Without the influence of Chet Atkins on the ‘Nashville Sound’, country music might have remained in the country for many more years rather than reach the chart heights that it did from the 1950s onwards. His 1993 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award was a fitting tribute to a musician that changed the face of country music in general, and fingerpicking in particular.
Chet was born into poverty, and like many of the poor days of the 1920s and 30s took up music at an early age. His musical training came from his father and half brother, and reached professional standard in his teens when he was a fiddle player for Archie Campbell, although had been practicing guitar since was nine. He eventually switched to guitar permanently in the 1940s and was recording both as a solo player and as a session musician.
It was during this period that he became part of the Dixie Swingers , and made his debut appearance at the Grand Ole Opry supporting Red Foley in 1946. Little did his audience realize they were watching the man who would take country music to the rest of the world and revolutionize the whole industry.
At that time the head of country music at the RCA Victor studios was Steve Scholes, later to find his greatest fame the man who signed Elvis Presley for RCA, but at this time in his career he was looking for a good guitarist and had heard of Chet Atkins a few years before recordings in 1949. He was so impressed that he appointed him studio session guitarist, playing on all the RCA hits of 1949, and he was also hired to appear regularly at the Grand Ole Opry in 1950. It was during this period that he helped to create was to be known as the ‘Nashville sound’ and his name finally became known nationwide.
Over the succeeding years he cut many single and albums, both solo and duets, such as “Silver Bell” where he duetted with Hank Snow, a Canadian singer who was instrumental in getting a certain Elvis Presley accepted by the Grand Ole Opry, and also introduced him to Colonel Tom Parker. However, when Sholes left Nashville for New York in 1957, Atkins became manager of the RCA Nashville outfit, and had more or less a free rein.
He didn’t stop playing to manage, and his career flourished. He achieved his first Top 5 hit in 1965 with ‘Yakety Axe’, a rework of saxophonist Boots Randolph’s ‘Yakety Sax’, and was involved in the success of many household names such as the aforementioned Elvis, Waylon Jennings, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and the first black American country artist, Charlie Pride. When Sholes died in 1958, Chet Atkins became vice president of the RCA country division and recorded his last hit single “Country Gentlemen”.
Although he continued to cut records, his main project into the 1970s was the Nashville String Band, which he formed with Jethro and Homer, and they cut five albums in first two years of the decade until Homer’s death in 1972. A year after that, in 1973, he became the youngest musician at 49 years of age to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He eventually became disillusioned with RCA’s direction, and left in 1982 to join Columbia where he got involved in jazz guitar.
During the next several years Chet Atkins focused on his jazz playing, and although he did duet from time to time with players such as Mark Knoppfler, his active career was largely on the wane. He designed several guitars, including the famous ‘Country Gentleman’ which is still available today.
He continued exploring his new-found love of jazz guitar for the next several years, but was diagnosed as having a brain tumor in the 1990s. This was removed surgically in 1997, although he finally died on 30th June, 2001 at home in Nashville where he belonged.
The ‘Country Gentleman’ as he was known, and hence the various references to it in his song, autobiography and his guitar, was aptly nicknamed, and Chet Atkins should be up there looking down proudly on what he achieve for country music during most of the 20th century. His numerous awards cannot even begin to convey what he achieved for his beloved country music and his thumb and two-finger picking style started a new style of playing that enable him to express himself on a guitar in a way that nobody else could.
Chet Atkins was a world great, and you can learn his guitar style on http://www.ijamplay.com, the fabulous online guitar teaching site where you can choose the style of teaching that suits you best.
