Chet Atkins

Welcome to Rock and Roll Flashback!  I’m Jumpin’ John, and in this podcast episode I will review the career highlights of the performer and producer who helped create the Nashville Sound:  Chet Atkins!

All podcasts on the Rock and Roll Flashback Podcast are produced by brothers-in-law Bill Price and "Jumpin' John" McDermott. The Podcast Theme Song, "You Essay", was written by John. It was initially recorded by Bill and John on April 1, 2004 with several revisions since then.
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Transcript

Thank you for that introduction and welcome to Rock and Roll Flashback!  I’m Jumpin’ John, and in this podcast episode I will review the career highlights of the performer and producer who helped create the Nashville Sound:  Chet Atkins!

Chester Burton Atkins was born on June 20th, 1924, in Luttrell, Tennessee.  He was the youngest of three boys and a girl.  His parents, James and Ida Atkins, divorced when he was six years old, after which he was initially raised by his mother.  Starting out on the ukulele, then the fiddle, and eventually the guitar, young Chester often played instruments with his brother, his sister, and their stepfather.  A 1936 asthma attack forced Chester to relocate to the improved climate at his father’s Fortson, Georgia home.  One night in the late 1930's he first heard Merle Travis playing guitar on Cincinnati's radio station WLW.  This early influence dramatically shaped his unique playing style.  Whereas Travis used his index finger on his right hand for the melody and his thumb for the bass notes, Atkins expanded his right-hand style to include picking with his first three fingers, with the thumb on bass.  He also listened closely to the single-string playing of George Barnes and Les Paul and admired the playing of Django Reinhardt.

While living in Fortson, Atkins attended the historic Mountain Hill School.  Dropping out of high school before graduation, in 1942 Chester landed a job at WNOX radio in Knoxville, Tennessee.  There he played fiddle and guitar with the singer Bill Carlisle and the comic Archie Campbell and also became a member of the station's Dixieland Swingsters, a small swing instrumental combo.  While at WNOX, Chester broadened his repertoire though listening sessions in the station’s music library. 

Atkins's shy personality worked against him, as did his sophisticated style of playing guitar.  He was fired often, but was soon able to land another job at another radio station due to his unique playing ability.  He crisscrossed the country for two years.  In 1945 Atkins briefly moved to station WLW in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Then in early 1946 he worked with Johnnie & Jack in Raleigh, North Carolina, before moving to Richmond, Virginia and then on to Chicago, Illinois.  In Chicago he auditioned for Red Foley, who was hired away from Chicago's WLS to host the Grand Ole Opry’s NBC segment, The Prince Albert Show.  Foley took Atkins to Nashville, and Chester made his first appearance at the Opry in 1946 as a member of Foley's band.  He also recorded a single for Nashville-based Bullet Records that year.  That single, entitled "Guitar Blues", featured backing by Dutch McMillin on clarinet and guitarists Roy Lanham, Jack Shook, and Louis Ennis.

Here is Chester Atkins and the All-Star Hillbillies'  version of "Guitar Blues" (subtitled "Pickin' the Blues"):
 
After he was fired from the Opry, perhaps for not being "country" enough, Atkins moved on to KWTO in Springfield, Missouri.  At KWTO he received his nickname, “Chet,” from station official Si Siman.  Other officials at KWTO felt that Atkins’s style was too polished for “hillbilly” music and eventually fired him.  Nevertheless, Si Siman tried to get record companies interested in Atkins.  Siman had been encouraging RCA Victor's Steve Sholes to sign Atkins, and Sholes caught up with Chet while he was working with a Western band in Denver, Colorado.  Atkins impressed Sholes with his guitar technique, and RCA Victor signed Atkins as a singer and guitarist in 1947.  

Chet made his first RCA Victor recordings in Chicago in 1947, but they did not sell.  By this time he had become a sought-after session guitarist.  He did some studio work for RCA that year, but in 1948 he relocated to Knoxville again where he worked with Homer and Jethro on WNOX's new Saturday night radio show The Tennessee Barn Dance and on the Midday Merry Go Round.  In 1949, he left WNOX to join June Carter with Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters on KWTO.  The Carter Sisters work, with Chet as lead guitarist, soon attracted attention from the Grand Ole Opry, and the group relocated to Nashville in 1950.  Atkins began working on recording sessions and performing as a solo act on WSM and back at the Grand Ole Opry.  With help from music publisher and MGM Records producer Fred Rose, Chet had became one of Nashville’s early “A-Team” of session musicians.  He recorded with everyone from Wade Ray to Hank Williams to Webb Pierce.  His first chart hit, a cover of the pop hit “Mister Sandman,” came in 1955, credited to "Chet Atkins and his Gallopin' Guitar".  That was followed by a hit guitar duet with Hank Snow, entitled “Silver Bell.”

Here is Chet Atkins' version of "Mister Sandman":

Atkin's stature was growing, and he had become a trusted protégé of RCA Victor’s Sholes.  Initially, Chet organized sessions, and if the New York based Sholes couldn’t come to Nashville, Atkins produced the records himself.  When Sholes took over RCA's pop production in 1957 he put Atkins in charge of RCA Victor's Nashville division.  With country music record sales declining as rock and roll became more popular, Chet took his cue from Decca's Owen Bradley and eliminated fiddles and steel guitar from many recordings.  This eventually became known as the Nashville Sound, which has been attributed to the production techniques of Atkins, Owen Bradley, Bob Ferguson, Bill Porter, and Don Law.  Not only did the Nashville Sound rejuvenate Country music, but the once-rare phenomenon of having a Country hit cross over to pop success became more common.  As manager and Vice President of RCA Victor's Nashville studios, Chet oversaw the completion of the legendary RCA Studio B.  It was the first studio built specifically for the purpose of recording on the now-famous Music Row.  

Atkins' solo albums were becoming more popular.  He was featured on ABC-TV's The Eddy Arnold Show in the summer of 1956 and on Country Music Jubilee in 1957 and Jubilee USA in 1958.  In addition to recording, Atkins was a design consultant for Gretsch, which manufactured a popular Chet Atkins line of electric guitars from 1955 to 1980.  

Atkins made his own records, which usually visited pop standards and jazz, in a sophisticated home studio.  He often recorded the rhythm tracks at RCA and added his solo parts at home, refining the tracks until the results satisfied him.  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", inspiring his eleventh studio album, Mister Guitar.  That album also featured the tune "Country Gentleman", the original version of which was recorded in Chet's garage.  From that point on, Chet would also often be referred to as the "Country Gentleman".  At the end of March 1959, Bill Porter took over as chief engineer at what was at the time RCA Victor's only Nashville studio, in the space that would become known as Studio B after the opening of a second studio in 1965.  Porter soon helped Atkins get a better reverberation sound from the studio's German effects device, an EMT 140 plate reverb.  Porter also devised a set of acoustic baffles to hang from the ceiling, then selected positions for microphones based on resonant room modes.  The sound of the recordings improved significantly.  The studio achieved a string of successes as the Nashville Sound became more dynamic.  When Porter left RCA in late 1964, Chet Atkins said [and I quote] "the sound was never the same, never as great" [end quote].

While on Music Row in Nashville, Chet discovered and signed many talented artists.  For example, in 1965 Atkins took a major step forward by signing Charley Pride, who was Black, to RCA.  That same year, Atkins released his single “Yakety Axe,” an adaptation of Nashville studio musician Boots Randolph’s hit “Yakety Sax.”  Atkins produced a constant stream of solo RCA albums during  the 1960's as well.  As he hired additional producers in the 1970's at RCA, he cut back his own production work to focus on recording and made albums with other talented guitarists like Hank Snow, Jerry Reed, Merle Travis, and Les Paul.  Atkins relinquished his RCA executive role in 1982 and, after 35 years, left RCA in 1983 to record for Columbia Records.  

Over the years, Chet Atkins’s picking changed little, although his material and collaborators varied widely.  His recordings would range from old-time mountain music to classical to contemporary rock and jazz.  He was primarily a guitarist, but he also played the mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and ukulele, and occasionally sang.  Chet Atkins changed the world of guitar music, developing and elevating an innovative guitar playing style that has inspired scores of musicians including Mark Knopfler, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Tommy Emmanuel, Doc Watson, Lenny Breau, Jerry Reed, and many, many others.  Fans loved not only his unique and captivating music, but also his humble and down to earth demeanor. 

Chet Atkins' discography is large and diverse.  Not only did he release principal studio albums as a solo artist, but he was also a prolific and much sought-after collaborator.  He also played as a sideman on many more recordings.  Atkins is credited with 113 singles, 88 studio albums, 3 live albums, over 53 compilation albums, and over 19 EP's.  Chet managed to remain contemporary with frequent collaborations with younger players.  His major collaborations were with Hank Snow, Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra, The Country All-Stars, The Nashville String Band, Jerry Reed, Merle Travis, Doc Watson, Lenny Breau, Les Paul, Mark Knopfler, Suzy Bogguss, Floyd Cramer, and Tommy Emmanuel.  He frequently guested on a track or two with other friends.  As a producer Chet Atkins produced many albums and singles for a wide range of artists.  Atkins produced records for the Browns, Hank Snow, Porter Wagoner, Norma Jean, Dolly Parton, Dottie West, Perry Como, Floyd Cramer, Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Eddy Arnold, Don Gibson, Jim Reeves, Jerry Reed, Skeeter Davis, Waylon Jennings, Ann-Margret and many others.

Chet's 1964 album, Guitar Country, reached #1 on the Country albums chart.  My favorite Chet Atkins album was 1994's Read My Licks.  That 56th studio album included contributions from guest artists like George Benson, Suzy Bogguss, and Mark Knopfler.  Chet had had previously collaborated on Knopfler's 1990 album Neck and Neck and on Bogguss's 1994 album Simpatico.

Here is Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler performing "Around the Bend" from the Read My Licks album:

In 1991 Chet Atkins lightheartedly gave himself, along with John Knowles, Tommy Emmanuel, Steve Wariner, and Jerry Reed, the honorary degree CGP ("Certified Guitar Player").  In 2011, his daughter Merle Atkins Russell bestowed the CGP degree on his longtime sideman Paul Yandell.  She then declared no more CGPs would be allowed by the Atkins estate.

Chet Atkins was also an amateur radio general class licensee, and was a member of the American Radio Relay League.  In 1998 he obtained the vanity call sign W4CGP to include the CGP designation, which stood for "Certified Guitar Player".  Atkins continued performing in the 1990's, but his health declined after he was again diagnosed with colon cancer in 1996.  He died on June 30th, 2001, at his home in Nashville, Tennessee, at age 77.

No other country instrumentalist has achieved the same renown and respect as Chet Atkins.  His immense influence on country, rock, and jazz musicians has lasted more than half a century, and many of the hit records he produced during his days at RCA are now classics.  From 1967 to 1988, Atkins won the Country Music Association’s Instrumentalist of the Year honor eleven times.  He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1973, and in 1988 he was the Country Musician of the Year.  In 1993, he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, and in 1997 he won his fifteenth Grammy for his 1996 recording of “Jam Man.”  Also in 1997 Billboard magazine awarded him its Century Award, its "highest honor for distinguished creative achievement".  In 2002, Atkins was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  The following year, Chet  ranked #28 in Country Music Television's "40 Greatest Men of Country Music".  In November 2011, Rolling Stone credited Atkins with inventing the "popwise Nashville Sound that rescued country music from a commercial slump".  In 2023, Rolling Stone named Chet Atkins 39th on their list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".   

Thank you for listening to this episode of Rock and Roll Flashback where I discussed the career of "Mister Guitar", also known as the "Country Gentleman", Chet Atkins!  I will close out this podcast episode with another recording from Chet Atkins' 1994 album Read My Licks.  This recording is his cover of the classic pop song "After You've Gone" that he did with Country Music star Suzy Bogguss.  So, fellow travelers, may your path be smooth and your music always be rockin'!  And until next time...Rock On!