Tag: Chet Atkins

Title: Chet Atkins – Superpickers & Chet Atkins Picks The Best (1973-1967) [Reissue 2018]
Genre: Country
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

On Superpickers, Atkins joins together with an A-list of Nashville session musicians for a set of picking extravaganzas. The players make up a well-chosen band, and Atkins gives them plenty of space to solo on folk standards like “Mr. Bojangles” and “City of New Orleans,” as well as tunes that are just platforms for the many variations. Atkins himself is goaded into some wonderful playing as a result, and Superpickers is one of his best albums. Unfortunately, Picks on the Hits, originally released in the late summer of 1972, is one of those easy listening toss-offs, a collection of tunes that had been high in the pop charts recently, tarted out with strings and occasional choruses, with Atkins sticking his guitar in here and there.

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Title: Chet Atkins – Sails (1987) [Reissue 2015]
Genre: Folk Rock, Jazz, New Age
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Another of Chet Atkins’ attempts to break into the jazz world during his Columbia period, this recording veers well across the line into new age wallowing of the most innocuous kind. At this point in time, when a record opened with soothing ocean waves, followed by a gentle wash of synths, you could pretty much expect the new age to be lapping at your feet throughout. As he has with so many other genres, Atkins displays an instinctive grasp of this feel-good idiom, though he has to hold back his powers of invention to conform to its clichés and repetitions. Yet even amidst the twittering sound effects and electronic drums of “Up in My Treehouse” and the listless treatment of Keith Jarrett’s “My Song,” Atkins’ guitar always exudes dignity. Encouragingly, several of the tunes that Atkins composed himself are the most interesting ones on the disc. “Laffin’ at Life” allows for some fingerpicking by the master and some OK doodling by other guitarists and keyboardists, and the smooth jazz “On a Roll” has other facets of the Atkins personality, with Earl Klugh apparently taking a guest solo. One of Atkins’ favorite latter-day collaborators, Mark Knopfler, is also on the record, to little discernable effect.

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