The Chetboard

...nothing makes you appreciate how really great a guitar player Chet Atkins was as when someone else tries to play his stuff...

Yeah, that seems to be the case when comparing any cover to the original.....it is hard, or near impossible to ever match what someone "expects" to hear. In 99.9% of the time, it is best to take the song somewhere else, and don't try to recreate.

It's always that way with the greats.

I remember Earl Scruggs banjo making another splash in the fifties and during the folk run. Everybody ran out and bought banjos and for a while the idea seemed to be that if you played Foggy Mt Breakdown faster than Earl that meant you were a better banjo player. They miss the point. It is the taste the sense of good arranging that comes from the greats. A woman said of Josh Graves that could apply to Earl and Chet and so many others...

"Everybody tries to play like him but nobody sounds like him."

We are fortunate to have such people for inspiration but somewhere down the pike is the next kock-your-socks-off player. Merle had Chet, Chet had Jerry Reed... they all had Lenny Breau...
Everybody, (even Earl) had Maybelle Carter... Nobody ever played Wildwood Flower quite as simply sweet as she did...

Couldn't agree with you more Norm! As a player Chet was in a category all by himself. Then he groomed one of the greatest, if not the greatest sound engineers of all time, Bill Porter, played a major part in shaping the Nashville sound, produced everyone from A to Z, etc. I've never heard of one single instance where he mistreated, misled, or used anyone in any way to accomplish all the great things he did.