The Chetboard

i started buying atkins recordings in about 1960. have just about everything. made a living playing music all my life. i continued buying his recordings to the end of his career. have to admit that the columbia recordings were things that i bought just out of a continuation of my respect for my guitar hero. i never really even listened to them all that much and for the last years virtually not at all. i pulled some of the columbia cds off the shelf and put them next to the bose wave CD/radio next to my bed so i could listen to them at night before i go to sleep. i stll enjoy the classic atkins recordings of the 60s...they are my favorite, but i have really enjoyed exploring these columbia recordings and thinking of them in the context of what they are and what must have been chets mindset while doing them ie trying to stay current and try new things and balancing the old and the new.

i must say that i have even more respect for his playing now after hearing these.

my favs so far are Sails and Read my Licks. i even gave a copy of Sails to a non musician type person and it was really appreciated just for the musical quality of it. need to find a copy of CPG for a decent price..have it on vinyl but not cd. this work is very enjoyable to hear chet playing some styles and sounds and licks that are different than his rca recordings.

any one here have any favs among the columbia atkins offerings and why you like them? just food for thought

Bill,
I started buying Chet's records in the mid 60s after a friend played me the Finger Style Guitar album. I was amazed. I had been playing with a (gasp) flat pick since I was a sophomore in high school in the late 50s. I gradually started trying to play the thumb style rhythm and finger style melody. It was a long road for me to get the first song to sound like anything and I never got anywhere close to Chet's tone. I bought every Chet Album and CD that came out and, like you, I enjoyed the older ones better for many years. When I heard Chet's "Almost Alone" CD, I was still amazed that he could play at that level after all those years. I think he was still feeling good and the songs on that album are some of my favorites and definitely my favorite from the Columbia years, although I really like Sails and several other songs from the other CDs. The songs on the Almost Alone CD sounded fresh and alive to me, just like his earlier RCA LPs and 45s did. I have copied many of his songs to my hard drive and listen to them as I mindlessly surf the net or check out the posts on the Chet Board or just read in my easy chair. His music is still alive and well in my life and I'll always be listening to it and trying to play it.
Take care,
Ray

Like you all, I first heard Chet in the '50s and still favor the older stuff, though appreciate his more recent, Columbia recordings, too. I was just learning to play on a really cheap Silvertone I bought at Sears & Roebuck. Had always been attracted to the guitar since seeing Tex Ritter, et al. movies as a kid. One night my Dad tuned in Eddy Arnold's tv show, and Chet played Glowworm; I resolved to learn to play fingerstyle after seeing that performance.

I'm left-handed and had been playing a right -handed guitar upside down in the early sixties, learning from the Ventures albums. Someone told me this great guitar player Chet Atkins was going to be on the Tommy Hunter Show up here in Canada. As I watched him play Oh By Jingo! I slowly realized he was playing all the parts by himself. I was hooked. I turned to my dad and said I need a left handed guitar and some thumbpicks, I need to try and do that and I've been trying ever since. To reiterate what Jack said " It changed my life". Not a day goes by that I don't listen to some Chet music or try to learn a tune or copy a lick. Checking this website is also a daily ritual. It's informative , fun and nostalgic. Kudos to the folks who put it together. Roger

I was later than some of you when I first heard Chet. For me it was 1962 and the album was "Teen Scene", recommended by a pianist friend of mine. I was a new teenager and had been playing with a flat pick since I was 5 but everything changed for me from then on. I was never happy strumming chords or playing single note lines, and tried my best to pick those melodies and strum chords during the "open spaces". Fingerstyle was the solution for me. By the way, I revised the title song of the album "Teen Scene" several times before I found "the right way" to play it.