How to play Sweet Home Alabama on guitar

Released in 1974, Sweet Home Alabama is one of the most popular classic rock songs ever written, and it made household names of Lynyrd Skynyrd and their Southern rock sound.

Thankfully, learning to play the song's main hook on guitar isn't too challenging – it doesn’t take long to spot that the riff is written around a simple chord progression (D, Cadd9, G).

Below, we take you note by note through the intro in our video lesson – but you can easily busk your way through these chords if you want to take a simpler approach.

Simply begin each chord with a couple of hits on the root note to get the right feel. If you prefer to the more authentic approach, you’ll find the melodic lines in bars 2 and 4 most challenging.

For the first of these, try keeping your third finger on the second string to keep your fret hand steady. On the second run, break out of the chord shape to move up the fretboard.

Song facts

• Appears at: 0:03-0:22
• Tempo: 98bpm
• Key/scale: D Mixolydian / G major pentatonic
• Main techniques: tight arpeggios and pentatonic phrases
• Learning tip: Get those easy chord changes 100 per cent together first