Chet Atkins

The Gretsch Chet Atkins "Country Gentleman" model guitar

Chester Burton "Chet" Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001) was an influential guitarist and Nashville record producer. His picking style, inspired by Merle Travis, Django Reinhardt, and Les Paul, brought him admirers both within and outside the country scene, both in the U.S.A. and internationally.

As RCA's top Nashville executive, Atkins produced records for Eddy Arnold, Don Gibson, Jim Reeves, Skeeter Davis, Connie Smith, and Waylon Jennings. He created, along with Owen Bradley, the smoother country music style known as the Nashville Sound, which expanded country music's appeal to include adult pop music fans as well. This slick brand of country music in turn stimulated a reaction among purists, resulting the Outlaw country movement centered in Austin, Texas.

Atkins' style of finger-picking opened new creative possibilities and remains highly influential among guitarists today. His willingness to branch into jazz, classical guitar, and flamenco created an inter-cultural bridge that brought his music to a wide audience and increased his influence. Atkins recorded more than 100 albums and was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Biography

Chet Atkins was born on June 20, 1924, in Luttrell, Tennessee, near the Clinch Mountains, youngest of three boys and a girl. His parents divorced when he was six and he was raised by his mother. His first instrument was a ukulele and then a fiddle, and then when he was nine he acquired a guitar from his brother Lowell in exchange for an old pistol and some of his brother's chores. Due to a near-fatal asthma condition, Atkins was a sensitive youth who made music his main focus. A self-taught musician, he became an accomplished guitarist while he was in high school.

While living with his father in Georgia, Atkins heard Merle Travis playing over WLW radio. This early influence dramatically shaped Atkins' finger-picking style. Both used the right thumb to play the bass notes and the index finger to play melodies. However, Atkins used two other fingers of the right hand as well, resulting in a greater degree of complexity and flexibility of style.

Career

Early career

After dropping out of high school in 1942, Atkins landed a job at WNOX radio in Knoxville. There he played fiddle and guitar with singer Bill Carlisle and comic Archie Campbell as well as becoming a member of the station's "Dixieland Swingsters," a swing instrumental combo.

After three years, he moved to WLW in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Merle Travis had formerly worked. Six months later, he moved to Raleigh, North Carolina and worked with singing duo Johnnie and Jack before heading for Richmond, Virginia, where he performed with Sunshine Sue Workman. Atkins' shy personality worked against him, as did the fact that his sophisticated style led many to doubt he was truly "country." He was fired several times, but with his unique playing ability soon found other work.

Traveling to Chicago, Atkins auditioned and joined the band of Red Foley, who was leaving his star position at the WLS National Barn Dance to join the Grand Ole Opry. Atkins made his first appearance at the Opry in 1946 as a member of Foley's band. He also recorded an instrumental single for Nashville-based Bullet Records that year. That single, "Guitar Blues," was progressive by country standards, including a clarinet solo by Nashville dance band musician Dutch McMillan. Atkins landed a solo spot on the Opry for a while, but when that was cut he moved on to KWTO in Springfield, Missouri, where once again he was fired for not sounding country enough.

RCA Victor

While working with a Western band in Denver, Colorado, Atkins came to the attention of RCA Victor. He made his first RCA solo recordings in Chicago in 1947, but they did not sell well. He also did some studio work for RCA and relocated to Knoxville again, where he worked with Homer and Jethro on WNOX's new Saturday night radio show the Tennessee Barn Dance. In 1949, he joined Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters back at KWTO. The group soon moved to Nashville in mid-1950, where Atkins began working on recording sessions and performed again on WSM and the Grand Ole Opry.

While he had not yet had a hit record, Atkins' stature was growing, and he began organizing RCA Nashville sessions. Atkins' first hit single was an instrumental version of "Mr. Sandman," followed by the Christmas song "Silver Bell"(s) which he did as a duet with Hank Snow. His albums also became more popular. In addition to recording, Atkins became a design consultant for Gretsch, who manufactured a popular Chet Atkins line of electric guitars from 1955-1980. Atkins also became manager of RCA's Nashville studio, eventually inspiring the creation of the legendary Studio B. This was the first studio built specifically for the purpose of recording on the now famous Music Row.

The Nashville Sound

Atkins took charge of RCA's Nashville division in 1957. With country music record sales suffering as a result of the success of rock and roll, Atkins and Bob Ferguson took their cue from Patsy Cline's producer, Owen Bradley, and eliminated fiddles and steel guitar as a way of making country singers appeal to pop fans. This became known as the Nashville Sound. Atkins used Elvis Presley's vocal backing group, the Jordanaires, and a pop-oriented rhythm section on hits like Jim Reeves' "Four Walls" and "He'll Have to Go;" and Don Gibson's "Oh Lonesome Me" and "Blue Blue Day." As a result, the once rare phenomenon of having a country hit "cross over" to the pop charts became more common.

Atkins also made his own records, which usually visited pop standards and jazz, in a sophisticated home studio, often recording the rhythm tracks at RCA but adding his solo parts at home. Guitarists of all styles came to admire various Atkins albums for their unique musical ideas and in some cases experimental electronic ideas. In this period he became known internationally as "Mister Guitar," also the name of one of Atkins's albums. Atkins performed by invitation at the White House for presidents Kennedy through George H. W. Bush.

Atkins's own biggest hit single came in 1965, with "Yakety Axe," an adaptation of his friend saxophonist Boots Randolph's "Yakety Sax."

Willie Nelson rebelled against the Nashville Sound and helped create the Outlaw country movement in Austin, Texas.

Now vice president of RCA's country division, Atkins brought Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Connie Smith, Bobby Bare, Dolly Parton, Jerry Reed, and John Hartford to the label in the 1960s. He took a considerable risk during the mid-1960s by signing country music's first African-American singer Charley Pride. Ironically, some of Pride's biggest fans were among the most conservative country fans, many of whom did not care for the pop stylings Atkins had added.

Meanwhile, Atkins' slick Nashville Sound and his corporate management style—insisting that performers adhere to his vision of what would work commercially whether they liked it or not—did not sit well with talents like Nelson and Jennings. In the late 1960s, they would relocate to Austin, Texas and form their brand of "Outlaw country," proving that there was still a major market for "authentic" country music devoid of compromise with the pop market.

In 1969, Atkins had his last major hit single, "Country Gentleman."

Later career

In the 1970s, Atkins became increasingly stressed by his executive duties. He produced fewer records but could still turn out hits such as Perry Como's pop hit "And I Love You So." He recorded extensively with close friend and fellow picker Jerry Reed. A 1973 bout of colon cancer, however, led Atkins to redefine his role at RCA, to allow others to handle administration while he went back to his first love, the guitar, often recording with Reed or even Homer & Jethro's Jethro Burns (Atkins's brother-in-law) after Homer died in 1971. However, he continued to want to express himself outside of the country genre. In 1972, he recorded an album with the Boston Pops orchestra and continued to experiment with other forms of guitar music.

By the end of the 1970s, Atkins's time had passed as a producer, and RCA sensed that its country division needed to move closer to its country roots. He first retired from his position as an RCA executive, and then began to feel stifled as an artist because RCA objected to his branching out into jazz. At the same time he grew dissatisfied and began designing guitars with Gibson. He left RCA in 1982 and signed with Columbia Records, for whom he produced a debut album in 1983.

While he was with Columbia, he showed his creativity and taste in jazz guitar, and in various other contexts. He was a masterful improviser but could also read music well, and even performed some classical guitar pieces with taste and distinction. Asked to name the ten most influential guitarists of the twentieth century, he named Django Reinhardt to the first position on the list, and placed himself at fifth position.

In later years, he sometimes went back to performing on radio, appearing on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion, and even picking up a fiddle from time to time. While he did more performing in the 1990s, his health grew frail from worsening colon cancer. He died on June 30, 2001 at his home in Nashville.

Legacy

Atkins received numerous awards, including eleven Grammy Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993), and nine Country Music Association Instrumentalist of the Year awards. Billboard Magazine awarded him their Century Award, their "highest honor for distinguished creative achievement," in December 1997.

A virtuoso instrumentalist, Atkins expanded the universe for guitarists—and lovers of guitar music—in a way no one did before. For better or worse, he was the driving force behind the creation of the Nashville Sound, which helped revive the fortunes of country music even as it removed some of the authentic southern folk qualities which many fans and artists craved.

Of his own legacy he once said, "Years from now, after I'm gone, someone will listen to what I've done and know I was here. They may not know or care who I was, but they'll hear my guitars speaking for me."

In 2002, Atkins was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Fame. The following year, Atkins ranked #28 in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music. A stretch of Interstate 185 in southwest Georgia (between LaGrange and Columbus) is named "Chet Atkins Parkway."

Discography

1952 - Chet Atkins' Gallopin' Guitar
1953 - Stringin' Along
1953 - String Dustin'*1954 - A Session with Chet Atkins
1955 - Stringin' Along with Chet Atkins
1955 - Chet Atkins in Three Dimensions
1955 - The Amazing Chet Atkins
1956 - Finger Style Guitar
1957 - Hi Fi in Focus
1958 - Chet Atkins at Home
1959 - Mister Guitar
1959 - Hum & Strum Along with Chet Atkins
1959 - Chet Atkins in Hollywood
1960 - The Other Chet Atkins
1960 - After the Riot at Newport
1961 - Teensville
1961 - Chet Atkins' Workshop
1961 - The Most Popular Guitar
1961 - Chet Atkins Plays Great Movie Themes
1961 - Christmas with Chet Atkins
1962 - Down Home
1962 - Plays Back Home Hymns
1962 - Caribbean Guitar
1963 - Our Man in Nashville
1963 - Teen Scene
1963 - Travelin'
1963 - The Guitar Genius
1964 - Guitar Country
1964 - Progressive Pickin'
1964 - Reminiscing
1964 - The Best of Chet Atkins
1964 - The Early Years of Chet Atkins & His Guitar
1965 - My Favorite Guitars
1965 - More of That Guitar Country
1966 - Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles
1966 - From Nashville with Love
1966 - The Pops Goes Country
1966 - The Best of Chet Atkins Vol. 2
1966 - Music from Nashville, My Hometown
1967 - It's A Guitar World
1967 - Chet Atkins Picks the Best
1967 - Class Guitar
1967 - Chet
1968 - Solo Flights
1968 - Solid Gold 68
1968 - Play Guitar with Chet Atkins
1968 - Chet All The Way
1968 - Hometown Guitar
1969 - Relaxin' with Chet
1969 - Lovers Guitar
1969 - Solid Gold 69
1969 - The Nashville String Band
1969 - Chet Atkins Picks on the Pops
1970 - C.B. Atkins & C.E. Snow by Special Request
1970 - Yestergroovin'
1970 - Solid Gold 70
1970 - Me & Jerry (w/Jerry Reed)
1970 - Down Home (with the Nashville String Band)
1970 - Pickin' My Way
1970 - This Is Chet Atkins
1971 - Mr. Atkins, Guitar Picker
1971 - Chet Atkins Guitar Method Volume 1 & 2
1971 - For the Good Times
1971 - Strung Up (with the Nashville String Band)
1971 - Country Pickin'
1971 - Identified! (Nashville String Band)
1971 - Chet Floyd & Boots
1972 - Me & Chet
1972 - World's Greatest Melodies
1972 - Now & Then
1972 - American Salute (Boston Pops w/Chet Atkins)
1972 - The Bandit
1972 - Nashville Gold
1972 - Picks on the Hits
1972 - Finger Pickin' Good
1973 - Greatest Hits of the 50's w/Arthur Fiedler
1973 - Discover Japan
1973 - Superpickers
1973 - Alone
1974 - Chet Atkins Picks on Jerry Reed
1974 - The Atkins - Travis Traveling Show
1975 - The Night Atlanta Burned
1975 - Famous Country Music Makers
1975 - In Concert
1975 - The Golden Guitar of Chet Atkins
1975 - Chet Atkins Goes to the Movies
1975 - Teen Scene (reissue)
1976 - Chester & Lester
1976 - The Best of Chet Atkins and Friends
1977 - Love Letters
1977 - Me and My Guitar
1977 - Chet Floyd & Danny
1977 - A Legendary Performer
1978 - Guitar Monsters
1979 - And Then Came Chet
1979 - First Nashville Guitar Quartet
1980 - The Best of Chet on the Road - Live
1980 - Reflections
1981 - Country After All These Years
1981 - Standard Brands
1981 - Country Music
1982 - Solid Gold Guitar
1983 - Guitar Pickin' Man
1983 - Great Hits of the Past
1983 - Work It out with Chet Atkins C.G.P.
1983 - East Tennessee Christmas
1984 - Tennessee Guitar Man
1984 - A Man & His Guitar
1985 - Collectors Series
1985 - Guitar for all Seasons
1985 - Stay Tuned
1986 - 20 of the Best
1986 - Street Dreams
1987 - Sails
1988 - Chet Atkins, C.G.P.
1988 - Pickin' on Country
1989 - Masters of the Guitar: Together
1989 - Pickin' the Hits
1990 - Neck & Neck (with Mark Knopfler)
1990 - The Magic of Chet Atkins
1990 - Country Gems
1991 - The Romantic Guitar
1992 - Sneakin' Around
1992 - The RCA Years
1993 - The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat
1993 - Gallopin' Guitar
1993 - Jazz From The Hills
1994 - Simpatico (with Suzy Bogguss)
1994 - Read My Licks
1996 - The Essential Chet Atkins
1996 - Almost Alone
1997 - The Day Finger Pickers Took Over the World
1998 - Super Hits
1998 - Masters
2000 - Guitar Legend: The RCA Years
2000 - Guitar Man
2001 - RCA Country Legends
2001 - The Master and His Music
2002 - Chet Atkins Picks on the Grammys
2002 - Tribute to Bluegrass
2003 - The Best of Chet Atkins
2003 - Solo Sessions

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Cochran, Russ. Chet Atkins: Me and My Guitars. Hal Leonard; 1st edition, 2003. ISBN 9780634055652
Jensen, Joli. The Nashville Sound: Authenticity, Commercialization, and Country Music. Vanderbilt University Press, 1998. ISBN 9780826513144
Russell, Rusty. Chet Atkins. Backbeat, 2002. ISBN 9780879307196

External links

All links retrieved December 8, 2023.

Chet Atkins Official Website. – www.misterguitar.com.
AMG Entry for Chet Atkins. – www.allmusic.com.
Chet Atkins' Gravesite. – www.findagrave.com.

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