Metro Pulse/Gamut/Chet Atkins

Comment
on this story

A lifetime in pursuit of Chet Atkins

by W. Clem Small

I was a teenager in Missouri when I first heard the guitar playing of Chet Atkins, shortly after discovering Merle Travis. They immediately became my guitar heroes. I only heard Merle now and then, but I listened religiously to the Grand Old Opry, which sometimes featured Chet. I think he was the first one that I heard enough of to realize that he was playing rhythm and lead both at the same time on the same guitar. I tried to play like that, and I found that it wasn't easy. So I wrote him a post card and asked him if he had a book on how to play like he played. I never got an answer, and I couldn't forgive him for that. I figured it would only take a minute to respond and that he should have done it. At that age, I didn't stop to realize that he probably got hundreds of similar letters and cards and was likely so busy with his job that he didn't have time to answer them. Besides I didn't include a return-postage envelope—I'd never heard of that idea.

As time went on, I did figure out how to play something like his early style but not nearly as well as he did it. Years later, I was living in California, and I suppose that I was in my early 30s. There I saw an ad in a small newspaper that said something like "guitar lessons given in various styles, Merle Travis, etc...." I decided to take another try at learning Travis pickin', called the number in the ad and went up to Berkeley and met Fred Sokolow. Fred is now a well-known writer of musical-instruction books and a fabulous musician on guitar and banjo. He was a teacher and performer then, and he showed me a finger-thumb roll. When I did it, it didn't sound like Travis at all, but Fred promised it would if I learned it so well that I could do it up to speed. I practiced that roll intensively for weeks, it seems, until it became somewhat automatic. And then, amazingly, I started sounding like a beginning Travis-style guitar player! As the roll became more and more automatic, I could do more and more finger picking sounds that I used to only dream of doing. I could even add little licks, put in the melody, and modify the roll as needed. This kind of picking became the basis of my favorite way of playing.

On the other hand, I knew that I still didn't really play Chet Atkins style, even though I could do some songs in a style a little like his early playing. I stayed with the Travis pickin' and let my Atkins pickin' languish. Besides, I still hadn't forgiven Chet for not answering my card.

When I was in my late 60s, my wife and I moved to Knoxville. I didn't know it at the time, but Chet Atkins was from nearby—a small town just to the north named Luttrell. When a guitar picker that I met after coming to Knoxville told me there was an Atkins-Travis finger picking session at the Broadway Sound music store near me, I was anxious to go. I had met very few pickers in my life that actually made the thumb-pickin' sounds I wanted to make. I had met many finger pickers, but most played folk style, one did real-good Travis style, and I had met no Atkins-style pickers at all. Not that I hadn't tried—my picking paths just hadn't crossed with real-good thumb pickers. Most were no better than I was. But when I went down to that jam I was just about blown away! There were perhaps a dozen pickers there doing lots of top-notch Atkins picking and also some top-notch Travis picking. I was ashamed to even show them what I could do; I just chorded along. It was obvious that Knoxville was a stronghold of Atkins pickers.

Lynn Clapp, owner of Broadway Sound, was one of them. I told him I'd like to take some lessons in Atkins style, and so he kindly put me in touch with one of the best guitar pickers I have met: Robert Anderson. It seems to me that Robert does Atkins stuff as good as Atkins himself. Robert agreed to take me as a pupil, and I asked him to start me on "San Antonio Rose," my favorite western-swing song. He did, but that proved so difficult that I asked him for a finger-thumb roll to learn; I hadn't forgotten how helpful Fred's roll was in getting my Travis pickin' started. Robert showed me a roll in the Atkins style, and, with much practice, I learned it. I then began to get the alternating-bass thumb style of Atkins to a tiny degree. I should explain that a big difference between Atkins and Travis playing is that Atkins has a much more articulated alternating-bass with the thumb, while Travis tends to hit a bass note, and then strum with the thumb—alternating bass and strum rather than bass and bass as Atkins usually does. Then Robert showed me a simpler song than "San Antonio Rose," one called "Salty Dog Rag." I learned it in Atkins style, and I must say that that gave me a good feeling. On the other hand, I still have a very long way to go to become a decent Atkins-style player.

I am an addict of flea markets and garage sales, and I go to either whenever it is possible. While perusing the bargains at the local flea market here in Knoxville, I came across an old how-to-play-like-Chet-Atkins book. It was written by Chet himself. The man selling it wanted the princely sum of $3 for it, and I offered $2. He said no, and I walked away thinking it was too old and worn to be worth $3. But then I came to my senses and realized that I wanted it, and that I was unlikely to find another copy of it because I had seen no other in my extensive flea-market and garage-sale excursions. So back I went, swallowed my pride, gave the man his $3, thanked the fellow, and took the book home.

That book was an education. Not because it taught me more Atkins-style picking. It didn't. But when I took it to my guitar instructor he played some from it, and I realized that it sounded generally like my older attempts at Atkins playing. That led me to realize that in my attempts to play like Chet I had actually learned to play somewhat like his early recordings. The thing that I hadn't realized was that he had slowly evolved across the years that I had listened to him, and I hadn't evolved with him. So here I was trying catch up, so to speak, by taking lessons from Robert.

So now I am working on Atkins-style, and I suppose I'll eventually have a decent Atkins sound. I consider it a fortunate accident that we moved to Knoxville where this could happen. But I feel both a gladness and a sadness. Glad to be here among so many good Atkins pickers, and also glad to be taking lessons from a great guitarist (by the way, Robert is friends with Chet and his family, and Chet's niece plays professionally with Robert). After becoming introduced to the Knoxville musical scene I would likely have eventually gone to Nashville to try to see and hear Chet. The sadness is that will never happen. Chet Atkins died this month at age 77.

Chet has been quoted as saying that people might not remember him after he is gone, but they will hear his music, and that will speak for him. He's right, of course, and I guess that he'll be speaking to me for the rest of my life. He and Merle, and all my other music heroes. I like to think about that. And there's one more bit to the story. I have finally forgiven Chet for not answering that card.