Pickin My Way / In Hollywood / Alone

 (1 customer review)

Any guitar player knows how hard it is to do what Chet Atkins did with his fingers. What got less recognition was his ability as a composer and arranger. This album has the usual assortment of Chet stuff, ballads, country tunes, pop tunes, in a style that sounds like elevator music to the uneducated but makes a musician say "How did he do that?". The title tune sounds like the kind of acoustic finger-picker that any '60's folkie would have worked on - until it modulates up a key and starts throwing in the kind of variations that few would conceive and hardly anyone but Chet could play.
The real gem of the album is Chet's version of "When You Wish Upon A Star". Like a Bach 4-part invention, it sounds lovely at first hearing, and it gets even better with repeated listenings as you start to realize what he's doing. After a conventional (but beautiful) statement of the song come the variations, including an inventive and technical counterpoint between bass and...Read more