We’ve done this song before, but let’s be honest, you really can’t hear “Take Me Home Country Roads” too many times. Especially when it’s continually interpreted in so many amazing, creative (sometimes globalized) ways, not least from Izzy Kamakawiwo’ole’s Hawaiian take on a ukelele to Toots & the Maytals plaintiff “almost heaven, West Jamaica.”

No less compelling is this week’s offering from Italian guitar virtuoso Luca Stricagnoli, who gives a more traditional, albeit instrumental presentation of John Denver’s classic song, which, if you can believe it, was released in 1971.

What isn’t traditional is Stricagnoli’s amazing two-handed technique on a guitar to which he adds an extra slide neck – essentially playing two guitars at once.

Known for his fingerstyle, innovative techniques, and guitar inventions (like the slide neck), it’s a combination that is “almost heaven.” You can sing along below.

Lyrics

Almost heaven, West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River
Life is old there, older than the trees
Younger than the mountains, growin’ like a breeze

Country roads, take me home
To the place where I belong
West Virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads

All my memories gathered ’round her
Miner’s lady stranger to blue water
Dark and dusty painted on the sky
Misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye

Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads

I hear her voice, in the mornin’ hour she calls me
Radio reminds me of my home far away
And driving down the road I get a feeling
I should have been home yesterday, yesterday

Country roads, take me home
To the place where I belong
West Virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads