Lisa, thanks for listening to my songs and for your positive and encouraging words. I decided not to use any metronome or click track for this, since most of my brain was occupied in getting the lyrics correct. Lyrics are not my strong suit. In fact, many times when I listen to music i don’t hear the lyrics at all, since i focus on the guitar, drumming, bass and other instrumentals. If I had tried to use any metronome or click track, that extra piece of information would have been too much, I would have blown a mental fuse and my playing would have collapsed 
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Thanks Steve. That was a fun listen and inspires me work on this song today. About the same level as you, a spry 66 and your memory is better than mine!
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Hey Steve - super progress on your recordings.
That’s All Right - I completely agree with @roger_holland. Definitely, one to keep in your campfire repertoire. I preferred your slower tempo.
Three Little Birds - I thought your playing and singing was good. I agree with @sairfingers and @SgtColon regarding the rhythm working. I’d suggest having a look at a few of the versions Stephen Marley does for the song.
Hound Dog - I agree with Rogier, you grabbed my attention right from the start and that was an enjoyable performance. Definitely one to polish up and keep in your campfire repertoire.
Ain’t No Sunshine - best recording out of the five. A very soulful performance. I just wonder how it would have sounded if you played the “I know…I know…” section with all down eighth notes on the bass strings increasing the volume gradually building us up for the next section of the song.
Stand By Me - Really good sounding percussive hits and enjoyed the bass runs. There were some timing issues but it was well played and sung. You know what yourself what needs polishing and this is such a great campfire song.
Overall I think you can consider your consolidation of the new Grade 1 course whilst applying the strumming that you have learned in Grade 2 and Grade 3 a success.
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Thanks for listening to my videos. Happy that you enjoyed my songs and for your kind words.
James, thanks for listening to all my songs and taking the time to comment. I’m happy you enjoyed the guitar and vocals. I’ll look at the advice for Ain’t No Sunshine and see if I can get it to work with my singing. It is still hard for me to focus on the lyrics and my guitar playing at the same time, so I still had to keep the strumming reasonably simple for me.
Very well done Steve. Really enjoyed all those. A great culmination of all the hard work and practice.
Your strumming/ rhythm is really solid mate…crucial skill to have.
Great voice too mate and very engaging as well. You’d be a hit around any campfire.
All the best.
Cheers, Shane
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Great work Steve. Was really worth going and making a great performance out of those five “easier” songs. Sometimes we get hung up on playing something complicated, but it’s playing good music well that matters.
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Good work Steve, I like your idea of doing these early songs and evolving them with more interesting techniques. It’s a great demonstration of how songs can grow with you.
I like a good percussive hit and you’ve got those nicely implemented in a few of them there.
If I had to pick one, Hound Dog stood out for me, the higher energy and strumming dynamics were great!
Well done sir 
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Thanks for listening to my songs and for the words of encouragement. I’m glad you enjoyed these campfire songs. It feels good to finally have a few beginner songs memorized and ready to play.
JK, thanks for taking the time to watch my song videos and the positive comments. It took me a while to realize the benefit off going back to easier songs, but Justin’s song videos provided the inspiration, since he shows how to add more complex rhythms to most of his beginning song video lessons on the website. Also, I wanted to memorize lyrics and the Grade 1 songs have the simplest lyrics.
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Thanks for watching my song videos and your positive review. It’s hard not to be upbeat and exciting with a classic rockabilly Elvis tune like Hound Dog. I can’t take credit for the idea of taking beginner songs and showing how they can grow with you by using more interesting techniques. As I told JK above, I was inspired by Justin’s song lesson videos on the website where he does just that. Many of Justin’s Grade 1 song videos have an intro demonstration of the song that uses strumming or techniques that are beyond grade 1. Of course, after the intro demo Justin is quick to add that beginners should start with 1 or 2 strums per measure, then advance to 4 strums per measure and then later, as you advance, you can start using more interesting strum rhythms and techniques. You can look at the website song lesson for Hound Dog as an example, but you’ve probably seen a lot of those videos, so you know about this.
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The different strumming patterns really help make the songs feel different.! Singing and playing at the same time is not an easy task but you seemed to nail it.
Thanks for watching and listening to my song videos. Singing from memory really tests how automatic your strums have become. I had to practice just those songs for over 2 months to get the strums going automatically, so I’m glad you liked them.
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