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CHET ATKINSRARE PERFORMANCES 1955-1975

“You keep layin’ that thumb in there, son, and you’ll be alright.” —Uncle Dave Macon’s advice to Chet Atkins

Whenever I hear the early solo recordings of ChetAtkins, I think of Jones ‘s Trading Post. It was a radio ‘swapmeet’ where everything from old appliances to breedingstock was bartered on KRHD, a country radio station inmy hometown of Duncan, Oklahoma. Sponsored by a localgrocery store, Jones ‘s Trading Post aired weekday morn-ings and was the preschool breakfast soundtrack in myfamily’s kitchen. The ‘music bed’ under the announceroffering us neighbors’ old lawn mowers and newbornpuppies was the buoyant thumb and dexterous fingers ofChet Atkins. No doubt Chet’s friendly ‘home and hearth’guitar style added to the folksiness of the Trading Post andhelped move its merchandise. It was some years later,

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when I discovered Chet’s early recordings, that I experi-enced deja vu. I’d been hearing ‘classic Chet’ since earlygrade school, and no doubt the subliminal presence of hismusic every weekday morning for a decade had an impacton my later ardor for fingerstyle guitar.

I‘m sure my experience isn’t unique. Many guitarenthusiasts have doubtless found an old friend in Chet,thanks to the widespread unauthorized use of his record-ings in ways which once wove him deep into the auralfabric of rural and small town American life. In the 1950sand 1960s, Chet’s guitar was a ubiquitous sound on localradio and television advertising across the South, South-west and Midwest. No doubt Chet wishes he could recoup‘mechanicals’ (broadcast performance fees) for all thoseunlicensed plays. In his autobiography, Country Gentleman(with Bill Neely, 1975, Ballantine Books, New York), Chetrecalled: “My record of ‘Galloping Guitar,’ which wasrecorded in 1947, was used for years as a theme song by alot of DJs. The same was true with my record of ‘MainStreet Breakdown.’ It had a lot of notes and fast runs, andDJs apparently loved it.”

So, too, did lots of listeners to country radio. It was,in many respects, the medium which mattered most toChet, a child of the era when radio was rural America’smagic link to the larger world and the one which launchedhis own career. Yet the video performances here providean ultimately sharper portrait of the man who, for genera-tions, defined country guitar, an artist whose personalityis a contradictory blend of relentless drive and defensiveshyness.

It isn’t a contradiction that takes much explaining ifyou have known bright people who, like Chet, have ‘boot-strapped’ themselves up from rural poverty and minimaleducation. Chet’s glib reply to interviewer Don Menn’squery as to how he originated his solo style (Guitar Player,October 1979) bespeaks pride undercut by tongue-in-cheekself-deprecation: “The style I play is an accident,” he said,“because I was so far out in the damn sticks I didn’t knowany better.”

The sticks to which Chet refers were near the town of

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Luttrell in easternTennessee. “Luttrellwas a whistle stop onthe Southern Rail-way,” Chet recalls inhis autobiography,“with a post office,pool hall, barber-shop, greasy spoonrestaurant and gen-eral store...” It wastwo-and-a-half milesfrom there his par-ents, James ArleyAtkins and Ida SharpAtkins, raised corn,tobacco and five chil-dren in a ‘holler’ ona fifty-acre farmwhich had been inthe Atkins family forgenerations, perhapssince 1780. Music ranin the family: Chet’s

grandfather, Wes Atkins, made and played fiddles. Hisfather, James, was a music teacher, piano tuner, and singerfor itinerant evangelists. (He liked to perform “Ave Maria”with trilled Rs.’) Chet’s half-brother, Jim, got a Washburnguitar shortly after Chester Burton Atkins was born onJune 20, 1924. Jim became good enough to start performingon radio while Chet was still a boy and his success fired hisyounger sibling with the desire to do the same.

Chet started strumming a ukulele when he was five.He recalls a guitar he abused by “tying a string to it anddragging it through the yard and filling it with dirt.” Bythe time he was nine, he could do more with the instru-ment than drag it and was ready for one of his own. (Healready was playing fiddle on a poorly repaired instru-ment once struck and shattered by lightning!) A stint ofearly morning milking and a firearms swap earned Chet

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his first guitar, one he recalls as “real cheap, probablymade in Chicago. It didn’t have a name on it.” (Anotherearly guitar of Chet’s, a Silvertone, is in the Country MusicHall of Fame.) “That guitar,” he said in his autobiography,“would absorb almost every moment I could find for it forthe rest of my life.”

Chet’s first significant performance experience cameat the age ten: he played “Wildwood Flower” for an appre-ciative audience of 200 of his fellow school children. Theirapplause was medicine for a shy kid who felt, he laterwrote, that “everybody hated me because I was ugly andretarded....The applause gave me much more confidencein myself than anything ever had.” Soon Chet was playingfiddle in a family ensemble led by his guitar-playingstepfather, Willie Strevel (Chet was six when his musicianfather took off, leaving his family with “two milk cows, acouple of horses and a saddle”), and the group performedat East Tennessee school houses and tourist camps. Chet’sfirst earnings as a professional musician were $3 and somewatermelon.

Ill-health, particularly asthma, plagued Chet in hischildhood. He became so frail when he was eleven thatChet’s mother wrote his father, then living in Georgia, tosay their son was dying. Convinced a change of climatewould cure him, James Atkins brought his son to live onhis farm 22 miles north of Columbus, Georgia. Chetmissed the community music-making which was such apervasive part of life in east Tennessee, but he credits theisolation of his life in Georgia with freeing him to explorea new style: “I began to experiment picking the guitar withmy fingers instead of a hard pick,” he wrote in CountryGentleman. “It felt natural, and since there was nobodyaround to teach me anything else I began, little by little, todevelop a finger-pickin’ style....I might not have devel-oped it as quickly if I had stayed in east Tennessee, wherethere were so many people to influence me, and whereeverybody played with a plectrum....”

Elsewhere, Chet has admitted his style didn’t takeshape in complete isolation: “Merle Travis is where I firstheard pickin’,” Chet told Dave Kyle (Vintage Guitar,

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August 1995). “There were some people before him thatinfluenced me, like the guy that used to cut my hair. Hecould play ‘Spanish Fandango’ on the guitar, which was afinger-pickin’ piece. Then I heard a record of a guy named[Charlie] Stump that did some finger-pickin’ on an oldEdison record. When I first heard Merle Travis play [overCincinnati station WLW circa 1938], I didn’t know what hewas doing and I tried to imitate him and it wound up to bedifferent. I play more of a stride piano style and he playsmore of a 4/4 beat type of thing.”

The sounds of Travis, George Barnes, and brother JimAtkins, who appeared on the WLS National Barn Dancealong with Les Paul, came to Chet’s isolated Georgiaoutpost via radio. Chet would stay up listening and prac-ticing each evening until midnight. When he was fifteen,Chet got a summer job with the National Youth Adminis-tration and from it earned enough money to electrify hisguitar. “I ordered an Amperite pickup for my guitar,” hetold Don Menn. “It was basically just a coil of wire and amagnet that you clamped to the back of the bridge.” Healso ordered a PA system, and the newly-electric Chetbecame a sensation around Columbus, Georgia.

At seventeen, Chet returned to east Tennessee to seek

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work at Knoxville radio station WNOX, which had oncelaunched Roy Acuff. (A high school dropout, Chet wouldlater award himself a fictitious degree, C.G.P., CertifiedGuitar Player). Chet was hired as a fiddler to accompanycomic Archie Campbell and singer-comedian Bill Carlisle.When Chet’s guitar skills came to light, station managerLowell Blanchard gave him a solo spot on the ‘Mid-DayMerry-Go-Round’ on the 10,000 watt radio station. “Whata debt I owe that guy,” Chet would tell interviewer JimOhlschmidt (Acoustic Guitar, May/June 1993). “I wouldlisten to all the pop tunes that were out, everything, andtry to think of something I could play – how in the worldcould I make it interesting for two minutes.” The station’sstaff guitarist was drafted, and Chet (4-F on account ofchronic asthma) stepped in and quickly learned more Swing-era standards as a member of the staff band, the DixielandSwingsters. He worked three years at WNOX before set-ting his sights on Travis’s old radio home, Cincinnati’s50,000 watt WLW.

It was there Travis himself first heard his foremostdisciple in action.“The first time Iheard him reallyturn loose was inabout 1945,” Merlerecalled in 1979. “I’dbeen in the MarineCorps a short whileand I was goingback to Cincinnati tovisit friends. It wasa cold morning....Well, Chet Atkinswas on the radio atthe time on WLW inCincinnati, and Iwas listening to theradio and the an-nouncer said, ‘Now we’ll have a guitar solo from ChetAtkins.’ He started playing, and I pulled the car over—it

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was snowing like everything—and sat there and listenedto him, and I thought, ‘Wow!’”

In his autobiography, Chet remembered Merle com-ing to the station at this time and saying things like: “I can’tplay the guitar. Not like you can, Chester.” And while theman for whom ‘Travis picking’ was named might havejealously guarded his primacy in the field, Merle wasalways effusive in his praise of Chet. “I don’t think thatthere will ever be a chance for another guitar player to beas great as Chet,” Merle once told this writer. “He was bornat a time when turn-of-the-century music, the songs of the1920s and big bands, were still around and not laughed at.He knows it all, from that music...to what was recordedthis afternoon in Nashville. He is the greatest guitar playerthat has ever been on this earth, in my opinion. I don’tthink there will ever be anyone greater. And that’s what Ithink of Chet Atkins.”

Despite Travis’s admiration, Chet was fired from hisWLW job on Christmas Eve, 1945. He worked a couple ofmonths early in 1946 for Johnnie Wright and Jack Anglinon WPTF in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he was billedon shows as ‘Chester Atkins and His Talking ElectricGuitar.’ But a long-shot at the big-time soon beckoned:Chet had heard that Red Foley would be replacing RoyAcuff on the Opry’s immensely popular Prince AlbertTobacco segment. Chet, emboldened both by Travis’s en-couragement and his ardor for Leona Johnson, the womanhe would wed, (one of a pair of singing twins on WLW),struck out for Chicago to audition for Foley. And when theWLS National Barn Dance veteran debuted on the Opry onApril 13, 1946, Chet (or ‘Ches,’ as Foley called him) waswith him.

Chet was two months shy of his 22nd birthday, earn-ing $50 a week and enjoying a solo spot on the show. Hisglory, however, was short-lived: the ad agency sponsoringthe Opry segment ordered Foley to drop his guitar solo.Chet could have continued as Foley’s Opry sideman, butchose not to. In four years of radio experience, Chet hadworked his way to country’s top show, only to walk awayfrom it.

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After a brief stint atRichmond, Virginia’sWRVA’s Old DominionBarn Dance, Chet wentto Springfield, Miss-ouri’s KW-TO (KeepWatching The Ozarks),where booking agent SiSiman reportedly be-came the first person tocall Chester AtkinsChet. Siman saw greatpromise in the shy gui-tarist and recorded himon station transcriptiondiscs. He sent them as‘demos’ to record ex-ecutives, includingSteve Sholes, whoheard Chet as a poten-tial RCA ‘answer’ toMerle Travis, then en-joying hits for Capitollike “Divorce MeC.O.D,” novelty songs

augmented by catchy fingerstyle guitar. The peripateticChet was in Denver working on radio station KOA inAugust 1947 when Jean Aberbach of the Hill and Rangemusic publishing company called on Sholes’s behalf. WasChet interested in recording for RCA? He answered in theaffirmative. He also answered “yes,” though perhaps withless conviction, when asked if he wrote songs and if hecould sing. (He could do both, but his talents lay else-where.) On August 11, 1947, Chet made his first recordingsfor RCA in Chicago on a Gibson L-10 acoustic (now ondisplay in the Country Music Hall of Fame) which hisbrother Jim had given him and which had once belongedto Les Paul. It wasn’t Chet’s first recording session – he hadrecorded for the Nashville-based Bullet label during hisbrief Opry stint, and as early as 1944 as a sideman to

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WNOX artists Pappy Beaver and the Birchfield Brothersfor Capitol. But Chet’s recording of Jenny Lou Carson’s“Ain’tcha Tired of Makin’ Me Blue” launched an associa-tion which would last until 1982 and yield over 70 RCAstudio albums.

Impressed by his eight-side August session, Sholescalled Chet to New York in November for further record-ing. One of the songs cut was “My Guitar Is My Sweet-heart”:

“Oh, my guitar is my sweetheartAs faithful as can be;I put her on my kneeAnd sing a lovely melody.When lights are low, She won’t say, ‘No.’Oh, my guitar is my sweetheartShe’s as faithful as can be.”

Though written by David Rhodes and Alfio Bargnesi, itseemed autobiographical of a man who has often fallenasleep with a guitar in his hands and has written: “I wouldlean on it for the love I never seemed to have enough of andfor the friendships I didn’t always find.” Steve Sholes’s faith in Chet did not make him an over-night success. In desperate need of work, by 1948 he wasback where he had started in radio in 1942 on Knoxville’sWNOX. This time he was in the company of ‘Homer’Haynes and ‘Jethro’ Burns, with whom Chet later workedas producer at RCA. When Homer and Jethro moved on toSpringfield’s KWTO, Chet stayed in Knoxville, backingMaybelle Carter and her daughters June, Helen and Anita.He must have felt he was backtracking when they, too,moved on to KWTO, and he tagged along. It was thereGeorge Moran, visiting Springfield to make transcriptionsfor Martha White Flour (best remembered for its sponsor-ship of Flatt & Scruggs), returned to the Opry with gladtidings about Chet Atkins and the Carter Sisters. Hepraised them as “one of the best acts in country music.”The Opry beckoned, and in June of 1950, Chet, his wifeLeona and daughter Merle arrived in Nashville with theintention of settling there. It was the last stop for a man

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who had spent the better part of the 1940s chasing radiojobs from the Great Smokies to the Rocky Mountains. FredRose promised Chet session work (he was on many ofHank Williams‘s later recordings and the early ones of theLouvin Brothers), and there were the Opry broadcasts,where he worked with the Carters.

Chet quickly involved himself not only with perform-ing and recording but with rounding up musicians andorganizing sessions for Steve Sholes, Fred Rose, and Decca’sPaul Cohen. In 1952, Chet officially became A&R assistantto RCA’s Sholes, a capacity which linked him to the earliest

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(1955) RCA recordings of Elvis Presley. Chet was increas-ingly active as producer – he was promoted to RCA’sManager of Operations in Nashville in 1957 – but he alsorecorded many of his best guitar sides during this time.The 10-inch LP, Gallopin’ Guitar, appeared in 1954, the firstof dozens of albums Chet waxed for RCA. Chet’s reputa-tion as a guitarist was going national, and Gretsch repre-sentative Jimmy Webster convinced him to design andendorse an electric guitar, the Gretsch CA 6120. It debutedin 1954, and was the first of many models Chet endorsedfor Gretsch through 1979.

1955 is the point at which our video collection begins.Chet Atkins, a curious mixture of insecurity, tenacity andtalent, was fast becoming a major player in country musicon several levels. In subsequent decades he would be bothpraised and blamed for the ‘countrypolitan’ blend heardon records he produced for Don Gibson and Floyd Cramer,among many others. But few people outside Music Citythen knew or cared about the production phase of hiscareer. Chet was Mr. Guitar, a talent Minnie Pearl ac-knowledged when he first played the Opry in 1946 with apeck on the cheek and the encouraging words: “You’re agreat musician and you’re just what we’ve been needingaround here.” In time, even Chet Atkins had a hard timeliving up to his own reputation. One of his favorite anec-dotes involves an impromptu performance he once gaveaboard a cruise ship. Picking informally in the bar whilethe lounge guitarist took a break, Chet’s anonymous soloact was given this critique by one of the passengers: “You’regood, but you’re no Chet Atkins!”

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THE PERFORMANCES

“I look at those old films now,” Chet told John Schroeter(Fingerstyle Guitar, July/August 1995) regarding perfor-mances like those which open this collection, “and I thinkI was kind of ahead of my time...for that time, I was prettygood. And I could play with confidence. I see that now andthink, how did I do that? Look at those young fingers! Lookat that tight skin! What happened? But I didn’t realize it atthe time. I remember thinking that I was so bad – if I couldonly play like Django Reinhardt or Les Paul!” Of course,guitarists around the country were watching such perfor-mances and thinking,“If only I could play like Chet Atkins!”

The first performance here from 1955 is a wonderfulperiod piece with Ernest Tubb towering over Little JimmyDickens and Jean Shepard, one of country music’s reign-ing queens in the mid-1950s, providing classic crinolinecountry girl atmosphere. The song introduced (in honor ofShepard) as “Jean’s Tune” is in fact “The Poor People ofParis,” a song associated with Edith Piaf and popularizedin this country by Les Baxter and his Orchestra. Chet ispicking a new CA 6120, his first signature model Gretschthat appeared in late 1954. “I went up to Brooklyn andsigned a deal with them and we came up with an orange

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Gretsch,” Chet told Dave Kyle (Vintage Guitar, August1995). “I had some input, like a steel bridge and a zero fretinstead of a nut. I think Mr. Gretsch—a colorful guy, Iloved him – came up with the color. It was radical at thattime. I don’t think there ever was an orange guitar before.Worked out well; we sold an awful lot of those things. Iwas starting to get a lot of play on the radio, was becomingpopular in a small sort of way.”

The performance demonstrates Chet’s tasteful use ofthe vibrato bar, a tool which enabled him to emulate thefluid pitch shifts he heard from steel players and onewhich first came into his playing around 1943. A drummernamed Herbie Fields told him about it and ordered one forChet. “I put it on my guitar and I loved it,” Chet recalled.In the 1950s, he would modify the vibrato designed byWest Coast inventor Paul Bigsby. “I bought one,” Chettold Kyle, “but I couldn’t use it because the handle was inmy way. I couldn’t play any pizzicato notes, I couldn’tplay ‘Country Gentleman’ with it because I deadened thestrings a little.” With the aid of some coiled steel, a vise anda hammer, Chet altered it so “it’s bent down under thebridge so I can play pizzicato notes...The vibrato restsunder my little finger, the end of it, so it’s handy when Ineed it. It’s right there.”

“Side By Side” is a 1927 vintage song popularized byvaudeville singer-guitarist Nick Lucas and revived in 1953by Kay Starr. Chet’s performance is a tour de force sug-gesting the influence of Les Paul and Merle Travis yettastefully arranged in a way which is uniquely Chet.

Another wonderful 1955 period piece finds Chet in therole of master accompanist to Anita Carter, who clutches abouquet of roses and keens “Makin’ Believe.” The song,penned by country singer-songwriter Jimmy Work, was a# 2 chart hit that year for Kitty Wells. It has been frequentlyrevived (Emmylou Harris enjoyed a Top Ten hit with it in1977.) Chet invests the wistful melody with sweet, piquantfills in his solo spotlight.

Chet’s two performances from the Ozark Jubilee in1958 find him back in his old Springfield, Missouri hauntand exemplify his relaxed trademark sound. “Villa” is

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from the 1907 operetta, The Merry Widow.”Say Si Si” is a1940 Xavier Cugat hit further popularized by the AndrewsSisters. Note Chet’s deft use of his thumbpick as plectrum.Watching his left-hand voicings here, a jazz guitarist re-marked, “He’s the best ‘double-stop’ guy I’ve ever heard.” From the Ozarks to Norway is quite a leap, but whereverhe went, Chet took Tennessee with him. The 1963 Norwe-gian concert, in which he’s accompanied by a very ‘close-to-the-vest’ quartet including longtime session stalwartHenry Strzelecki on bass, opens with “Levee Walking.”Note Chet’s beautiful use of harmonics. “Now Chet, he’sgot the world skinned on that [harmonics],” Merle Travisonce said. “He can hit a chord that’s half harmonics.” Chetcites the influence of steel guitarists in his desire to masterthis technique.

The song he introduces as “the national anthem of eastTennessee” was also one that earned Chet his first majorapplause as a performer when he was ten, “WildwoodFlower.” Chet remembered being surprised to hear the

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Carter Family recording, since he had learned it from EastTennessee musicians. Maybelle Carter is on record assaying, “My grandmother knew that song,” and “Wild-wood Flower” seems to be a folk synthesis of a couple ofVictorian-era ‘parlor songs,’ “I’ll Twine Midst the Ring-lets” and “The Pale Amaryllis.” Chet plays it first in theold Maybelle Carter ‘thumb-brush stroke’ style, then de-velops the tune harmonically and finally picks it in hischaracteristic assertive yet relaxed fingerstyle.

“Yes Ma’am,” performed without the quartet, is awonderful solo which is a mite like “Windy and Warm.”Having breezily moved from purest country to bluesysounds, Chet next sets his sights on the guitar’s mother-land, Spain, with “Malaguena.” While malaguenas are anauthentic flamenco genre, the well-known “Malaguena” isactually a 1948 composition from the co-writer of “Say SiSi,” Cuban-born pianist-bandleader Ernesto Lecuona. Chetmakes an understated tour de force of it, again effectivelyexploiting his skill with harmonics.

The medley of two folk songs, “Greensleeves andStreets of Laredo,” shows the depth of Chet’s arranging.There’s beautiful counter movement in the voicing of“Greensleeves,” and a wonderful bass line in “Laredo.”

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For all the neo-classicism of this performance, Chet isn’tabove nailing a bass note on the sixth string with his thumbif need be. Segovia would be shocked, but such countrypragmatism was endorsed by Merle Travis, who likenedhis approach to a guitar neck to “grabbing a hoe handle.” From the sublime to the ridiculous, Chet enlists his bandto vocalize on “The Peanut Vendor,” a 1932 vintage pseudo-Latin tune once performed, strange as it seems, by JudyGarland in A Star Is Born. Chet hints at, among others, BoDiddley in his bag of licks here.

When Chet introduces “Tiger Rag” as an old NewOrleans tune, he’s not kidding. This goes back to 1917 andthe Original Dixieland Jazz Band. As an encore, Chet’sperformance is aptly hot.

A decade later, Mr. Guitar returned to the Land of theMidnight Sun to perform on Norway’s Nashville Cavalcadeprogram. The opening classical guitar piece, “Alhambra,”shows Chet’s stylistic range. His interest in classical gui-tar, ironically, dates to the time he was accompanyingMaybelle Carter and her daughters. “Ezra Carter, theCarter Sisters’ father, gave me three volumes by PascualRoch, Modern Method for Guitar, around 1949 or 1950,”Chet told Don Menn. (Roch was a student of FranciscoTarrega.) “He [Carter] was into all kinds of things. I don’tknow how he became interested in classical guitar...But hehad those books, and he gave them to me.” Chet madegood use of them. However, Segovia would hardly ap-prove of Chet’s thumbpick!

“Black Mountain Rag” is best known today as aflatpicker’s favorite, thanks to Doc Watson, but Chet re-corded the driving fingerstyle rendition he performs herefor RCA in 1952. Atypically, he plays this in open G (D-G-D-G-B-D) tuning. Fiddler Curly Fox had enjoyed a hit withthe tune in 1947, and his accompanist was pioneeringKentucky fingerpicker Mose Rager, one of Merle Travis’sboyhood inspirations. The first of two medleys from this Norwegian outingopens with “Windy and Warm,” a tune John D. Loudermilkwrote for Chet which had become a folk fingerpicker’sfavorite in the 1960s, thanks in part to Doc Watson’s

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recording of it. “BackHome in Indiana” is thesort of pop chestnut forwhich Chet has alwayshad a soft spot andwhich he always in-vested with a warmglow. “Country Gentle-man” is his sprightly1953 original, co-writtenwith Boudleaux Bryant,which became Chet’stheme. “Mister Sand-man” is, of course, the1955 Chordettes’ hitwhich, as an instrumen-tal, also became Chet’sfirst chart hit that year:it made it to #13 onBillboard’s country

chart. We hear another “Wildwood Flower” and, finally,Elizabeth Cotten’s “Freight Train” closes this medley of‘picker’s delights.’

The second medley reflects the successes of ChetAtkins, producer. RCA made him a vice president in 1968,the year a Harper’s Magazine piece said of Chet: “ThoughChet Atkins calls himself ‘just another hunched-over gui-tar player,’ this 44-year-old native of rural Tennessee isprobably the most influential music man in Music City.”Atlanta journalist Paul Hemphill visited the busy execu-tive and wrote in The Nashville Sound: Bright Lights andCountry Music (Simon and Schuster, 1970, New York) of“Atkins’s office, which is highlighted by a boomerang-shaped velvet sofa and a nude statue carved from rarePhilippine wood and an ashtray engraved TO CHET—THANKS – TRINI (Trini Lopez had been in town to recordan album, ‘Welcome to Trini Country’).” None of this wasevident in Norway, naturally, but the fruits of Chet’sproduction labors inspired a medley of songs he pro-duced.

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The first tune inthe medley is “TheThree Bells,” a phe-nomenal hit for theBrowns in 1959.Their recordingwas ten weeks at#1 on Billboard’scountry chart andfour weeks # 1 onthe pop chart!(They don’t makehits like that any-more.) Edith Piafpopularized thesong in the 1940s,though the Brownslearned it from arecording by LesCompagnons de laChanson. Chet re-portedly believedso strongly in theversion he pro-duced for theBrowns that he

flew to New York and offered RCA an ultimatum: “Eitheryou promote this song or you lose Chet Atkins.” Happily,everyone came out a winner.

“I Can’t Stop Loving You” may be best rememberedfor Ray Charles’s 1962 version, but Chet produced theoriginal for Don Gibson, the tortured genius singer-songwriter who credits Chet with saving his career. Thanksto Chet’s production, Gibson was one of the first exem-plars of a new ‘countrypolitan’ sound which becameNashville’s alternative to the rock ‘n roll scourge. Aftersome initial hard country failures, Gibson told journalistDale Vinicur: “Chet said, ‘Don, there’s nothing else we cando unless you want to do it a little more modern, take outthe steel completely and add voices and do it like that.’”

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One December 1957 session which utilized this ap-proach rendered two major hits for Gibson, “I Can’t StopLoving You” and “Oh Lonesome Me.” Though “I Can’tStop Loving You” is the song that’s been more revived(five different versions made the country charts, 1958-1978), “Oh Lonesome Me” was # 1 for eight weeks in 1958and was the biggest hit of Gibson’s career as an artist. “ICan’t Stop Loving You” was the B-side of “Oh LonesomeMe,’ and gradually made it to #7. “Chet was very quiet,very easy in my sessions,” Gibson told Vinicur. Chetadded: “I’d say, ‘What do you want me to play, Don?’ Andhe’d hum some little lick and give me an idea and it wasgreat because it was nothing I would ever think of.”

“Java” is the catchy Allen Toussaint tune which be-came a million seller for trumpeter Al Hirt in 1963. DespiteChet in the producer’s chair, the tune didn’t even graze thecountry chart. The same, of course, can’t be said of JimReeves’s “He’ll Have to Go,” which was # 1 for an aston-ishing 14 weeks in 1959. (The song was three weeks at #2on Billboard’s pop chart.) Reeves also popularized “FourWalls” in 1957. Colin Escott has called it “The first greatNashville Sound record.” Of that sound, Chet told DaveBussey in 1973: “I wasn’t trying to change the business,

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just sell records. I realized at that time you had to surprisethe public and give them something a little different.” Hesucceeded with “Four Walls,” which offered an intimatevocal sound from Reeves and a prominent choral presenceby the Jordanaires. A perfectionist, Reeves made Chet dodouble duty. “It was a lot of stress on me,” Chet toldBussey, “because I had to run back and forth to the controlroom, but Jim liked my guitar sound and wanted me toplay the introduction and the bridge.”

“When You’re Hot You’re Hot” was a 1971 #1 hit forChet’s longtime pickin’ partner, singer-guitarist Jerry Reed,who affectionately calls Chet the Chief. Finally, Chetcloses this medley of songs he produced with the DonGibson classic, “Oh Lonesome Me.”

Prone to dismiss his production skills, Chet told JohnSchroeter that his success as producer comes in part fromhis common background with his audience. “I’ve alwaysbeen kind of square,” he said. “If I like a song, the publicwill usually like it, too. That was a great advantage. If I hadbeen a jazz player and detested everything but jazz, I’dhave been a flop. When you hear something and think,‘That’s clever. I wish I’d written that,’ that means it’s good.I never second guessed things.”

Following the ‘producer’s medley,’ we hear thesprightly “Just Another Rag,” which suggests the influ-ence on the Chief of protégé Jerry Reed. “Missionera,”with its hints of “Malaguena,” is a composition by SouthAmerican guitarist Jorge Morel. It’s a fine example ofChet’s formidable right hand in action. Finally, Chet’ssecond Norwegian interlude closes with “Wheels,” a buoy-ant country fingerpicker’s favorite which made the popTop Ten in 1961 in a recording by The String-A-Longs.

Now Chet returns to Nashville for the last two perfor-mances. Having seen him in action with various GretschChet Atkins models and classical guitars, it’s interesting tosee him deliver “Muskrat Ramble,” a 1926 tune popular-ized by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, with a MartinDreadnought. Despite the legendary stiffness of suchinstruments, Chet manages to elicit a signature vibratotone (sans Bigsby bar) in this 1973 performance. Closing

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this collection is a 1975 rendition of Don McLean’s wistful1972 hit, “Vincent.” The neo-classical voicings again dem-onstrate Chet’s knack for harmonically rich arrangements.And subtly, he shows off a new technique here, adownstroke brush with the back of his nails. On secondthought, it isn’t new at all: isn’t that a sophisticated varia-tion of the old Maybelle Carter ‘thumb-brush stroke’ lick?Yes, put to fresh use showing Chet as master of reinven-tion, an artist who lets nothing good go to waste from hisrich life of passionate engagement with the guitar. “Thethumbpick made me what I am today,” Chet told KevinRansom (Guitar Player, October 1994). “It’s taken me allover the world and made me a wonderful living. I neverthought that would happen to a guy like me, because Icome from so far out in the sticks you wouldn’t believe it.”

— Mark Humphrey

Photo courtesy Chet Atkins Collection

Few names are as syn-onymous with the guitar asthat of Chet Atkins. He setthe standard by which gen-erations of country finger-style guitarists have beenmeasured. But his influencetranscends regions andgenres. The sound of 20thcentury guitar would not bethe same without the impactof this gentle genius, whowas at the height of hisinfluence and creative pow-ers when the performancespresented in this video werecaptured.

The much traveled “Mr. Guitar” is seen playing in this videocollection everywhere from Nashville to Norway. His signature GretschTennessean guitar, on which Chet made exquisitely effective use of itsBigsby vibrato bar, is heard in all its sweet, reverb-laden glory onmany of these clips. But Chet, whose versatility embraces all styles ofguitar, is also seen playing a classical guitar and a Martin dreadnaught.No matter what he plays, the sound produced becomes a distinctauditory fingerprint of the man known in Nashville as C.G.P. (CertifiedGuitar Player). The relaxed mastery evident in this video explains whyChet, along with such diverse geniuses as Thelonius Monk and BillMonroe, was honored in 1993 with a Lifetime Achievement AwardGrammy “For this peerless fingerstyle guitar technique, his extensivecreative legacy documented on more than one hundred albums, andhis influential work on both sides of the recording console as aprimary architect of the Nashville sound.”

PURINA SHOW, 1955: The Poor People Of Paris, Side By Side, Makin'Believe • OZARK JUBILEE, 1958: Villa, Say Si Si • NORWAY, 1963:Levee Walking, Wildwood Flower, Yes Ma'am, Malaguena, Medley:

Greensleeves/Streets Of Laredo, Peanut Vendor, Tiger Rag • NORWAY

(NASHVILLE CAVALCADE), 1973: Alhambra, Black Mountain Rag,Medley: Windy & Warm/Back Home In Indiana/Country Gentleman/

Mr. Sandman/Wildwood Flower/Freight Train, Medley: The ThreeBells/I Can't Stop Loving You/Java/He'll Have To Go/When You're Hot

You're Hot/Oh Lonesome Me, Just Another Rag, Mr. Bojangles,Misionera, Wheels • Porter Wagoner Show, 1973: Muskrat Ramble

POP GOES THE COUNTRY, 1975: VincentVESTAPOL 13027

ISBN: 1-57940-904-0Running Time: 58 minutes • B/W & Color

Duplicated in SP Mode/Real Time DuplicationNationally distributed by Rounder Records,One Camp Street, Cambridge, MA 02140

Representation to Music Stores byMel Bay Publications

® 2001 Vestapol Productions / A division ofStefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop Inc. 0 1 1 6 7 1 30279 9