Chet Atkins

No single country instrumentalist has achieved the renown and respect of Chester Burton Atkins. His immense musical influence on country, rock, and jazz musicians from Jerry Reed to George Harrison, Duane Eddy, and Earl Klugh has lasted over nearly a half-century. Many hit records he produced during his days at RCA are now classics. Atkins grew up in the hills near the tiny, remote East Tennessee town of Luttrell. James Atkins, his father, was an itinerant music teacher who had previously been married. His wife Ida, Chester's mother, sang and played piano. After the Atkinses divorced, Ida Atkins remarried, in 1932, and Chester began to learn guitar and fiddle, often playing with his brother and sister and their stepfather, Willie Strevel. After attending high school in Georgia, Atkins landed a job at WNOX in Knoxville, fiddling for the team of singer Bill Carlisle and comic Archie Campbell. Around 1948, Chet returned to WNOX, working first with Homer & Jethro, then joining Maybelle and the Carter Sisters as lead guitarist. They subsequently worked at KWTO before relocating to Nashville to join the Opry in 1950. With Fred Rose's help, Chet became one of Nashville's early "A-Team" of session musicians, recording with everyone from Wade Ray to Hank Williams and Webb Pierce. He also appeared on the Opry as a solo act. His first chart hit, a cover of the pop hit "Mister Sandman," came in 1955. Atkins's production skills came into their own. Intent on increasing sales by making country records appeal to pop and country audiences, he, along with Owen Bradley at Decca, Don Law at Columbia, and Ken Nelson at Capitol, began to produce singers backed by neutral rhythm sections and replace steel guitars and fiddles with vocal choruses-a style immortalized as the Nashville Sound. In 1997 Atkins won his fifteenth Grammy, for his 1996 recording of "Jam Man." In that same year he was diagnosed with brain cancer, which ended his life in 2001.