Paul Simon (b. 1941) and Art Garfunkel (b. 1941) started playing together in the 1950s, as Tom and Jerry, and formed their Simon and Garfunkel duo in 1964. Using classical approaches and folk fingerpicking styles, they produced bright acoustic backings, their two guitars working closely together with strumming, arpeggiation, and melodic lines, an approach that can be heard on "Wednesday Morning 3am" (1964). Their number "Kathy's Song" (1965) includes intricate fingerstyle, and "The Sound of Silence" (1965) opens with simple acoustic ideas layered with harder-edged jangly electric chords and bluesy bending over a rhythm section pushing the tempo. The song "Homeword Bound" (1965), with its passages of intimate acoustic strumming alternating with driving sections, shows the duo using acoustic guitars with a rhythm section very effectively.

Joni Mitchell

Canadian songwriter Joni Mitchell (b. 1943) has produced material with floating open-ended acoustic guitar. Interesting backings function without following the conventions of directional harmonic sequences and resolutions. Her album Blue (1971) includes the funky "All I Want" and "A Case of You," both with interweaving upper and lower parts. Mitchell employs many original open tunings, often with very low notes, to create impressionistic jazz and classical voicings and harmonies, using parallel block movements and wide-interval voicings against open pedal-tone strings. On the album Hejira (1976), she plays electric guitar with effects and explores rhythms with a jazz-fusion lineup. The title track has atmospheric low tuning figures draped across the background. She strums with a loose texture on "Black Crow," "Amelia" features flowing electric guitar parts, and there are arpeggiated electric chords on the jazz-based "Blues Motel Room."