From 2001: Friendship formed at an early age with Atkins will last a lifetime
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| From the Small World file: This portrait of Chet Atkins was given to me at a "Storycatchers" story-telling event in Appleton, Wisconsin in June 2018 by the previous story-teller. His tale was about his work as a freelance photographer, and his desire to get a photo of Chet at a concert in (I think) Cincinnati in the 1990s. He missed the shots in concert, but after the show, found Chet on a street corner, and asked if he could get a photo. Chet graciously obliged, and the photographer got this shot. He gave it to me after I told the story of how I learned "Yankee Doodle Dixie" from listening to Chet's rendition, then trying very, very hard for a few years. For what it's worth, our stories were not known to each other before the event; we happened to share Chet stories back to back. In Appleton, 18 years after Chet's death. Yes, small world. |
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Today, June 20, 2023 is the 99th anniversary of the birth of legendary guitarist Chet Atkins.
Below — in my July 5, 2001 column from The Post-Crescent in Appleton/Fox Cities, Wisconsin — you can see that Chet’s influence on the music industry is difficult to overstate. But from a personal perspective, his influence on my life is profound and daily.
This piece
was written after Chet’s death on June 30, 2001, 22 years ago next week.
We never
met. But it sure feels like we did.
________________________________
Chet Atkins died the other day, and a few people have given me their condolences. He was one of my best friends, and we never met each other.
But we go
way back, almost 40 years, to the early 1960s.
We spent a
lot of time together, him on vinyl and me on a padded stool. It was just tall
enough to let me reach the arm on brother Terry’s record player.
Chet was a
great teacher. He taught me “Wildwood Flower” when I was 5 or 6. “Copper
Kettle,” “Freight Train” and “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles” weren’t far behind,
and I played them whenever my Old Man asked to hear them. That was when we had
company.
“Play it
like you mean it,” The Old Man would say.
I usually
meant it, and Chet helped me like it, too.
His style
and grace and taste captured my imagination, and made us virtually inseparable.
When I was
6, my brother-in-law must have heard some potential because he loaned me his
Danelectro guitar for the next few years. I picked it up every chance I had.
Even
though we lived in the middle of Forest County, with trout swimming and deer
roaming just a few hundred feet from the back door, the outdoors world didn’t
interest me.
Chet and I
practiced.
Even then,
it was clear to me that Chet hadn’t gotten great overnight. He’d worked at his
craft, and if I were to be any good at all, I’d need to practice just as much.
So, for four,
six, sometimes eight hours a day, I played and played and played. And I couldn’t
wait to play again.
Every time
I saw the Danelectro, I’d rush to the record player and Chet and I would work
on a new lick.
He was using echo chambers and distortion pedals — he was an early innovator of the “fuzz” pedals — but I was armed with only an inexpensive, borrowed six-string and a Japanese transistor amplifier. I tried to replicate the sound that Chet’s technology made easier. It was difficult. If you have heard “Blue Ocean Echo,” you understand.
I didn’t
know he was using an echo chamber. I learned the song without one.
But we
worked well together, and with every album — between brother Luke and I, we
have 50 or 60 of Chet’s more than 100 recorded works — he gave me new
challenges.
I
conquered enough of them that not long after I turned 10, The Old Man agreed to
buy me a new guitar.
I was
hell-bent to get something Chet designed for Gretsch guitars. The Old Man
traded a Yamaha motorcycle and $200 for a Gretsch Chet Atkins 6120DC model,
later called a Nashville model.
“Before
you open the case, you have to promise that you’ll play it wherever I want you
to play,” The Old Man told me. I would have played “The Old Rugged Cross” at
the gates of hell just to peek at that guitar. It still rests in my house, and
it always will.
Chet and I
kept our practice schedule throughout my high school and college years.
He
eventually taught me to play two songs at the same time — “Yankee Doodle Dixie”
— and he helped me expand beyond the country-flavored finger-style picking we
had shared to more varied styles and genres.
I’m still
listening to him and learning from him today.
He helped
me improve enough to perform with a lot of bands, as a solo act and today, as
an accompanist for my youngest daughter, a gifted singer interested in a
variety of styles.
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| Performing with daughter Mel at Appleton's Mile of Music 1, August 10, 2013. Photo by Dan Powers of The Post-Crescent. |
That’s
worth a lot more than a $75 gig at a wedding dance.
But he’s
done more than help a country kid — millions of us, actually — learn how to use
a thumbpick.
Chet’s
contributions to American music are breathtaking.
He was a
consummate musician and an awesome talent, not only as a guitarist, but as a
visionary.
As an RCA
producer and head of the company’s Nashville recording operations in the 1950s,
1960s and 1970s, Chet and producer Owen Bradley almost single-handedly saved
the country music industry.
Bradley,
who handled some of the genre’s biggest names for another record company, and
Atkins created the “Nashville Sound” that incorporated many recording
techniques — fuller orchestration, better vocal accompaniment and a higher degree
of professionalism — into a style of music that had been slow to break from its
hillbilly roots.
As a
musician and guitar innovator, he influenced artists from Elvis Presley (he played
on the “Heartbreak Hotel” session) to Dave Matthews, from George Benson to
Vince Gill, from Garrison Keillor to the Beatles (George Harrison and John
Lennon played Gretsch Chet Atkins models at times, too).
Chet set a
standard for experimentation with technology, for perusing various styles of
music and for exploring the limits of the instrument.
As a
consultant to the luthiers at Gretsch and Gibson, his stamp and name were put
on a line of wildly popular guitars that never will go out of style.
It isn’t
an overstatement to say that Chet’s influence spans generations, from his
beginnings in the Tennessee hills to today’s renewal in finger-style guitar in
a host of musical styles.
A list of
his collaborators over the years runs from country star Hank Snow to Dire
Straits’ leader Mark Knopfler and covers almost every base in the middle.
I’m
forever grateful that Chet Atkins worked in the recording industry. He’ll be
with us for a long time.
I can’t
thank him enough for being there for me.
He was my
hero.
______________________________________
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