Norm wrote:Chet will do wonderful things and drop back into the polished thumb/finger style that originally awed us about him. This has a comforting affect on most of us. Sometimes I think this troubled him....
At the very first CAAS convention in 1985, Chet performed an informal afternoon recital and took questions from the 50 or so of us that were there. Remember that by 1985, Chet had "abandoned" his familiar fingerstyle way of playing arrangements, and was going with a new, jazzier style (ala "Stay Tuned") on his new Gibson guitars. Someone asked Chet if he would ever go back to "playing his old way, on a Gretsch guitar." Chet was visibly annoyed with the question, and responded by simply saying "I don't know, maybe". The story illustrates to me how important it was to Chet to always be moving forward with his guitar-playing - trying new things, gaining new fans. I agree with Norm that it troubled him to have to "drop back into the polished thumb/finger style that originally awed us about him", because he never did go back to playing "Liza" on a Gretsch. I'm glad he was always forward-thinking and hanging around new players on the scene - Chet gave us a lot of great music in the 80's and 90's, too.