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I first met him in the sixties through a mutual friend at south Shore Tahoe in his dressing room. I was scared witless. I'd brought along a Gretsch Tennesseean that I had modified to be as much like his pet 'Gentleman' as I could make it.

With a guitar out, Chet (and I ) loosened up a bit. I told him what I'd done to the guitar and he said he'd done the same thing only he'd used diodes instead of resistors. He played on it a little and we put it back in the case. No way was I going to try to play guitar for him! Too nervous to even think about it!

He then picked up a classical guitar he had in the room and tried to show me how to play cascading harmonics. I was too swelled to understand it, though.

Then I asked him to "run off about forty feet of the beginning of Chopin's Minute Waltz" which he did and as brightly as if he had recorded it yesterday instead of the probably eight or ten years prior to our meeting (Chet Atkins in 3 Dimensions album). You realize something about the mans abilities witnessing something like that.

The man is THE Country Gentleman....

- Norman van Maastricht



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