matter what level of guitar playing you are at. Make sure you add it to your repertoire.

Fortunate Son song details

Fortunate Son was released by CCR in 1969 on the album Willy and the Poor Boys. It was released at a time when the US was involved with the Vietnam War, and the song quickly became an anti-war anthem.

The song never reached the top of the charts, but its success can be measured by its use in movies and games. The song is associated with wartime and as such, it can be heard in many movies and video games that have such content.

Some video games that feature the song are Call of Duty, Battlefield Vietnam, Grand Theft Auto.

If you want to refine the skills you learned in Fortunate Son, check out these lessons on songs by clicking these links:
Double stops / Power chords / Slides / Strumming

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