Chet Atkins - Me and Chet / Me and Jerry (1998)

This discount-priced two-fer combines the two celebrated duet albums made by Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed in the early '70s. Oddly, they are sequenced in reverse chronological order. Me & Jerry, which won the 1970 Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance, comes second (tracks 12-21), while 1972's Me & Chet, which was merely nominated for the same award, comes first (tracks 1-11). Me & Jerry is the more casual effort, as Atkins (in your right speaker) and Reed (in your left) pick their way through a number of pop standards, including "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "MacArthur Park." Atkins is the more sedate of the two, as Reed can be heard humming and singing snatches of the lyrics here and there, but it's the interaction between them that makes the recordings valuable. The tracks from Me & Chet are perhaps a bit more considered, and thus not as impressive, though there is a reading of "Mystery Train" that has considerable fire.