The Chetboard

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JOHN KNOWLES WORKSHOP - 1988

It’s hard to believe that it was 32 years ago, but In the summer of 1988 John Knowles had been conducting a series of workshops in various parts of the country and even though I was living in Sacramento, CA at the time, I attended his 5 day workshop clear across the country in Danbury, CT.

There are many times in my life that I wish I had had a cell phone camera like everyone takes for granted today, and this was definitely one of those times!

Chet liked magic tricks and Fran Ferry was one of the guys attending this and was an amateur photographer as well as magician. He is the one who took these pictures. I couldn’t believe how fortunate I was to have copies made of these! On one of the days John chose three of us to come to the front and demonstrate a particular technique with Chet critiquing it. I was chosen to demonstrate the harmonics in “When you Wish Upon a Star”. For any of you who have done this, you know that your positioning over a given fret has to be precise or the note will be dead. You might be able to imagine how nearly impossible this was for me to maintain the necessary steadiness with Chet watching every detail! I am not much a performer in the first place and my hands were shaking! Notice I didn’t say that I couldn’t play but that’s not the same as performing! Chet immediately tried playing it right afterward and told us that he hadn’t done it for a while himself and admitted that it was difficult. He was always humble and gracious.

We also got to see his performance of “Daydream” which I’m not sure if he had even recorded yet but it was certainly new to me!

Those of you who attended CAAS in the early to mid 90s might remember Bruce Emery? He is the first person I was aware of who had written tab for Buster B Jones and some of Jerrys music. I used to room with him in those early days and sat out at his table with him in the lobby. Anyway, this workshop is where I met him.

You might also recognize Stan Surman and Ron Boudreaux? There is also a nice picture here of John and Chet.

You are a very, VERY lucky man, Rande!


https://youtu.be/89g1P_J40JA

It must have been a great experience Rande! At no point in my better playing years did I feel good enough to attend a workshop as you've just described. I would have felt like a pretender.

Rich, there were people who attended that who weren't that good and some played very little. That seems true of many conventions and workshops today. I see the pictures of the Rocky Mountain Guitar Camp and some of those same guys show up at CAAS and I've learned that there isn't a minimum skill level requirement to attend those. It's often a case of having enough money and just wanting to be in the environment and pick up what you can.

I've spent enough time with you to know that you would have certainly fit into this workshop!

Thanks Rande. It's nice of you to say so. But with John Knowles running it and Chet Atkins being there, I don't know. I suppose if I lived nearby from where it was I'd attend just to meet those guys.

Rich, I met Chet in 1969 and had a number of conversations with him between then and 1983 when I went to his office in downtown Nashville with Tommy Jones, which is also the day I met John Knowles. This workshop was in 1988. By then I felt less of an urgency to "meet them" but I still wanted to benefit from what they had to offer to help me to become better. However, I can certainly understand the motivation to meet them, considering that was the case for the majority of those who attended this. There were about 25 or so attendees.