The Chetboard

Here's Dwayne Friend, Mr. Gospel Guitar playing the classic original version of Goobye World, Goodbye. In gospel circles this is the song that every young picker wanted to learn. Kinda like Jerry Reed fans wanting to learn "The Claw". At 13 years old, "Goodbye World, Goodbye" was the second song that I learned to play right after "I'll Fly Away". Dwayne Friend is a big Chet Atkins fan. He recorded several instrumental gospel albums in the 60-70's era that are classic fingerstyle gospel. He played for The Happy Goodman Family, The Blackwood Brothers, Smitty Gatlin, Rex Humbard, Jimmy Snow and many others.
You should recoginze several people pictured in this video:

Thanks for that, Chuck. I would like to see Dwayne get more recognition, that I think he deserves. One of the distinctive honors that Dwayne will always have is that the very first Dove award was given to him in 1969 for Instrumentalist in the Gospel Music Association. He won the same category the next year along with the Song of the year. Dwayne is still alive and well and still picking as good as ever. He's a dandy.

Thanks,
Richard

You're welcome Richard!

Just a little triva about Dwayne Friend. He's recorded at least 98 guitar instrumental tracks including those with Richard Hudson & Steve Rector. He has 8 gospel guitar instrumental albums to his credit, plus several singing albums that usually feature a few guitar instrumentals. He's been on several diferent gospel groups albums also. It's probably fair to say that he's one of the most recorded fingerstyle gospel guitarist. Also, as Richard pointed out, Dwayne won the Dove award for Instrumentalist of the year in both 1969 and 1970. Dwayne is the only guitarist to ever win the Dove Award in gospel music. You can still find many of his old albums on Ebay.

Dwayne Friend is a fine player and example. Thanks for the post and also the pics in the video.