CHET ATKINS

RARE PERFORMANCES 1955-1975

You keep layin that thumb in there, son, and youll be alright.
Uncle Dave Macons advice to Chet Atkins

Photo courtesy Chet Atkins Collection

Whenever I hear the early solo recordings of Chet

Atkins, I think of Jones s Trading Post. It was a radio swap
meet where everything from old appliances to breeding
stock was bartered on KRHD, a country radio station in
my hometown of Duncan, Oklahoma. Sponsored by a local
grocery store, Jones s Trading Post aired weekday morn-
ings and was the preschool breakfast soundtrack in my
familys kitchen. The music bed under the announcer
offering us neighbors old lawn mowers and newborn
puppies was the buoyant thumb and dexterous fingers of
Chet Atkins. No doubt Chets friendly home and hearth
guitar style added to the folksiness of the Trading Post and
helped move its merchandise. It was some years later,
2
when I discovered Chets early recordings, that I experi-
enced deja vu. Id been hearing classic Chet since early
grade school, and no doubt the subliminal presence of his
music every weekday morning for a decade had an impact
on my later ardor for fingerstyle guitar.
Im sure my experience isnt unique. Many guitar
enthusiasts 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 aural
fabric of rural and small town American life. In the 1950s
and 1960s, Chets guitar was a ubiquitous sound on local
radio and television advertising across the South, South-
west and Midwest. No doubt Chet wishes he could recoup
mechanicals (broadcast performance fees) for all those
unlicensed plays. In his autobiography, Country Gentleman
(with Bill Neely, 1975, Ballantine Books, New York), Chet
recalled: My record of Galloping Guitar, which was
recorded in 1947, was used for years as a theme song by a
lot of DJs. The same was true with my record of Main
Street Breakdown. It had a lot of notes and fast runs, and
DJs apparently loved it.
So, too, did lots of listeners to country radio. It was,
in many respects, the medium which mattered most to
Chet, a child of the era when radio was rural Americas
magic link to the larger world and the one which launched
his own career. Yet the video performances here provide
an ultimately sharper portrait of the man who, for genera-
tions, defined country guitar, an artist whose personality
is a contradictory blend of relentless drive and defensive
shyness.
It isnt a contradiction that takes much explaining if
you have known bright people who, like Chet, have boot-
strapped themselves up from rural poverty and minimal
education. Chets glib reply to interviewer Don Menns
query as to how he originated his solo style (Guitar Player,
October 1979) bespeaks pride undercut by tongue-in-cheek
self-deprecation: The style I play is an accident, he said,
because I was so far out in the damn sticks I didnt know
any better.
The sticks to which Chet refers were near the town of
3
 Luttrell in eastern
Tennessee. Luttrell
was a whistle stop on
the Southern Rail-
way, Chet recalls in
his autobiography,
with a post office,
pool hall, barber-
shop, greasy spoon
restaurant and gen-
eral store... It was
two-and-a-half miles
from there his par-
1943, Photo courtesy Chet Atkins Collection

ents, James Arley

Atkins and Ida Sharp
Atkins, raised corn,
tobacco and five chil-
dren in a holler on
a fifty-acre farm
which had been in
the Atkins family for
generations, perhaps
since 1780. Music ran
in the family: Chets
grandfather, Wes Atkins, made and played fiddles. His
father, James, was a music teacher, piano tuner, and singer
for itinerant evangelists. (He liked to perform Ave Maria
with trilled Rs.) Chets half-brother, Jim, got a Washburn
guitar shortly after Chester Burton Atkins was born on
June 20, 1924. Jim became good enough to start performing
on radio while Chet was still a boy and his success fired his
younger 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 and
dragging it through the yard and filling it with dirt. By
the time he was nine, he could do more with the instru-
ment than drag it and was ready for one of his own. (He
already was playing fiddle on a poorly repaired instru-
ment once struck and shattered by lightning!) A stint of
early morning milking and a firearms swap earned Chet
4
his first guitar, one he recalls as real cheap, probably
made in Chicago. It didnt have a name on it. (Another
early guitar of Chets, a Silvertone, is in the Country Music
Hall of Fame.) That guitar, he said in his autobiography,
would absorb almost every moment I could find for it for
the rest of my life.
Chets first significant performance experience came
at the age ten: he played Wildwood Flower for an appre-
ciative audience of 200 of his fellow school children. Their
applause was medicine for a shy kid who felt, he later
wrote, that everybody hated me because I was ugly and
retarded....The applause gave me much more confidence
in myself than anything ever had. Soon Chet was playing
fiddle in a family ensemble led by his guitar-playing
stepfather, Willie Strevel (Chet was six when his musician
father took off, leaving his family with two milk cows, a
couple of horses and a saddle), and the group performed
at East Tennessee school houses and tourist camps. Chets
first earnings as a professional musician were $3 and some
watermelon.
Ill-health, particularly asthma, plagued Chet in his
childhood. He became so frail when he was eleven that
Chets mother wrote his father, then living in Georgia, to
say their son was dying. Convinced a change of climate
would cure him, James Atkins brought his son to live on
his farm 22 miles north of Columbus, Georgia. Chet
missed the community music-making which was such a
pervasive part of life in east Tennessee, but he credits the
isolation of his life in Georgia with freeing him to explore
a new style: I began to experiment picking the guitar with
my fingers instead of a hard pick, he wrote in Country
Gentleman. It felt natural, and since there was nobody
around to teach me anything else I began, little by little, to
develop a finger-pickin style....I might not have devel-
oped it as quickly if I had stayed in east Tennessee, where
there were so many people to influence me, and where
everybody played with a plectrum....
Elsewhere, Chet has admitted his style didnt take
shape in complete isolation: Merle Travis is where I first
heard pickin, Chet told Dave Kyle (Vintage Guitar,
5
 Jimmy Doughtery, Chet Atkins, Jack Anglia, Johnny Wright & Marion Sumner
Photo courtesy Chet Atkins Collection

August 1995). There were some people before him that

influenced me, like the guy that used to cut my hair. He
could play Spanish Fandango on the guitar, which was a
finger-pickin piece. Then I heard a record of a guy named
[Charlie] Stump that did some finger-pickin on an old
Edison record. When I first heard Merle Travis play [over
Cincinnati station WLW circa 1938], I didnt know what he
was doing and I tried to imitate him and it wound up to be
different. I play more of a stride piano style and he plays
more of a 4/4 beat type of thing.
The sounds of Travis, George Barnes, and brother Jim
Atkins, who appeared on the WLS National Barn Dance
along with Les Paul, came to Chets isolated Georgia
outpost 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 his
guitar. I ordered an Amperite pickup for my guitar, he
told Don Menn. It was basically just a coil of wire and a
magnet that you clamped to the back of the bridge. He
also ordered a PA system, and the newly-electric Chet
became a sensation around Columbus, Georgia.
At seventeen, Chet returned to east Tennessee to seek
6
work at Knoxville radio station WNOX, which had once
launched Roy Acuff. (A high school dropout, Chet would
later award himself a fictitious degree, C.G.P., Certified
Guitar Player). Chet was hired as a fiddler to accompany
comic Archie Campbell and singer-comedian Bill Carlisle.
When Chets guitar skills came to light, station manager
Lowell Blanchard gave him a solo spot on the Mid-Day
Merry-Go-Round on the 10,000 watt radio station. What
a debt I owe that guy, Chet would tell interviewer Jim
Ohlschmidt (Acoustic Guitar, May/June 1993). I would
listen to all the pop tunes that were out, everything, and
try to think of something I could play how in the world
could I make it interesting for two minutes. The stations
staff guitarist was drafted, and Chet (4-F on account of
chronic asthma) stepped in and quickly learned more Swing-
era standards as a member of the staff band, the Dixieland
Swingsters. He worked three years at WNOX before set-
ting his sights on Traviss old radio home, Cincinnatis
50,000 watt WLW.
It was there Travis himself first heard his foremost
disciple in action.
The first time I

Chet Atkins & Merle Travis Photo courtesy Merle Travis Estate
heard him really
turn loose was in
about 1945, Merle
recalled in 1979. Id
been in the Marine
Corps a short while
and I was going
back to Cincinnati to
visit friends. It was
a cold morning....
Well, Chet Atkins
was on the radio at
the time on WLW in
Cincinnati, and I
was listening to the
radio and the an-
nouncer said, Now well have a guitar solo from Chet
Atkins. He started playing, and I pulled the car overit
7
was snowing like everythingand sat there and listened
to him, and I thought, Wow!
In his autobiography, Chet remembered Merle com-
ing to the station at this time and saying things like: I cant
play the guitar. Not like you can, Chester. And while the
man for whom Travis picking was named might have
jealously guarded his primacy in the field, Merle was
always effusive in his praise of Chet. I dont think that
there will ever be a chance for another guitar player to be
as great as Chet, Merle once told this writer. He was born
at a time when turn-of-the-century music, the songs of the
1920s and big bands, were still around and not laughed at.
He knows it all, from that music...to what was recorded
this afternoon in Nashville. He is the greatest guitar player
that has ever been on this earth, in my opinion. I dont
think there will ever be anyone greater. And thats what I
think of Chet Atkins.
Despite Traviss admiration, Chet was fired from his
WLW job on Christmas Eve, 1945. He worked a couple of
months early in 1946 for Johnnie Wright and Jack Anglin
on WPTF in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he was billed
on shows as Chester Atkins and His Talking Electric
Guitar. But a long-shot at the big-time soon beckoned:
Chet had heard that Red Foley would be replacing Roy
Acuff on the Oprys immensely popular Prince Albert
Tobacco segment. Chet, emboldened both by Traviss en-
couragement and his ardor for Leona Johnson, the woman
he would wed, (one of a pair of singing twins on WLW),
struck out for Chicago to audition for Foley. And when the
WLS National Barn Dance veteran debuted on the Opry on
April 13, 1946, Chet (or Ches, as Foley called him) was
with him.
Chet was two months shy of his 22nd birthday, earn-
ing $50 a week and enjoying a solo spot on the show. His
glory, however, was short-lived: the ad agency sponsoring
the Opry segment ordered Foley to drop his guitar solo.
Chet could have continued as Foleys Opry sideman, but
chose not to. In four years of radio experience, Chet had
worked his way to countrys top show, only to walk away
from it.
8
Photo courtesy Chet Atkins Collection

9
 After a brief stint at
Richmond, Virginias
WRVAs Old Dominion
Barn Dance, Chet went
to Springfield, Miss-
ouris KW-TO (Keep
Watching The Ozarks),
where booking agent Si
Siman reportedly be-
came the first person to
call Chester Atkins
Chet. Siman saw great
promise in the shy gui-
tarist and recorded him
on station transcription
discs. He sent them as
Photo courtesy Chet Atkins Collection

demos to record ex-

ecutives, including
Steve Sholes, who
heard Chet as a poten-
tial RCA answer to
Merle Travis, then en-
joying hits for Capitol
like Divorce Me
C.O.D, novelty songs
augmented by catchy fingerstyle guitar. The peripatetic
Chet was in Denver working on radio station KOA in
August 1947 when Jean Aberbach of the Hill and Range
music publishing company called on Sholess behalf. Was
Chet interested in recording for RCA? He answered in the
affirmative. He also answered yes, though perhaps with
less conviction, when asked if he wrote songs and if he
could sing. (He could do both, but his talents lay else-
where.) On August 11, 1947, Chet made his first recordings
for RCA in Chicago on a Gibson L-10 acoustic (now on
display in the Country Music Hall of Fame) which his
brother Jim had given him and which had once belonged
to Les Paul. It wasnt Chets first recording session he had
recorded for the Nashville-based Bullet label during his
brief Opry stint, and as early as 1944 as a sideman to
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WNOX artists Pappy Beaver and the Birchfield Brothers
for Capitol. But Chets recording of Jenny Lou Carsons
Aintcha Tired of Makin Me Blue launched an associa-
tion which would last until 1982 and yield over 70 RCA
studio albums.
Impressed by his eight-side August session, Sholes
called 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 sweetheart
As faithful as can be;
I put her on my knee
And sing a lovely melody.
When lights are low,
She wont say, No.
Oh, my guitar is my sweetheart
Shes as faithful as can be.
Though written by David Rhodes and Alfio Bargnesi, it
seemed autobiographical of a man who has often fallen
asleep with a guitar in his hands and has written: I would
lean on it for the love I never seemed to have enough of and
for the friendships I didnt always find.
Steve Sholess faith in Chet did not make him an over-
night success. In desperate need of work, by 1948 he was
back where he had started in radio in 1942 on Knoxvilles
WNOX. This time he was in the company of Homer
Haynes and Jethro Burns, with whom Chet later worked
as producer at RCA. When Homer and Jethro moved on to
Springfields KWTO, Chet stayed in Knoxville, backing
Maybelle 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 there
George Moran, visiting Springfield to make transcriptions
for Martha White Flour (best remembered for its sponsor-
ship of Flatt & Scruggs), returned to the Opry with glad
tidings about Chet Atkins and the Carter Sisters. He
praised them as one of the best acts in country music.
The Opry beckoned, and in June of 1950, Chet, his wife
Leona and daughter Merle arrived in Nashville with the
intention of settling there. It was the last stop for a man
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 Photo courtesy Chet Atkins Collection

who had spent the better part of the 1940s chasing radio
jobs from the Great Smokies to the Rocky Mountains. Fred
Rose promised Chet session work (he was on many of
Hank Williamss later recordings and the early ones of the
Louvin 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 and
organizing sessions for Steve Sholes, Fred Rose, and Deccas
Paul Cohen. In 1952, Chet officially became A&R assistant
to RCAs Sholes, a capacity which linked him to the earliest

12
(1955) RCA recordings of Elvis Presley. Chet was increas-
ingly active as producer he was promoted to RCAs
Manager of Operations in Nashville in 1957 but he also
recorded many of his best guitar sides during this time.
The 10-inch LP, Gallopin Guitar, appeared in 1954, the first
of dozens of albums Chet waxed for RCA. Chets reputa-
tion as a guitarist was going national, and Gretsch repre-
sentative Jimmy Webster convinced him to design and
endorse an electric guitar, the Gretsch CA 6120. It debuted
in 1954, and was the first of many models Chet endorsed
for Gretsch through 1979.
1955 is the point at which our video collection begins.
Chet Atkins, a curious mixture of insecurity, tenacity and
talent, was fast becoming a major player in country music
on several levels. In subsequent decades he would be both
praised and blamed for the countrypolitan blend heard
on records he produced for Don Gibson and Floyd Cramer,
among many others. But few people outside Music City
then knew or cared about the production phase of his
career. Chet was Mr. Guitar, a talent Minnie Pearl ac-
knowledged when he first played the Opry in 1946 with a
peck on the cheek and the encouraging words: Youre a
great musician and youre just what weve been needing
around here. In time, even Chet Atkins had a hard time
living up to his own reputation. One of his favorite anec-
dotes involves an impromptu performance he once gave
aboard a cruise ship. Picking informally in the bar while
the lounge guitarist took a break, Chets anonymous solo
act was given this critique by one of the passengers: Youre
good, but youre no Chet Atkins!

13
 THE PERFORMANCES

Photo courtesy Chet Atkins Collection

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 think
I was kind of ahead of my time...for that time, I was pretty
good. And I could play with confidence. I see that now and
think, how did I do that? Look at those young fingers! Look
at that tight skin! What happened? But I didnt realize it at
the time. I remember thinking that I was so bad if I could
only 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 wonderful
period piece with Ernest Tubb towering over Little Jimmy
Dickens and Jean Shepard, one of country musics reign-
ing queens in the mid-1950s, providing classic crinoline
country girl atmosphere. The song introduced (in honor of
Shepard) as Jeans Tune is in fact The Poor People of
Paris, a song associated with Edith Piaf and popularized
in this country by Les Baxter and his Orchestra. Chet is
picking a new CA 6120, his first signature model Gretsch
that appeared in late 1954. I went up to Brooklyn and
signed a deal with them and we came up with an orange
14
Gretsch, Chet told Dave Kyle (Vintage Guitar, August
1995). I had some input, like a steel bridge and a zero fret
instead of a nut. I think Mr. Gretscha colorful guy, I
loved him came up with the color. It was radical at that
time. I dont think there ever was an orange guitar before.
Worked out well; we sold an awful lot of those things. I
was starting to get a lot of play on the radio, was becoming
popular in a small sort of way.
The performance demonstrates Chets tasteful use of
the vibrato bar, a tool which enabled him to emulate the
fluid pitch shifts he heard from steel players and one
which first came into his playing around 1943. A drummer
named Herbie Fields told him about it and ordered one for
Chet. I put it on my guitar and I loved it, Chet recalled.
In the 1950s, he would modify the vibrato designed by
West Coast inventor Paul Bigsby. I bought one, Chet
told Kyle, but I couldnt use it because the handle was in
my way. I couldnt play any pizzicato notes, I couldnt
play Country Gentleman with it because I deadened the
strings a little. With the aid of some coiled steel, a vise and
a hammer, Chet altered it so its bent down under the
bridge so I can play pizzicato notes...The vibrato rests
under my little finger, the end of it, so its handy when I
need it. Its right there.
Side By Side is a 1927 vintage song popularized by
vaudeville singer-guitarist Nick Lucas and revived in 1953
by Kay Starr. Chets performance is a tour de force sug-
gesting the influence of Les Paul and Merle Travis yet
tastefully arranged in a way which is uniquely Chet.
Another wonderful 1955 period piece finds Chet in the
role of master accompanist to Anita Carter, who clutches a
bouquet 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 frequently
revived (Emmylou Harris enjoyed a Top Ten hit with it in
1977.) Chet invests the wistful melody with sweet, piquant
fills in his solo spotlight.
Chets two performances from the Ozark Jubilee in
1958 find him back in his old Springfield, Missouri haunt
and exemplify his relaxed trademark sound. Villa is
15
 Chet Atkins with Homer and Jethro
Photo courtesy Chet Atkins Collection

from the 1907 operetta, The Merry Widow.Say Si Si is a

1940 Xavier Cugat hit further popularized by the Andrews
Sisters. Note Chets deft use of his thumbpick as plectrum.
Watching his left-hand voicings here, a jazz guitarist re-
marked, Hes the best double-stop guy Ive ever heard.
From the Ozarks to Norway is quite a leap, but wherever
he went, Chet took Tennessee with him. The 1963 Norwe-
gian concert, in which hes accompanied by a very close-
to-the-vest quartet including longtime session stalwart
Henry Strzelecki on bass, opens with Levee Walking.
Note Chets beautiful use of harmonics. Now Chet, hes
got the world skinned on that [harmonics], Merle Travis
once said. He can hit a chord thats half harmonics. Chet
cites the influence of steel guitarists in his desire to master
this technique.
The song he introduces as the national anthem of east
Tennessee was also one that earned Chet his first major
applause as a performer when he was ten, Wildwood
Flower. Chet remembered being surprised to hear the
16
 Carter Family recording, since he had learned it from East
Tennessee musicians. Maybelle Carter is on record as
saying, My grandmother knew that song, and Wild-
wood Flower seems to be a folk synthesis of a couple of
Victorian-era parlor songs, Ill Twine Midst the Ring-
lets and The Pale Amaryllis. Chet plays it first in the
old Maybelle Carter thumb-brush stroke style, then de-
velops the tune harmonically and finally picks it in his
characteristic assertive yet relaxed fingerstyle.
Yes Maam, performed without the quartet, is a
wonderful solo which is a mite like Windy and Warm.
Having breezily moved from purest country to bluesy
sounds, Chet next sets his sights on the guitars mother-
land, Spain, with Malaguena. While malaguenas are an
authentic flamenco genre, the well-known Malaguena is
actually a 1948 composition from the co-writer of Say Si
Si, Cuban-born pianist-bandleader Ernesto Lecuona. Chet
makes an understated tour de force of it, again effectively
exploiting his skill with harmonics.
The medley of two folk songs, Greensleeves and
Streets of Laredo, shows the depth of Chets arranging.
Theres beautiful counter movement in the voicing of
Greensleeves, and a wonderful bass line in Laredo.

1964, Chet Atkins with Andres Segovia

Photo courtesy Chet Atkins Collection

17
For all the neo-classicism of this performance, Chet isnt
above nailing a bass note on the sixth string with his thumb
if need be. Segovia would be shocked, but such country
pragmatism was endorsed by Merle Travis, who likened
his approach to a guitar neck to grabbing a hoe handle.
From the sublime to the ridiculous, Chet enlists his band
to vocalize on The Peanut Vendor, a 1932 vintage pseudo-
Latin tune once performed, strange as it seems, by Judy
Garland in A Star Is Born. Chet hints at, among others, Bo
Diddley in his bag of licks here.
When Chet introduces Tiger Rag as an old New
Orleans tune, hes not kidding. This goes back to 1917 and
the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. As an encore, Chets
performance is aptly hot.
A decade later, Mr. Guitar returned to the Land of the
Midnight Sun to perform on Norways Nashville Cavalcade
program. The opening classical guitar piece, Alhambra,
shows Chets stylistic range. His interest in classical gui-
tar, ironically, dates to the time he was accompanying
Maybelle Carter and her daughters. Ezra Carter, the
Carter Sisters father, gave me three volumes by Pascual
Roch, Modern Method for Guitar, around 1949 or 1950,
Chet told Don Menn. (Roch was a student of Francisco
Tarrega.) He [Carter] was into all kinds of things. I dont
know how he became interested in classical guitar...But he
had those books, and he gave them to me. Chet made
good use of them. However, Segovia would hardly ap-
prove of Chets thumbpick!
Black Mountain Rag is best known today as a
flatpickers favorite, thanks to Doc Watson, but Chet re-
corded the driving fingerstyle rendition he performs here
for RCA in 1952. Atypically, he plays this in open G (D-G-
D-G-B-D) tuning. Fiddler Curly Fox had enjoyed a hit with
the tune in 1947, and his accompanist was pioneering
Kentucky fingerpicker Mose Rager, one of Merle Traviss
boyhood inspirations.
The first of two medleys from this Norwegian outing
opens with Windy and Warm, a tune John D. Loudermilk
wrote for Chet which had become a folk fingerpickers
favorite in the 1960s, thanks in part to Doc Watsons
18
 recording of it. Back
Home in Indiana is the
sort of pop chestnut for
Chet Atkins & Maybelle Carter. Photo courtesy Chet Atkins Collection
which Chet has always
had a soft spot and
which he always in-
vested with a warm
glow. Country Gentle-
man is his sprightly
1953 original, co-written
with Boudleaux Bryant,
which became Chets
theme. Mister Sand-
man is, of course, the
1955 Chordettes hit
which, as an instrumen-
tal, also became Chets
first chart hit that year:
it made it to #13 on
Billboards country
chart. We hear another Wildwood Flower and, finally,
Elizabeth Cottens Freight Train closes this medley of
pickers delights.
The second medley reflects the successes of Chet
Atkins, producer. RCA made him a vice president in 1968,
the year a Harpers Magazine piece said of Chet: Though
Chet Atkins calls himself just another hunched-over gui-
tar player, this 44-year-old native of rural Tennessee is
probably 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 and
Country Music (Simon and Schuster, 1970, New York) of
Atkinss office, which is highlighted by a boomerang-
shaped velvet sofa and a nude statue carved from rare
Philippine wood and an ashtray engraved TO CHET
THANKS TRINI (Trini Lopez had been in town to record
an album, Welcome to Trini Country). None of this was
evident in Norway, naturally, but the fruits of Chets
production labors inspired a medley of songs he pro-
duced.
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 The first tune in
the medley is The
Three Bells, a phe-
nomenal hit for the
Browns in 1959.
Their recording
was ten weeks at
#1 on Billboards
country chart and
four weeks # 1 on
the pop chart!
(They dont make
hits like that any-
more.) Edith Piaf
popularized the
song in the 1940s,
though the Browns
Photo courtesy Chet Atkins Collection

learned it from a
recording by Les
Compagnons de la
Chanson. Chet re-
portedly believed
so strongly in the
version he pro-
duced for the
Browns that he
flew to New York and offered RCA an ultimatum: Either
you promote this song or you lose Chet Atkins. Happily,
everyone came out a winner.
I Cant Stop Loving You may be best remembered
for Ray Charless 1962 version, but Chet produced the
original for Don Gibson, the tortured genius singer-
songwriter who credits Chet with saving his career. Thanks
to Chets production, Gibson was one of the first exem-
plars of a new countrypolitan sound which became
Nashvilles alternative to the rock n roll scourge. After
some initial hard country failures, Gibson told journalist
Dale Vinicur: Chet said, Don, theres nothing else we can
do unless you want to do it a little more modern, take out
the steel completely and add voices and do it like that.
20
 Photo courtesy Chet Atkins Collection
Jim Reeves, Anita Kerr & Chet Atkins

One December 1957 session which utilized this ap-

proach rendered two major hits for Gibson, I Cant Stop
Loving You and Oh Lonesome Me. Though I Cant
Stop Loving You is the song thats been more revived
(five different versions made the country charts, 1958-
1978), Oh Lonesome Me was # 1 for eight weeks in 1958
and was the biggest hit of Gibsons career as an artist. I
Cant Stop Loving You was the B-side of Oh Lonesome
Me, and gradually made it to #7. Chet was very quiet,
very easy in my sessions, Gibson told Vinicur. Chet
added: Id say, What do you want me to play, Don? And
hed hum some little lick and give me an idea and it was
great 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. Despite
Chet in the producers chair, the tune didnt even graze the
country chart. The same, of course, cant be said of Jim
Reevess Hell Have to Go, which was # 1 for an aston-
ishing 14 weeks in 1959. (The song was three weeks at #2
on Billboards pop chart.) Reeves also popularized Four
Walls in 1957. Colin Escott has called it The first great
Nashville Sound record. Of that sound, Chet told Dave
Bussey in 1973: I wasnt trying to change the business,

21
just sell records. I realized at that time you had to surprise
the public and give them something a little different. He
succeeded with Four Walls, which offered an intimate
vocal sound from Reeves and a prominent choral presence
by the Jordanaires. A perfectionist, Reeves made Chet do
double duty. It was a lot of stress on me, Chet told
Bussey, because I had to run back and forth to the control
room, but Jim liked my guitar sound and wanted me to
play the introduction and the bridge.
When Youre Hot Youre Hot was a 1971 #1 hit for
Chets longtime pickin partner, singer-guitarist Jerry Reed,
who affectionately calls Chet the Chief. Finally, Chet
closes this medley of songs he produced with the Don
Gibson classic, Oh Lonesome Me.
Prone to dismiss his production skills, Chet told John
Schroeter that his success as producer comes in part from
his common background with his audience. Ive always
been kind of square, he said. If I like a song, the public
will usually like it, too. That was a great advantage. If I had
been a jazz player and detested everything but jazz, Id
have been a flop. When you hear something and think,
Thats clever. I wish Id written that, that means its good.
I never second guessed things.
Following the producers medley, we hear the
sprightly Just Another Rag, which suggests the influ-
ence on the Chief of protg Jerry Reed. Missionera,
with its hints of Malaguena, is a composition by South
American guitarist Jorge Morel. Its a fine example of
Chets formidable right hand in action. Finally, Chets
second Norwegian interlude closes with Wheels, a buoy-
ant country fingerpickers favorite which made the pop
Top 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 Gretsch
Chet Atkins models and classical guitars, its interesting to
see him deliver Muskrat Ramble, a 1926 tune popular-
ized by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, with a Martin
Dreadnought. Despite the legendary stiffness of such
instruments, Chet manages to elicit a signature vibrato
tone (sans Bigsby bar) in this 1973 performance. Closing
22
this collection is a 1975 rendition of Don McLeans wistful
1972 hit, Vincent. The neo-classical voicings again dem-
onstrate Chets knack for harmonically rich arrangements.
And subtly, he shows off a new technique here, a
downstroke brush with the back of his nails. On second
thought, it isnt new at all: isnt 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 his
rich life of passionate engagement with the guitar. The
thumbpick made me what I am today, Chet told Kevin
Ransom (Guitar Player, October 1994). Its taken me all
over the world and made me a wonderful living. I never
thought that would happen to a guy like me, because I
come from so far out in the sticks you wouldnt believe it.
Mark Humphrey

Photo courtesy Chet Atkins Collection

23
 Few names are as syn-
onymous with the guitar as
that of Chet Atkins. He set
the standard by which gen-
erations of country finger-
style guitarists have been
measured. But his influence
transcends regions and
genres. The sound of 20th
century guitar would not be
the same without the impact
of this gentle genius, who
was at the height of his
influence and creative pow-
ers when the performances
presented in this video were
captured.
The much traveled Mr. Guitar is seen playing in this video
collection everywhere from Nashville to Norway. His signature Gretsch
Tennessean guitar, on which Chet made exquisitely effective use of its
Bigsby vibrato bar, is heard in all its sweet, reverb-laden glory on
many of these clips. But Chet, whose versatility embraces all styles of
guitar, is also seen playing a classical guitar and a Martin dreadnaught.
No matter what he plays, the sound produced becomes a distinct
auditory fingerprint of the man known in Nashville as C.G.P. (Certified
Guitar Player). The relaxed mastery evident in this video explains why
Chet, along with such diverse geniuses as Thelonius Monk and Bill
Monroe, was honored in 1993 with a Lifetime Achievement Award
Grammy For this peerless fingerstyle guitar technique, his extensive
creative legacy documented on more than one hundred albums, and
his influential work on both sides of the recording console as a
primary architect of the Nashville sound.
PURINA S HOW, 1955: The Poor People Of Paris, Side By Side, Makin'
Believe O ZARK J UBILEE, 1958: Villa, Say Si Si N ORWAY, 1963:
Levee Walking, Wildwood Flower, Yes Ma'am, Malaguena, Medley:
Greensleeves/Streets Of Laredo, Peanut Vendor, Tiger Rag N ORWAY
(NASHVILLE CAVALCADE), 1973: Alhambra, Black Mountain Rag,
Medley: Windy & Warm/Back Home In Indiana/Country Gentleman/
Mr. Sandman/Wildwood Flower/Freight Train, Medley: The Three
Bells/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 G OES THE C OUNTRY, 1975: Vincent
Running Time: 58 minutes B/W & Color
VESTAPOL 13027
Duplicated in SP Mode/Real Time Duplication ISBN: 1-57940-904-0
Nationally distributed by Rounder Records,
One Camp Street, Cambridge, MA 02140
Representation to Music Stores by
Mel Bay Publications
2001 Vestapol Productions / A division of
Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop Inc. 0 1 1 6 7 1 30279 9