Career spanning retrospective of landmark Nashville guitarist

Those of us who grew up in the rock era, particularly those who grew up outside the South (where country music still held sway during the '60s and '70s), know Atkins best through the impact he had on his acolytes. Starting with the merging of hillbilly and R&B into rockabilly, rock 'n' roll and rock, Atkins' picking technique (itself an expansion of Merle Travis' syncopated thumb-and-finger style) can be heard on Sun's early sides, from the guitar combos of the British Invasion, American instrumental bands like The Ventures, and through to more recent fans like Mark Knopfler. Atkins' guitar was an influence on country players as well, as was the Nashville Sound he pioneered as a producer and label head at RCA.Atkins recorded voluminously as both a leader and a sideman, so there's no shortage of his material on disc. These forty tracks span his earliest instrumental work in the mid-40s, backing work with The Carter Sisters, Eddy Arnold, Everly Brothers and Don Gibson, a dense run of solo albums in the '60s, and his last releases in the '90s. Atkins merged jazz changes and blues progressions with the twangy picking of country, starting with the refined tone and controlled trills of 1946's "Guitar Blues (Pickin' the Blues)." His playing always remained tasteful and tuneful, even when hot-picking a tune like "Dizzy Strings" or swinging the gypsy-jazz styled "Mainstreet Breakdown." He awed you with his abilities but never lost the thread of a hummable, toe-tapping song.Atkins recorded many of his best-known sides as a sideman, where he could either show off his signature chops or play seamlessly in the background. Eddy Arnold's "Big D" finds Atkins' guitar front-and-center, adding a near-duet voice, while on the Everly Brothers' "Should We Tell Him" his presence is a more subtle tic-tac behind the brothers' strummed acoustics. Playing with the Carter Family (with whom he joined the Grand Ol' Opry in 1950) he vamps on June Carter's spunky "Root, Hog or Die" before breaking out with two short syncopated solos, and on Don Gibson's "Oh Lonesome Me," Atkins adds a memorable stuttering solo. He was the rare star who could write an accompanist's signature in small print beneath the headlining act's lead.Many of Atkins' late-50s and early '60s instrumentals catered to the hi-fidelity crowd, but with a Nashville twist. 1959's "Slinkey" finds Atkins' guitar dueling with his tremelo unit, and "Boo Boo Stick Beat" is hiply reminiscent of Dave Brubek's "Unsquare Dance." The cooing choral voices of "The Slop" would sound at home in any bachelor pad, but Atkins' twanging guitar marks this as not having been recorded on the coast. It's ironic that one of the architects of the twang-lite Countrypolitan sound couldn't lose his own twang even when chording the jazz of "Satan's Doll," and the Euro-tinged melody of The Shadows' "Man of Mystery" is rendered distinctly American in Atkins' hands.Atkins wrote many of his own songs, but also stamped his distinctive sound on numerous covers. A 1952 take of "The Third Man Theme" swaps syncopation for the original film score's wooziness, and a 1954 cover of "Mr. Sandman" replaces the keening vocal harmonies with fluid guitar picking. His duet with Jerry Reed on Merle Travis' "Cannonball Rag" is stupendous, with the players panned in stereo to reveal their individual and interlocking syncopation. Atkins played duets with many of his peers and fans, including Merle Travis ("Is Anything Sweeter Than This"), Les Paul ("It's Been a Long, Long Time") and Mark Knopfler ("Poor Boy Blues"), but it's his solo tracks and sessions as a sideman that best display his genius.The merger of the RCA and Columbia catalogs allows this set to stretch from Atkins' seminal sides with the former to his final works for the latter. The Columbia tracks are limited to only three, which fairly represents their volume and stature among Atkins' overall catalog. Those wanting a deeper sampling of the Columbia period should look up the single disc "The Essential Chet Atkins: The Columbia Years." As an introduction to Atkins as a player, this is a superb place to start. But given his impact as a producer and label head, this is really only half the Chet Atkins story. Technical note: tracks 1-18 on disc one are mono, the rest are stereo. [©2007 redtunictroll at hotmail dot com]