Chet Atkins Closes the 1975 CMA Awards

[guitarchuck]

Here's one that I haven't seen before. Chet's playing his Super Chet with lots of switches. Looks like a Peavey Session 400 amp with a Echoplex on top. Using that 70's phaser sound too!

[PhilHunt]

I'd love to know why Clarissa didn't let this guitar be photographed for "Me & My Guitars".

[guitarchuck]

I've often wondered that too Phil. It is featured in:

"The Gretsch Book: A Complete History of Gretsch Electric Guitars, Backbeat Books, Apr 23, 1996 by Paul Day, Tony Bacon" shown on page 66-67.

Also featured in:

"50 Years of Gretsch Electrics: Half a Century of White Falcons, Gents, Jets, and Other Great Guitars, Backbeat Books, Mar 10, 2005, by Tony Bacon" shown on page 70-71.

I don't know if she owned the guitar when that first book was published in 1996, or if Chet still owned it. It makes me wonder if she had a bad experience with book publishers or something? Who knows.

Edit: I just looked in the Acknowledgements section of these books and it gives credit to Chet Atkins as the owner of this guitar and photography by Miki Slingsby. So maybe Chet hadn't given it to Clarissa Carter yet when the first book was published.

[Norm]

It's possible it never occured to anyone to locate the guitar for the photographer. Chet had sixty some guitars laying around and that odd duck version was seldom seen

[RandeDager]

It is quite likely that this show was taped before June 20 which means that he was still 50. Whether he was 50 or 51, he looked much younger than that in this footage. I'll never forget how he looked the last time I saw him in 1999 when he had just turned 75.

[bill park]

It's possible it never occured to anyone to locate the guitar for the photographer. Chet had sixty some guitars laying around and that odd duck version was seldom seen

I seem to remember that Russ Cochran tried hard to get photos of that guitar in MAMG, but was unable to. I think Clarrisa already owned it when Russ was putting the book together.