Picks on the Beatles

As a sideline to his main job as producer and executive at RCA in the '60s, Atkins recorded many instrumental albums of contemporary pop and country hits, but this 1966 disc stands out from the others because of what it reveals about Nashville's influence on the Beatles and vice versa. It was Atkins, after all, who produced the Everly Brothers' early Cadence singles and played the limpid, lyrical lead guitar on them, and those records had a profound effect on Paul McCartney's songwriting and George Harrison's guitar playing. Atkins obviously has fun with these early Lennon-McCartney compositions. He plays slide guitar on "I Feel Fine," gives "Yesterday" an arpeggiated Appalachian feel, transforms "Can't Buy Me Love" into a Buck Owens Bakersfield song, emphasizes the Johnny Cash-like, low-string guitar figure on "I'll Cry Instead," and turns "She's a Woman" into a honky-tonk two-step. --Geoffrey Himes