Chet Atkins was born in east Tennessee to a poor farming
family. After high school he went to work in radio for WNOX at Knoxville making
his first recording for the Bullet label in 1946. As the forties gave way to the
fifties, he was playing guitar with Mother Maybelle Carter and the Carter
Sisters. As the fifties wore on he settled in Nashville and worked at RCA
records as a session musician before becoming a producer in 1957, eventually
rising to the position of vice president, which he held until 1982. Naturally
during that period creating what would be described as the Nashville Sound,
recording for Columbia from the time of his departure until his death at age 77
from cancer.
born June 20th
1924 died June 30th 2001.
Keith Woods