Chet Atkins

Chester Burton "Chet" Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001) was an influential country guitarist and record producer in country music. His virtuoso picking style inspired by Merle Travis,

Chester Burton "Chet" Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001) was an influential country guitarist and record producer in country music. His virtuoso picking style inspired by Merle Travis, Django Reinhardt, George Barnes and Les Paul, brought him of admirers both within and outside the country scene. Atkins produced records for Eddy Arnold, Don Gibson, Jim Reeves, Connie Smith, and Waylon Jennings to name a few. Atkins created, along with Owen Bradley, the smoother country music style known as the Nashville sound, which expanded country music's appeal to include adult pop music fans as well.

Atkins was born in Luttrell, Tennessee, and grew up with his mother and siblings after the divorce of his parents. He started out on the fiddle, but traded his stepfather a rifle for a guitar when he was nine. Forced to relocate to Georgia to live with his father due to a near-fatal asthma attack, Atkins was a sensitive youth who made music his obsession. He became an accomplished guitarist while he was in high school. Atkins was self-taught, and later on in life gave himself (along with Tommy Emmanuel, Jerry Reed and John Knowles) the honorary degree "CGP", standing for "Certified Guitar Player". He didn't have a strong style of his own until he heard Merle Travis picking over WLW radio in 1939, when Atkins was still living in Georgia. After graduating high school in 1942, his half-brother Jim, a successful guitarist (who worked with the Les Paul Trio in New York) helped get him a job at WNOX radio in Knoxville. There he played fiddle and guitar with singer Bill Carlisle and comic Archie Campbell as well as becoming a member of the station's "Dixieland Swingsters," a small swing instrumental combo.