Chet Atkins & Jerry Reed - Me & Jerry/Me & Chet… Plus

The top Nashville cats, been pickin’ since they’s babies

Chet Atkins can sometimes come in for a bit of stick because of his “invention” of the Nashville Sound, a rigid codification of production values that set country music on a journey to big strings, big backing vocals, big hair and, it has to be admitted, big hits.

Above and beyond that, however, Atkins was a consummate musician, a fantastically talented guitarist and a great promoter of young talent, even when that talent was in direct competition with his own. Hence his work with Jerry Reed, another Nashville picker whose style could be traced through Ike Everly, Merle Travis, Atkins himself and enough practice to comfortably exceed the 10,000 hours Malcolm Gladwell posited as necessary to success in his book Outliers.

Reed and Atkins made three albums together – guitar wizards conjuring enchantment from wood and nylon – and two of them are collected here, along with bonus tunes, making 29 tracks in all. Not all the material will be to everyone’s taste (MacArthur Park, anyone?) but the gold of Tennessee Stud, Cannonball Rag and others outweighs… not exactly dross but, perhaps, things that have been saturated by the Nashville sound.

Which is roughly where we came in…

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

Raven | RVCD-301

Reviewed by Tim Holmes
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