The Chetboard

For those who have never seen Odell picking....here's a couple of clips with Faron Young.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJWnqlZhR3g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR_NLbDuj2I

That's neat to finally see Odell Martin playing! Notice he has his Bigsby handle extremely bent into a "U" shape. It must have been a long handle in order to bend it that much.

the now-familiar 'Chet handle" hadn't been commrcialized yet I don't think. You bought the bracket from Bigsby and bent your own.

They were only about ten dollars I think. I bought one in the early sixties

[quote="PhilHunt"]For those who have never seen Odell picking....here's a couple of clips with Faron Young.

And for the folks on here who might never have HEARD Odell play, here are a few audio files!

You might remember that his rendition of "Re-enlistment Blues", was from the movie "From Here To Eternity" in which Merle Travis sang it!

In the interest of continuity of subject, I'm putting these links here, even though they're audio files...

Odell was a great fingerstylist!

http://www.thumbpicker.com/homepage/odell_martin.html

David

David, Eddie Pennington and I grew up around O'Dell and knew him many years before we ever met Paul Yandell and O'Dell used to tell us how great Paul was (of course we knew that from Paul's recordings with the stars and from hearing him when they would be on T.V.) Paul always said O'Dell had such great "hands" and he was right, as usual.
O'Dell knew he had to "lay back" when playing with Faron,,,,there was only one star on the stage and if you wanted to keep your job, you played what was needed and nothing too fancy!

Even on these few audio tapes, where O'Dell really shines, its nothing compared to what he could do when he got wound up and got in the mood to play. He could play anything and he did a lot of Lenny's style tunes, playing all those chromatic rolls, etc. He could absolutely knock you dead with his "chops", playing all the old jazz tunes in his own style.
O'Dell had an outgoing personality and he made many close friendships with the fans out on the road, all over the USA. He would go to people's homes after a big job,,,they would invite him and he would go and play 'til the wee hours of the morning and get back just in time to catch the bus when it left town! He loved it THAT MUCH . . . .

Paul had him lined up to play at one of the early CAAS conventions and he was killed in that terrible automobile accident right before he was to appear as a headliner. What a shame, they would have loved him! He was a character, a comedian, a personality and one of the very finest super-pickers that ever picked up a guitar. He was Merle, Chet and Lenny, all rolled up into one person, however in his own style. For all of us who knew him well, his death took a real toll on us, and part of us died with him. I've been wanting to say all this about O'Dell for a long time and this post gave me the opportunity to do so.
Thanks,

Gayle Moseley

You are so right Gayle, daddy never thought Odell got the recognition that he deserved, daddy and him were best of friends and had a lot of stories that involved both of them, Gayle you know the stories I'm referring to. Daddy always said Odell had better hands than he did, they spent hours listening to Chet learning and having a great time. Odell use to come to the house when I was a young boy and mom and I would hand out with his family when they were on the road.. Daddy really missed him after he pasted, and we must not forget about Marsha who love Odell to death, she is a great lady!

Micah

Micah,,,what you said reminds me of a few other things I should have told. One main purpose of my post was to give the guys on the Chetboard and little more insight into what made Paul and O'Dell such wonderful friends,,,their love for Chet was #1 - - they both knew he was unsurpassed and always would be. They were so much alike and yet different in their own ways. Some of my fondest memories would have to be hearing O'Dell and Paul sit down and play together, in a "living room" situation. Oh man, very few folks, still alive have ever had that opportunity! They played off of each other so well and their knowledge of the guitar was so deep that it was unbelievable. They tried to compliment each other and still do their own thing. Paul Yandell, who most people think was a most "reserved" guitar player, would be greatly fooled - - Paul could play all that wild stuff that O'Dell played but still keep everything in "The Groove" just as HE did for Chet. They played everything from Moonlight In Vermont in Eb to Buck Owens' Together Again in G. . . . they never ran out of licks, back and forth, getting deeper and deeper each time through the song.

Paul was NOT laid back like we all think of him being on stage with Chet, yet he NEVER over-played,,,he just did whatever the situation called for, and with somebody like O'Dell, that took a lot of ability and a lot of taste. As they went from one tune to another, and they could sit and do that for hours, we just didn't realize that all this wouldn't last forever. In those times, I guess I thought we'd have Paul and O'Dell forever . . . unfortunately, nothing lasts "forever".

Those were the "good old days" !

Gayle Moseley

I love posts about Odell. How I wish I had known him. NOBODY played Rhythmn Guitar better than him ... I think he even out-Jerry'd Jerry on that one.

Tragic loss.

Gayle,

Not to digress, but would you happen to know whatever happened to Odell's Gretsch Country Gent after he was killed? That was probably the prettiest CG I ever saw! It was one of those "one in a thousand" guitars that was absolutely perfect in every way...a real dark walnut, with the grain showing through the lacquer etc.

David

I agree about Odell's Gentleman. It was the first Country Gentleman I ever saw up close and it was gorgeous. I saw it briefly in1959 I think it was at the GOO Odell had it in his hands offstage and the folks I had come with were touching distance of him