Chet Atkins - Me and My Guitar / The First Nashville Guitar Quartet (1997)

This CD two-fer reissue from One Way Records combines two Chet Atkins albums originally released on RCA in the mid-'70s, 1977's Me and My Guitar and 1979's The First Nashville Guitar Quartet. It's standard operating procedure on Me and My Guitar, another one of Atkins' dozens of albums of instrumental country-tinged pop featuring his facile guitar-picking backed by a studio full of Nashville session pros. "Cascade" sets a fast pace for the playing, but the most impressive moments come on the slower, quieter moments, notably Atkins' solo acoustic guitar reading of Don McLean's "Vincent" and the title song, penned by James Taylor, with Atkins even taking a modest vocal turn. The synthesizer sounds have the odd effect of making the music seem more dated than older Atkins albums. The First Nashville Guitar Quartet, on the other hand, is something new, an attempt to create a new kind of chamber music using four acoustic guitars. Here, Atkins is joined by fellow string pullers John Pell, Liona Boyd, and John Knowles for a selection of arrangements of various material, from John Philip Sousa's "Washington Post March" to "Someday My Prince Will Come," the four guitars working together like a string quartet. It is a mostly successful experiment in combining a classical approach with down-home picking. It also suggests that, at this point in his career, Atkins was looking far afield for new ideas.