JUNE 30

Chet Atkins
Born June 20, 1924, Lutrell, Tennessee
Died June 30, 2001, Nashville, Tennessee
Guitarist and Record Company Executive
Chet Atkins

Original Name - Chester Burton Atkins
Atkins grew up with his mother, two brothers and a sister—he was the youngest. His parents divorced when he was six. He started out on the ukulele, later moving on to the fiddle, but traded his brother Lowell an old pistol and some chores for a guitar when he was nine. He stated in his 1974 biography, "We were so poor and everybody around us was so poor that it was the forties before anyone even knew there had been a depression." Forced to relocate to Georgia to live with his father due to a near-fatal asthma condition, Chet was a sensitive youth who made music his obsession. Because of his illness, he was forced to sleep in a straight-back chair in order to breathe comfortably. On those nights, he would play his guitar until he fell asleep holding it, a habit that lasted his whole life.

Atkins began his musical career as a fiddler in the early 1940s, but it was his signature style of playing guitar (bass rhythm played with thumb, melody picked with three fingers) that brought him worldwide acclaim. In the early 1950s he began playing electric guitar, pioneering its use in country music. As an RCA Records executive, he produced hit recordings for Elvis Presley, Jim Reeves, and Waylon Jennings.

While working with a Western Band in Denver, Colorado, Atkins came to the attention of RCA Victor. Si Siman had been encouraging Steve Sholes to sign Atkins, as his style (with the success of Merle Travis as a hit recording artist) was suddenly in vogue. Sholes, A&R director of country music at RCA, tracked Atkins down to Denver. He made his first RCA recordings in Chicago in 1947. They did not sell. He did some studio work for RCA that year but had relocated to Knoxville again where he worked with Homer and Jethro on WNOX's new Saturday night radio show the Tennessee Barn Dance and the popular Midday Merry Go Round. Still, it was a hard way to make a living for a family man for by then he had a wife and daughter. He even contemplated tuning pianos as a sideline. In 1949 he left WNOX to join Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters back at KWTO. This incarnation of the old Carter Family featured Maybelle Carter and daughters June, Helen and Anita. Their work soon attracted attention from the Opry. The group relocated to Nashville in mid-1950. Atkins began working on recording sessions, performing on WSM and the Opry.

While he hadn't yet had a hit record on RCA his stature was growing. He began assisting Sholes as a Session Leader when the New York-based producer needed help organizing Nashville sessions for RCA artists. Atkins's first hit single was "Mr. Sandman," followed by "Silver Bell," which he did as a duet with Hank Snow. His albums also became more popular. In addition to recording, Atkins became a design consultant for Gretsch, who manufactured a popular Chet Atkins line of electric guitars from 1955-1980. Atkins also became manager of RCA's Nashville studio eventually inspiring and seeing the completion of the legendary Studio 'B'. This studio was the first studio built specifically for the purpose of recording on the now famous 'Music Row'.

In the 1970s, Atkins became increasingly stressed by his executive duties. He produced fewer records but could still turn out hits such as Perry Como's pop hit "And I Love You So." He recorded extensively with close friend and fellow picker Jerry Reed, who'd become a hit artist in his own right. A 1973 bout of colon cancer, however, led Atkins to redefine his role at RCA, to allow others to handle administration while he went back to his first love, the guitar, often recording with Reed or even Homer & Jethro's Jethro Burns (Atkins's brother-in-law) after Homer died in 1971.

Atkins received numerous awards, including fourteen Grammy Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993), and nine Country Music Association Instrumentalist of the Year awards. Billboard magazine awarded him their Century Award, their "highest honor for distinguished creative achievement", in December 1997.

He died in Nashville in 2001 following a protracted struggle with cancer.