Interesting as always to read through the comments. I’ll toss out a few as well.
Regarding requests, I can confirm at least one song I requested turned into a lesson (Spooky by the Atlanta Rhythm Section). Was my request a coincidence? No idea, but they did create at least one lesson from one of my requests (and that song lesson is getting an expanded version to include an extra solo that was omitted in the first version).
Of course, their ability to honor requests is also dependent on the ability to license the song for use. Based on my research, it seems that the song lessons we lost were owned all or in part by Universal Music Group. That’s a really big publisher, and if Guitar Tricks can’t get rights for any of the songs in their catalog, then that definitely limits what’s available.
Lots of people demand to know more about why GT was unable to renew licenses for these songs. I think it’s simply a matter of people wanting to know with whom to be angry. If the publisher wouldn’t license the songs at any price, then people can be angry at the publisher. If GT decided they didn’t want to pay the price, then people can be angry at GT. Unfortunately, I don’t think knowing that is going to bring those lessons back.
I can say for sure, though, that the other big guitar song lesson sites also pay licensing fees for the song lessons they publish (GuitarInstructor.com, TrueFire.com[now merged with JamPlay], LickLibrary.com, SixStringCountry.com, Gibson app, etc). I’ve even seen these sites have to unpublish song lessons due to the dreaded licensing issues, too. I will say, though, that I do see lessons for songs owned by UMG being published on some of the other sites, so somehow someone is getting rights to those songs.
As for the flood of Rolling Stones songs, yes, it’s getting a little old. I think GT knows that lessons in the classic rock genre are very popular, and the Stones are a big part of that, and between them and Nirvana, I guess that’s what’s available right now, so that’s filling the hole. Before that, we were getting a lot of 60’s R&B tunes. I’m hoping things open up soon and we can get a bigger variety.
Good write up and good to know... I stand corrected. And admit to not visiting, or not in a very long while, any of the sites you mentioned. My thoughts more were about the legion of YouTube sites that put up song lessons. We could hope that I'm wrong about those, as well.
Nice to know about Spooky too. That's one of those second decade songs of R&R/Top 40 I was talking about in my yesterday's post above. 😀 GT published the lesson in August of last year and it was followed up the next month with another Atlanta Rhythm Section tune. How did that August date match up with your request?
-- Chet Atkins