ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, August 10, 1996 TAG: 9608120099
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NASHVILLE, TENN.
SOURCE: JIM PATTERSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
Even living legends need practice.
At 72, Chet Atkins has taken on club dates. It's his way of challenging himself to sharpen the chops that have inspired guitarists for generations.
``If I know I've got to go do a show, I practice quite a bit, because you can't get out there and embarrass yourself.'' Atkins said in an interview at Caffe Milano, the club where he's playing two shows every Monday night through Sept. 22.
``So I thought, if I play every week I won't be so rusty and I'll play a lot better.''
Caffe Milano, which specializes in booking contemporary Christian music, is an intimate new listening room in Nashville's revitalized downtown. It seats about 300, and boasts possibly the best live sound in town. There will be a lot of guitar players there on Monday nights for a while, as well as the more savvy tourists in the audience.
Atkins was inspired to club performing partly by fellow guitar hero Les Paul, who has been playing a weekly New York club date for years. If Atkins gets the same reaction as Paul has, he says he could become a similar fixture at Caffe Milano.
Atkins has appeared at Paul's shows at the Iridium club when he's in New York. Occasionally, his host has jokingly turned his amplifier off when Atkins started playing too well.
``I'm sure that's what's keeping Les alive,'' Atkins said. ``He's had two heart operations, and he's got arthritis. He's got all kinds of health problems, but he loves going down and playing for that crowd, playing his old hits, kibitzing with the audience and everything.
``And I enjoy that, too. That's my favorite thing I guess to play for an audience because it's such a challenge. It's like those people in the Olympics: You got to get out there and do it right.''
Atkins' finger-picking style, a pseudoclassical variation on that of Merle Travis with influence from Django Reinhardt, is a foundation of rock 'n' roll. It is echoed in popular music, as witnessed by George Harrison's work on early Beatles records.
He has never met Harrison (who wrote liner notes at the height of Beatlemania for ``Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles''), but has made the acquaintance of Paul McCartney, Mark Knopfler and many other rock stars who were inspired by his style.
``That guy in Detroit that plays - that Ted Nugent. I was down at Hard Rock [Cafe] for the opening about six or eight years ago and he was there. I liked him right off,'' Atkins said.
``He walked up to me and he said, `My old man brought home one of your records when I was a kid and I played it and that's why I'm a guitar player.'
``Who's that guy with the Eagles - [Joe] Walsh? I played a show in Washington and he was there. I walked in the dressing room and he said, `May I hug you, sir?'
``I said, `Sure, that's nice. I'd rather have my youth back, though.'''
For nearly 30 years, Atkins fit his career as a musician around a busy schedule that included running the Nashville RCA Records office and producing hit records. Along with Decca's Owen Bradley, he is credited with the creation of the Nashville Sound in the 1950s. It was Nashville's polite alternative to rock 'n' roll (in which Atkins also played a role, as a player on some of Elvis Presley's early records and as producer of early Everly Brothers hits).
Atkins was a mover behind many country music careers, including Dolly Parton, Dottie West, Waylon Jennings, Charley Pride, Jim Reeves, Porter Wagoner and Skeeter Davis.
``I didn't want to be a vice president, I wanted to be a guitar player - that's all I ever wanted to be,'' Atkins said of his life as an executive. ``But I realized that I was good in the studio. ... I realized that what I liked, the public would like, too. 'Cause I'm kind of square.
``I think a lot of musicians get prejudiced. Like jazz guys, they just like one thing and everything else stinks and they put it down. And I was never that way, I listened to everything, I love everything.
``So I could hear good ideas and good melodies everywhere and that helped me a lot. My likes in music were very eclectic and when I was making a record I had a lot of areas I could choose from, and country fans wouldn't know the difference if it was a nice move musically.''
Atkins says his eclectic tastes will be reflected in his club repertoire. He'll perform with bass, drums and another guitarist and will sing occasionally.
The Chet Atkins performing in his 70s will, of course, be a different beast than the youngster who came out of Luttrell, Tenn., to his first job at WNOX in Knoxville, Tenn., in the 1940s.
``I'm not as energetic when I play and I don't remember as well,'' Atkins said. ``But I think I'm a better musician than ever because my taste has improved.''
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