He moved on to WLW in Cincinnati and the following year joined Johnnie & Jack. When WNOX's Lowell Blanchard heard Atkins' guitar playing, he put him on the station's daily barn dance show, "Midday Merry-Go-Round." At the same time, he moonlighted as a jazz guitarist with the Dixieland Swingsters. His first job after high school was at station WNOX in Knoxville, Tennessee, as fiddler for the duo Archie Campbell and Bill Carlisle.
In later life Travis would autograph a picture to Atkins thusly: "My claim to fame is bragging that we're friends. Atkins developed his own two-finger-and-thumb style of picking since he couldn't see Travis picking, he had no idea of how he did it. Atkins had listened to Jimmie Rodgers and Blind Lemon Jefferson records and could copy them, but was amazed by the thumb-and-finger-picking style developed by Travis. It was then that his life forever changed, when he happened to hear Merle Travis playing guitar live on station WLW broadcasting from Cincinnati. He also suffered from asthma, and in 1936 was sent to live on his father's farm in Georgia with the hope his health would improve out of the hills. Atkins later said that as a child he was so shy as to seem almost autistic, and that the fiddle and guitar offered him an alternate means of expressing himself. His parents divorced in 1932 and Atkins began playing fiddle and later guitar with his new stepfather, Willie Strevel. He also in tandem with Decca Records' Nashville chief Owen Bradley developed what came to be known as the Nashville Sound, a pop-leaning strain of country music epitomized by such Atkins-produced landmark hits as Jim Reeves' "Four Walls" in 1957 and Don Gibson's "Oh Lonesome Me" in 1958.Ĭhester Burton Atkins was born on June 20, 1924, in the small east Tennessee town of Luttrell, which he described as a "whistle stop on the Southern Railway." His father, James, was an itinerant music teacher and his mother, Ida, played piano and sang. He also played guitar in pivotal music sessions, from Hank Williams recording dates in the early '50s to hit-laden sessions by the Everly Brothers and Elvis Presley. He was also a keen-eared talent scout, signing artists ranging from Dolly Parton to Roy Orbison. As head of RCA's Nashville division since the mid-'50s and the label's chief of A&R, Atkins was instrumental in fashioning the emerging music industry in Nashville. In addition to being one of the best-known guitarists in popular music, Atkins was also an architect of modern country music. Atkins died of cancer on Saturday at his home. Guitar," will be remembered in a memorial service on Tuesday (July 3) at Ryman Auditorium. But it's nice to able to go a completely different way when I want to.NASHVILLE Chet Atkins, known around the world as "Mr. I'm sure I'll still use the Link for a lot of stuff because it is so versatile and because I like the power when I want it. This is a pretty big change in tone and style for me. The over all effect is less Joe Cocker and more Al Jarreau. So I don't blow the audience away if I don't want to and I don't need to stick a rag in the bell either. The Dukoff lets me de-modulate the "power" of my 400 tenor while still providing all the volume I need. With work (and by listening to Boots), the bright tone can be modified into a raspy sound that can even be sultry. It responds faster and generally takes less effort to blow than a Link does. Here's what I've figure out about this high baffled piece. After I finished, I looked out over a bunch of surprised open-mouths wondering rather to clap or just holler Amen.
Last Sunday morning in front of about 150 folks (attendance down a little due to the wind storm), me and the Dukoff performed a Boots version of "In the Garden". When TH recently offered an EZ-refaced Dukoff here on SOTW, I snapped it up since I really love EZ's work. I had an old rough D7, but it was in need of a reface and never played well for me. So I began wondering what a good Dukoff mpc would do for my sound.
I'm no Boots Randolph and never will be, but I do seem to naturally play and phrase a lot of the way he does. And I really have developed a better appreciation of his sound. But recently I've been working up some nice Boot's Randolph gospel pieces to solo on. I've almost always been a Link man when it comes to mouthpieces.
0 kommentar(er)
