Chet Atkins' Workshop

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Chet Atkins' Workshop
Chet Atkins Workshop.jpg
Studio album by Chet Atkins
Released December 1960
Recorded Nashville, TN
Genre Jazz, pop
Length27:01
Label RCA Victor LSP-2232 (Stereo)
Producer Chet Atkins
Chet Atkins chronology
The Other Chet Atkins
(1960)
Chet Atkins' Workshop
(1960)
The Most Popular Guitar
(1961)

Chet Atkins' Workshop is a recording by American guitarist Chet Atkins. Full of pop and jazz stylings and no country, this became his best-selling LP to date, peaking at No. 7 on the Billboard Pop album charts.

United States federal republic in North America

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.

Chet Atkins American guitarist and record producer

Chester Burton Atkins, known as "Mr. Guitar" and "The Country Gentleman", was an American musician, occasional vocalist, songwriter, and record producer, who along with Owen Bradley and Bob Ferguson, among others, created the country music style that came to be known as the Nashville sound, which expanded country music's appeal to adult pop music fans. He was primarily known as a guitarist. He also played the mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and ukulele.

The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in the United States and elsewhere. The results are published in Billboard magazine. Billboard biz, the online extension of the Billboard charts, provides additional weekly charts. There are also Year End charts. The charts may be dedicated to specific genre such as R&B, country or rock, or they may cover all genres. The charts can be ranked according to sales, streams or airplay, and for main song charts such as the Hot 100 song chart, all three pools of data are used to compile the charts. For the Billboard 200 album chart, streams and track sales are included in addition to album sales.

Contents

History

Atkins is once again pictured on the cover in his home studio in Nashville. The liner notes are by David Halberstam, then writing for The Tennessean in Nashville, Tennessee, which discuss his practice of recording rhythm tracks in the RCA studio and then going home with the tapes to perfect his guitar part in his own studio. [1] "The workshop resembles a small scale Cape Canaveral. In it is approximately $8,000 worth of electronic and electrical equipment, much of it built by Atkins himself: a small maze of mixing panels, a three channel stereo tape recorder, a one channel recorder... This is the lonely man's room and Atkins when he is working is a lonely man. 'Can't take my time in the studio. We're making money there and when you are making money you can't really take your time.' Here he can retire for days on end to be handed an occasional sandwich through the door by his wife Leona, but here to stay with his guitar, and his sound." [2]

David Halberstam American writer, journalist, historian

David Halberstam was an American journalist and historian, known for his work on the Vietnam War, politics, history, the Civil Rights Movement, business, media, American culture, and later, sports journalism. He won a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1964. Halberstam was killed in a car crash in 2007, while doing research for a book.

<i>The Tennessean</i> newspaper in Tennessee

The Tennessean is the principal daily newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee. Its circulation area covers 39 counties in Middle Tennessee and eight counties in southern Kentucky.

Nashville, Tennessee State capital and consolidated city-county in Tennessee, United States

Nashville is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Tennessee. The city is the county seat of Davidson County and is located on the Cumberland River. The city's population ranks 24th in the U.S. According to 2017 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, the total consolidated city-county population stood at 691,243. The "balance" population, which excludes semi-independent municipalities within Davidson County, was 667,560 in 2017.

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [3]

Allmusic critic Greg Adams wrote in his review that Atkins' "relaxed fingerpicking works the material into a smooth consistency that sometimes belies the complexity of his technique, but the album is an engaging listen and an effortless-sounding intersection of diverse styles." [3]

Greg Adams ran the independent reissue record label Beehive Rebellion Records before writing for the All-Music Guide, penning liner notes for numerous reissue record labels and compiling greatest hits anthologies as an A&R coordinator. Beehive Rebellion issued two releases in the 1990s: a reissue of the New Zealand band Electric Blood's previously cassette-only album Electric Easter and a reissue of Sex Clark Five's Strum & Drum! that contained the band's complete self-released Records to Russia recordings. The latter was ranked by Goldmine magazine as one of the 50 best U.S. power pop albums of all time. An intended third release, a reissue of the Electric Blood cassettes Acoustic Splendour and Actual Stuff, to be titled The Man Who Tasted Shapes, never materialized. The label was reactivated in 2013 to release the album An Instructive Amusement by his band Cozy Catastrophes, which currently records for Jigsaw Records.

Reissues

Track listing

Side one

  1. "Lambeth Walk" (Douglas Furber, Noel Gay) – 2:45
  2. "Theme from 'A Summer Place'" (Max Steiner) – 2:04
  3. "Whispering" (Richard Coburn, Vincent Rose, John Schoenberger) – 2:04
  4. "In a Little Spanish Town ('Twas On a Night Like This)" (Sam M. Lewis, Mabel Wayne, Joseph Young) – 2:11
  5. "Sleep" (Earl Lebieg) – 2:15
  6. "Marie" (Irving Berlin) – 2:12

Side two

  1. "Hot Mocking Bird" (Bud Isaacs) – 2:07
  2. "Lullaby of Birdland" (George Shearing, George David Weiss) – 2:04
  3. "Tammy" (Jay Livingston, Ray Evans) – 1:55
  4. "Goofus" (William Harold, Gus Kahn, Wayne King) – 2:31
  5. "Bonita" (James Rich) – 2:46
  6. "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)" (Jay Livingston, Ray Evans) – 2:07

Personnel

Production Notes

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References

  1. Atkins, Chet and Cochran, Russ. (2003). "Me and My Guitars". Milwaukee. Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN   0-634-05565-8.
  2. Chet Atkins' Workshop, RCA Victor LSP-2232 liner notes. 1961. David Halberstam
  3. 1 2 Adams, Greg. "Chet Atkins' Workshop > Review". Allmusic . Retrieved January 31, 2011.