Featured In
ALBUMWinter Walkin' - The Complete RCA and Columbia Christmas RecordingsChet Atkins
Albums by Chet Atkins
ALBUMBuckaroo & Other Guitar ClassicsNorm Kass & Chet Atkins
ALBUMChet Atkins Certified Guitar PlayerChet Atkins
ALBUMBuckaroo & Other Guitar Country & Western FavoritesChet Atkins & Norm Kass
ALBUMThe Day Finger Pickers Took Over the WorldChet Atkins
ALBUMAlmost AloneChet Atkins
ALBUMRead My LicksChet Atkins
ALBUMSimpaticoSuzy Bogguss & Chet Atkins
ALBUMSneakin' AroundChet Atkins & Jerry Reed
ALBUMNeck and NeckChet Atkins & Mark Knopfler
ALBUMChet Atkins, C.G.P.Chet Atkins
Chet Atkins's Popular Music Videos
I Still Can't Say Goodbye
Chet Atkins
Down Yonder (Live On The Ed Sullivan Show, June 21, 1970)
Boots Randolph, Chet Atkins & Floyd Cramer
Down Yonder (Live On The Ed Sullivan Show, February 8, 1970)
Chet Atkins
The Claw
Chet Atkins & Jerry Reed
Artist Playlists
Chet Atkins Essentials
Meet Music City's monster guitarist.
Artist Biography
Chet Atkins was equally influential as a guitarist and a producer, making an enormous impact on country music in both roles. Born in Tennessee in 1924, he was an asthmatic youth who dedicated himself to the guitar and went pro in his teens. In the ’40s he played with country legends Red Foley and The Carter Family. He cut his first solo single, “Guitar Blues”—an instrumental displaying his unique fingerpicking style—in 1946. But he didn’t score his first hit until his 1955 version of “Mr. Sandman,” a mix of pop, jazz, and country that positioned him as Nashville’s answer to Les Paul. He would soon assist in designing a signature model guitar for Gretsch and RCA Nashville’s legendary, state-of-the-art Studio B. Atkins became chief of production and engineering at the studio and masterminded what became known as the Nashville Sound, replacing country’s most rural elements with urbane touches, like strings and choral backing vocals. The game-changing result was a long run of hits starting with ’50s classics like Jim Reeves’ “Four Walls” and Don Gibson’s “Oh Lonesome Me.” But Atkins never stopped making his own music—influencing the likes of Mark Knopfler and George Harrison along the way—until his death in 2001.
Hometown
Luttrell, TN, United States
Genre
Country