Episode 15 of our series on American guitar players is another show dedicated to one artist exclusively, and it may be the last.

Chet Atkins was a remarkable anomaly in Nashville music. He was a guitar player who once was fired because he didn’t sound ‘country’ enough, which is stunningly ironic considering how he became one of the most (maybe THE most) important players/producers of country music in his generation. I guess he figured if he couldn’t go to the mountain, then he’d make the mountain come to him, which he did by moving the sound of country music closer to his own personal tastes.

Featured tracks include:

Get Up and Go

Guitar Blues

Nobody’s Sweetheart

Main Street Breakdown (w/ Homer and Jethro)

Mister Sandman

Silver Bell (w/ Hank Snow)

Yankee Doodle Dixie

Country Gentleman

Trambone

Teen Scene

Yakety Axe

Chinatown, My Chinatown

I Saw the Light (w/ Jerry Reed)

It’s Been a Long, Long Time (w/ Les Paul)

Poor Boy Blues (w/ Mark Knopfler)