Music | 01 January 0001

Chet Atkins

The much traveled Mr. Guitar is seen playing in this video collection everywhere from Nashville to Norway. His signature Gretsch Tennesseean guitar, on which Chet made it exquisitely effective use of its Bigsby vibrato bar, is heard in all its sweet, reverb-laden glory on many of these clips. But Chet, whose versatility embraces all styles of guitar, is also seen playing a classical guitar and a Martin dreadnaught. No matter what he plays, the produced becomes a distinct auditory fingerprint of the man known in Nashville as C. G. P. (Certified Guitar Player). The relaxed mastery evident in this video explains why Chet, along with such diverse geniuses as Thelonius Monk and Bill Monroe, was honored in 1993 with a Lifetime Achievement Award Grammy "For this peerless fingerstyle guitar technique, his extensive creative legacy documented on more than one hundred albums, and his influential work on both sides of the recording console as a primary architect of the Nashville sound."