🎸 Chet Atkins

Adored by some, hated by others, praised for his fingerpicking guitar talents, criticized for the heavy-handed producer approach he exercised in post-war Nashville, showing firmness and obstinacy, Chet Atkins is a complex character with multiple and often contradictory facets.

Chet's father, Wes Atkins, was a music teacher, occasional evangelist preacher, and former railroad worker, the only activity in Luttrell, a small town in eastern Tennessee where he lived.

Wes married five times and had several children with each of his wives. Chet was the third child of Wes's second marriage to Ida, a gospel singer and pianist whom he would divorce six years later.

Chet's childhood was harsh, evolving between great poverty, very strict education, and a life torn between father and mother. He also suffered from severe asthma that forced him to stay bedridden for long periods each year.

His father, who deeply despised country musicians as "ignorant and debauched," taught him the basics of musical notation. But it was his half-brother Jimmy Atkins and his stepfather Willie Strevel, a locally renowned musician, who taught him guitar, an activity Chet practiced intensively during his periods of isolation.

He listened to records by the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, and Blind Lemon Jefferson.

In 1935, Chet left school and worked on the family farm. But he quickly discovered that he earned much more from tips collected while playing outside the local drugstore.

Chet listened to all radio shows where guitar could be heard and picked up ideas from Les Paul playing with Jimmy Atkins, George Barnes, Lonnie Johnson, Eddie Lang, Django Reinhardt...

But the one who marked him most was Merle Travis who hosted a radio show widely broadcast throughout the South from Cincinnati.

Chet quickly managed to imitate Travis's style, but where Travis played with two fingers, Chet used four, one of the very rare examples of this type of fingerpicking.

Atkins had no trouble finding work in several country music orchestras, notably those of Bill Carlisle and Red Foley.

It was with some of Foley's musicians that Chet managed to record a 78 rpm in 1946 for the small Nashville label, Bullet.

"Guitar blues" had little success but managed to attract the attention of RCA producers, notably Steve Sholes, who were trying in vain to find a competitor to Merle Travis in Nashville, who was reaping success after success in Hollywood.

Meanwhile, Atkins had married and named his daughter Merle, in homage to his idol.

Starting in August 1947, Atkins recorded a series of records where he sang (quite poorly) but played remarkably, in a style openly copying Merle Travis.

However, Chet's personal talents exploded in masterpieces like:

• "Canned Heat" - a formidable guitar version of a Bob Wills composition
• "Mite Heat" - the exceptional
• "Dizzy Strings"
• "Bug Dance" - an old Southern folklore tune
• "The Nashville Jump"
• "Centipede Boogie"
• "Galloping Guitar" - which was Atkins' first real commercial success

The following years would see "Yakety Axe," "Prissy," or "Country Gentleman."

There were many excellent guitarists in Southeast country music, but none had Chet's versatility, jazz experience, or imagination.

From 1950, Chet Atkins settled permanently in Nashville, regularly participated in the Grand Ole Opry. He was everywhere and recorded with Homer & Jethro, the Carter Sisters (Maybelle Carter's daughters, one of the Carter Family's creators), George Barnes, Faron Young, Webb Pierce, Hank Williams, and dozens of others.

RCA (and Steve Sholes) engaged in creating increasingly commercial country music with the goal of "placing" as many titles as possible in the Top 40 charts.

Chet, with broad musical ideas, was gradually associated with production and then the financial side of this enterprise. He thus produced some of the biggest hits by Hank Snow, Jim Reeves, and Eddy Arnold.

Meanwhile, Atkins never stopped recording under his name. He abandoned all pretension to sing and concentrated on elaborate, virtuosic instrumentals, touching all genres, approaching all musical shores.

But by moving notably away from country's original soil, his music took on an icy elegance that seemed to frost all emotion.

While his fingerpicking playing was always admirable, the frequent absence of feeling meant his countless records ended up mainly being used as background music.

Atkins, increasingly a businessman, was overwhelmed with awards and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

The anti-Nashville Sound reaction of the 70s was strongly directed against him and his production methods. He would acknowledge his mistakes, admitting he had probably gone too far in his quest for recognition and respectability for country music.

He even left RCA in 1982 to content himself with playing and recording under his name.

Despite failing health, Atkins never stopped being active.