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https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/barbarianinvasions/
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BARBARIAN INVASIONS, THE – Dennis Schwartz Reviews
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2019-08-05T22:32:30+00:00
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https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/barbarianinvasions/
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BARBARIAN INVASIONS, THE (Invasions barbares, Les) (director/writer: Denys Arcand; cinematographer: Guy Dufaux; editor: Isabelle Dedieu; music: Pierre Aviat; cast: Rémy Girard (Rémy), Stéphane Rousseau (Sébastien), Dorothée Berryman (Louise), Louise Portal (Diane), Dominique Michel (Dominique), Yves Jacques (Claude), Marie-Josée Croze (Nathalie), Marina Hands (Gaëlle), Johanne Marie Tremblay (Sister Constance), Pierre Curzi (Pierre), Isabelle Blais (Sylvane); Runtime: 99; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Daniel Louis/Denise Robert; Miramax; 2003-Canada/France)
“I think before this filmmaker casts his barbarian stones, he should look at himself.“
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Canadian director-screenwriter Denys Arcand (“Jesus of Montreal”/”The Decline of The American Empire”) creates a playful comedy-drama that is character driven and laced with recent liberal historical references and critiques of Canadian bureaucracy. The social satire is better at delivering its message about the flaws of the Canadian socialist health-care system and the dumbing-down of modern civilization then it is as an effective drama. It builds its tale around the generational conflict between the sensual socialist intellectual father and the rebellious puritanical capitalist son. The film’s main theme centers around an egotistical dying man who despondently thinks his life might be a failure, but now has the opportunity to take a new look at his life and his family. Arcand titled his film The Barbarian Invasions, which is a reference in part to a television analyst’s comments about the events of September 11, 2001. But the reference also refers to a world under attack from all directions by wars, epidemics, drugs, violence and the everyday assaults on the senses a world Arcand implores can only be lived in sanely through humor, tolerance, education, friendship and love. There’s no argument there.
The Barbarian Invasions can be seen as a sequel from 17 years beforeto Mr. Arcands popular The Decline of the American Empire (1986). With much of the same cast back from the earlier film playing the same Big Chill type of French-Canadian liberal intellectuals and sensualists, but who are now older and less sure they know everything but are still the same assholes glad to be waxing in nostalgia with their bellies full. They chatter giddily about their days as existentialists and Marxists-Leninists and deconstructionists and whatever the latest leftist rage is, as these well-to-do intellectuals are still convinced they are the elitists while self-congratulating themselves for their wishy-washy humanity. It was something to watch them take their bows for being such wonderful people and hear their smutty juvenile conversations about blowjobs, as they must have had a brain drain to forget that most ruined the lives of their children or gave them a bad childhood.
This populist work garnered two undeserved awards at the Cannes Film Festival of 2003 — Arcand for Best Screenplay and Marie-Josée Croze for Best Actress.
London-based millionaire international financier Sébastien (Stéphane Rousseau) receives an urgent call from his divorced mom Louise (Dorothée Berryman) that his libertine fiftysomething history professor father Rémy (Rémy Girard) is dying from terminal cancer. Relations have been strained not only between his caring mom and his skirt-chasing father, but also between father and son. Nevertheless Sébastien flies immediately to Montreal with his live-in art auctioneer yuppie ‘dream girl’ fiancee Gaëlle (Marina Hands). The straight-laced Sébastien also emails his longtime unseen sister Sylvane, who has lived in Australia for years, to tell her the news. But she can’t make it because she’s on a sea voyage in her yacht. Instead she sends heart-felt good wishes via video email messages to dad on Sébastien’s laptop, which makes dad well-up with soap opera-like tears.
Father and son’s first meeting is a bust, as the bald and puffy stubborn old-timer resists his athletically built son’s efforts to get him into a luxury hospital in the States. He boldly says I voted for Medicare and I’ll live by it. The hospital is a mess, as the machines are inadequate and it is so overcrowded there are patients sleeping in the hall. This doesn’t make sense to Sébastien since the floor below is empty. After mom gives him a pep talk that dad really cared for him and always made sure he would do well, the wheeler-dealer is shamed into action as he precedes to show that money talks. He quickly accesses the situation and muses since dad won’t take his generous offer for proper treatment, he’ll instead make his stay here as pleasant as possible. Sébastien bribes the babbling administrator to move his father to an empty room in the floor below and discovers the union really runs things, so he bribes them also to make sure he gets a private suite. Realizing no friends showed, the son contacts them and they come from all over the world to be with one of their own kind. Dad’s indifferent college students don’t visit, so the son bribes some of them with money to visit and say nice things. Pained to see his dad suffering needlessly, he learns heroin can ease the pain. Learning that one of his father’s old mistresses Diane has a daughter named Nathalie (Marie-Josée Croze) with drug connections, he convinces the attractive but troubled proofreader to buy the dope and administer it to his dad. When she tells him she’s a junkie and shouldn’t be trusted, he convincingly lets on that he trusts her.
All this tearjerker sentimentality leads to an assisted death scene in a lakeside cabin where family and friends gather to say goodbye to the lovable rascal. If that wasn’t enough of a phony heart-tugging scene, then the strained father and son relationship is resolved by a long embrace on dad’s deathbed. With dad gushing at what a wonderful son he has, the film couldn’t have gotten more down to the level of Love Story mawkishness.
If all this fake intellectualism that checkers the endless banal conversations among friends weren’t so shallow and all the many big themes attempted weren’t answered in such a half-assed sitcom way, this would still be a lousy film because the acting was terrible. These smug characters never for one second gained any sympathy from me, whether capitalist or leftist intellectual or hospital staff member. Even the kind-hearted Sister Constance on the hospital staff seemed unreal, especially when she’s so easily talked into administrating heroin to Rémy in an emergency situation. I think before this filmmaker casts his barbarian stones, he should look at himself.
REVIEWED ON 12/30/2003 GRADE: C –
Dennis Schwartz: “Ozus’ World Movie Reviews”
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The Barbarian Invasions
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Template:About Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox film The Barbarian Invasions (Template:Lang-fr) is a 2003 Canadian-French sex comedy-drama film written and directed by Denys Arcand and starring Rémy Girard, Stéphane Rousseau and Marie-Josée Croze. The film is a sequel to Arcand's 1986...
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Wiki of the Arts
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https://arts.fandom.com/wiki/The_Barbarian_Invasions
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Template:About Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox film The Barbarian Invasions (Template:Lang-fr) is a 2003 Canadian-French sex comedy-drama film written and directed by Denys Arcand and starring Rémy Girard, Stéphane Rousseau and Marie-Josée Croze. The film is a sequel to Arcand's 1986 film The Decline of the American Empire, continuing the story of the character Rémy, a womanizing history professor now terminally ill with cancer.
The sequel was a result of Arcand's longtime desire to make a film about a character close to death, also incorporating a response to the September 11 attacks of 2001. It was produced by companies from both Canada and France, and shot mainly in Montreal, also employing a former hospital and property near Lake Memphremagog.
The film received a positive response from critics and became one of Arcand's biggest financial successes. It was the first Canadian film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, at the 76th Academy Awards in 2004. It won awards at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, six Genie Awards, including Best Motion Picture, and three César Awards, including Best Film. The Barbarian Invasions was followed by Days of Darkness in 2007.
Plot[]
Seventeen years after the events of The Decline of the American Empire, Sébastien is enjoying a successful career in quantitative finance in London when he receives a call from his mother, Louise, that his father and Louise's ex-husband Rémy is terminally ill with cancer. Sébastien is not enthused about seeing Rémy, whom he blames for breaking up the family with his many adulteries. Rémy and his friends of the older generation are still largely social-democrats and proponents of Quebec nationalism, positions seeming somewhat anachronistic long after the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. Rémy does not like Sébastien's career, lack of reading or fondness for video games.
The father and son travel to the U.S. state of Vermont to briefly receive medical care before returning to the overcrowded and disorganized Quebec hospital. Sébastien attempts to bribe hospital administration for better care, and calls Rémy's old friends about a possible visit. Upon hearing heroin is "800%" more effective than morphine, he tracks some down for Rémy from a drug addict, Nathalie.
Meanwhile, Rémy is reunited with his friends, including Pierre, Dominique, Claude and Diane, Nathalie's mother, and they share a conversation on their old sex drive and the gradual decline of their vitality. Diane is concerned for Nathalie, while Rémy, a history professor, lectures the hospital chaplain Constance on the relative peace of the 20th century compared to past centuries. At the same time, another scholar describes the September 11 attacks as historically small except as a possible beginning of modern barbarian invasions. After Rémy and his friends retreat to the countryside, they speak of their devotion to constantly evolving -isms. Rémy dies in the company of his friends and Sébastien, after a heroin injection from Nathalie, whom Rémy calls his guardian angel.
Cast[]
Template:Div col
Rémy Girard as Rémy
Stéphane Rousseau as Sébastien
Dorothée Berryman as Louise
Louise Portal as Diane
Marie-Josée Croze as Nathalie
Marina Hands as Gaëlle
Dominique Michel as Dominique
Pierre Curzi as Pierre
Yves Jacques as Claude
Isabelle Blais as Sylvaine
Toni Cecchinato as Alessandro
Sophie Lorain as First Lover
Mitsou Gélinas as Ghislaine
Micheline Lanctôt as Nurse Carole
Johanne-Marie Tremblay as Sister Constance
Roy Dupuis as Narcotics Officer Gilles Levac
Lise Roy as Mme. Joncas-PelletierTemplate:Sfn
Template:Div col end
Production[]
Development[]
Denys Arcand, who wrote and directed the successful French Canadian film The Decline of the American Empire (1986), developed the idea of returning to the characters years later due to a fascination with death and an idea of having a character who is expecting to die.[1] Part of his interest in the subject matter related to both of his parents dying of cancer.[2] He had tried to write screenplays about non-Decline characters going to die for 20 years prior to The Barbarian Invasions, originally pitching the idea to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation but having difficulty with the subject matter being overly sentimental.[1] He finally decided to try the story with characters from The Decline of the American Empire because of his fondness for its cast members.[1] There are also characters from Arcand's 1989 film Jesus of Montreal in the film.Template:Sfn
The September 11 attacks of 2001 occurred when Arcand was nearly finished his screenplay,[3] and gave new impetus to Arcand's ideas of "the decline of the American Empire." Arcand believed the attack represented the first of what would be many foreign attacks on the U.S.[4] Arcand also referred to himself as "post-isms", and incorporated this discussion into the film.[5]
Another statement he tried to make with his film was that heroin could be legalized for terminally ill patients in Canada, claiming it already is in England.[2] Author Susan C. Boyd wrote that, despite what the film portrays, heroin has been legal in Canadian palliative care since 1984.Template:Sfn To research how his character would find heroin, Arcand contacted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and met with them in an interrogation room, resembling the one in the final film. He claimed the RCMP gave him the cellphone number of a Montreal detective, and when he called it, he heard shouting from a police raid on the Hells Angels, which resulted in the arrest of Maurice Boucher.[6]
The film was produced by both Canadian and French companies, including Telefilm Canada, Société Radio-Canada and Canal+.[7] The budget was $6 million budget.[8]
Casting[]
The cast members from the previous film, including Dorothee Berryman, Louise Portal, Dominique Michel, Pierre Curzi and Yves Jacques, were easy to secure for the sequel.[1] New to the cast was Marie-Josée Croze, who was selected by Arcand after starring in the Canadian films Maelstrom (2000) and Ararat (2002). She found Arcand allowed her freedom in how she interpreted her role.[9] In The Decline of the American Empire, Croze's character Nathalie is played by child actress Ariane Frédérique.Template:Sfn
Stéphane Rousseau, better known in Quebec as a stand-up comedian than an actor, was cast as Sébastien, after Dominique Michel urged Arcand to allow Rousseau to audition.Template:Sfn Arcand explained he felt Rousseau had the "authority" the other actors who auditioned did not, though Rousseau was surprised to get the part as he felt his character was colder and more of an intellectual than he was. Rousseau's mother had died of cancer when he was a child, and he had fought with his father, later incorporating that experience into his performance.[10]
Filming[]
The film was shot over 50 days, beginning in September 2002 and finishing in November. The bulk of the film was shot in Montreal, with some scenes filmed in London.[8] Footage from the World Trade Center attack shot by a Quebec architect and acquired by Radio-Canada was also used.[4]
For the hospital scenes, the cast and crew employed Lachine General Hospital,Template:Sfn an unused former hospital in Lachine, Quebec. Cinematographer Guy Dufaux found these scenes difficult to make interesting and realistic at the same time, and decided on more lighting for later scenes when the film's mood brightens, while using fluorescent fixtures and reflecting the former hospital's green painting to shoot the early scenes.[8] As with the first film, scenes were filmed near Lake Memphremagog.Template:Sfn Most of the film was shot using a Steadicam.[8]
Release[]
News that Arcand was working on a sequel to his 1986 film was received with a skeptical and negative response from critics.Template:Sfn The film was screened at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival in May, where it received a 22-minute standing ovation, with distribution to 30 countries assured by the time Arcand received his Best Screenplay award.[11] It was afterwards selected to open the gala at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival in September,[12] and also opened the Vancouver International Film Festival that month.[13] The film began playing in Quebec theatres in May and ran for months,[1] with its Canadian distributor being Alliance Films.[14] It opened across Canada on November 21.[8]
After Cannes, rights were sold to Miramax for distribution of the film in the United States.[15] It opened in New York and Los Angeles on November 21.[16] In France, the film was available on 450 screens at one time, the most for a Quebec film ever.[14]
Reception[]
Box office[]
The film's box office performance at Quebec theatres between its opening in May 2003 and the fall was considered good.[1] By December, its initial release across Canada made $5.9 million.[14]
In France, it grossed the equivalent of US$8 million.[14] According to Box Office Mojo, the film finished its run on June 3, 2004 after grossing $8,544,975 in North America and $18,379,681 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $26,924,656.[17] It was one of Arcand's biggest box office successes.Template:Sfn
Critical reception[]
The Barbarian Invasions has received positive reviews from numerous critics. In Canada, Maclean's critic Brian D. Johnson called it not only satirical but "a moving elegy to a generation that defined modern Quebec and has seen its passions rendered obsolete".[18] Liam Lacey wrote in The Globe and Mail that the film is "upbeat and wryly positive, or at least as much as you could expect from a film that condemns the Quebec hospital system and features a death by cancer as its central theme".[19] The film drew general attention for its criticism of Quebec's health care system.[16] Peter Howell wrote in The Toronto Star that "It's the depth of emotions Arcand summons for his characters, and the way this superb ensemble cast bring them so vividly to life, that make The Barbarian Invasions a film not just to see, but to welcome home".[20]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times gave the movie four stars and called it "a movie with brains, indignation, irony and idealism".[21] A.O Scott of The New York Times wrote "what makes The Barbarian Invasions much more than a facile exercise in generational conflict is that Denys Arcand, who wrote and directed it, has a sense of history that is as acute as it is playful", adding "The rapprochement between Remy and Sebastien is beautiful to watch" and Marie-Josée Croze's "spooky, melancholy intensity darkens the mood of buoyant sentimentality".[22] Entertainment Weekly's Owen Glieberman gave the film a B-, noting Rémy's hedonism.[23] David Denby of The New Yorker gave credit to Stéphane Rousseau for "a fascinatingly minimal performance".[24] Jonathan Romney of The Independent wrote "The film has its pros and cons, but you can't fault it for ambition: it not only muses on life and death, but also undertakes fairly comprehensive philosophical soundings of the way the world is today". Romney added Croze "has simply the most nuanced presence here: thoughtful, introspective, with a reassuring warmth and lack of cartoonishness".[25] Peter Bradshaw, writing for The Guardian, disdained the movie, calling it "grotesquely overpraised", "shot through with middlebrow sophistication, boorish cynicism, unfunny satire, a dash of fatuous anti-Americanism and unthinkingly reactionary sexual politics".[26] English Professor Peter Brunette wrote "its analysis of this state of affairs is all too often annoyingly rhetorical and, finally, altogether too facile".[27]
In 2004, the Toronto International Film Festival ranked the film tenth in the Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time.[28] David Lawrence Pike criticized the use of the World Trade Center footage as exploitative, but said despite "the crudeness and vulgarity", the film had a "particular brilliance".Template:Sfn In January 2010, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 82% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 123 reviews.[29] Metacritic reports that the film has an average score of 71 out of 100, based on 35 reviews.[30]
Accolades[]
The Barbarian Invasions is considered historically significant as the first Canadian film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.Template:Sfn Canadian historian George Melnyk interpreted it as a sign that "Canadian cinema has come of global age", also pointing to Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001) winning the Camera d'Or at Cannes.Template:Sfn
Marie-Josée Croze's honour for Best Actress at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival was considered unlikely.[15] She was not present to accept the award.[11] The film's victory at France's national César Awards was also considered a surprise, since it is mainly a Quebec film.[31] It received the most nominations at the 24th Genie Awards.[32]
Award Category Recipient(s) Result Template:Abbr Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film Denys Arcand Template:Won [3] Best Original Screenplay Denys Arcand Template:Nom BAFTA Awards Film Not in the English Language Denise Robert, Daniel Louis, Denys Arcand Template:Nom [33] Best Original Screenplay Denys Arcand Template:Nom Bangkok International Film Festival Best Film Denys Arcand Template:Won [34] Cannes Film Festival Best Screenplay Denys Arcand Template:Won [12] Best Actress Marie-Josée Croze Template:Won César Awards Best Film Denys Arcand Template:Won [31] Best Director Denys Arcand Template:Won Best Writing Denys Arcand Template:Won Most Promising Actress Marie-Josée Croze Template:Nom Critics' Choice Awards Best Foreign Language Film Denys Arcand Template:Won [35] David di Donatello Awards Best Foreign Film Denys Arcand Template:Won [36] European Film Awards Best Non-European Film Denys Arcand Template:Won [37] Genie Awards Best Motion Picture Denise Robert, Daniel Louis and Fabienne Vonier Template:Won [38][39] Best Direction Denys Arcand Template:Won Best Actor Rémy Girard Template:Won Best Supporting Actor Stéphane Rousseau Template:Won Best Supporting Actress Marie-Josée Croze Template:Won Best Original Screenplay Denys Arcand Template:Won Best Editing Isabelle Dedieu Template:Nom Best Sound Michel Descombes, Gavin Fernandes and Patrick Rousseau Template:Nom Best Sound Editing Marie-Claude Gagné, Diane Boucher, Jérôme Décarie, Claire Pochon and Jean-Philippe Savard Template:Nom Golden Globes Best Foreign Language Film The Barbarian Invasions Template:Nom [40] Jutra Awards Best Film Denise Robert and Daniel Louis Template:Won [41][42] Best Direction Denys Arcand Template:Won Best Screenplay Denys Arcand Template:Won Best Actor Rémy Girard Template:Nom Best Actress Marie-Josée Croze Template:Won Best Supporting Actor Pierre Curzi Template:Nom Best Supporting Actress Dorothée Berryman Template:Nom Best Art Direction Normand Sarazin Template:Won Best Cinematography Guy Dufaux Template:Nom Best Editing Isabelle Dedieu Template:Nom Best Sound Patrick Rousseau, Michel Descombes, Gavin Fernandes and Marie-Claude Gagné Template:Nom Best Make-Up Evelyne Byot and Diane Simard Template:Nom Special Jutra Denys Arcand Template:Won Lumières Awards Best French-Language Film Denys Arcand Template:Won [43] National Board of Review Best Foreign Language Film The Barbarian Invasions Template:Won [44] Top Foreign Films The Barbarian Invasions Template:Won Toronto Film Critics Association Awards Best Screenplay Denys Arcand, shared with Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation Template:Won [45] Toronto International Film Festival Best Canadian Feature Film Denys Arcand Template:Won [46] Vancouver Film Critics Circle Best Canadian Feature Film The Barbarian Invasions Template:Won [47] Best Canadian Director Denys Arcand Template:Won Best Actor in a Canadian Film Rémy Girard Template:Nom Best Actress in a Canadian Film Marie-Josée Croze Template:Nom Best Supporting Actor in a Canadian Film Stéphane Rousseau Template:Nom
See also[]
List of submissions to the 76th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
List of Canadian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
References[]
Template:Reflist
Bibliography[]
Template:Cite book
Template:Cite book
Template:Cite book
Template:Cite book
Template:Cite book
[]
Template:Official website
Template:IMDb title
Template:Allmovie title
Template:Mojo title
Template:Rotten-tomatoes
Template:Metacritic film
Template:Denys Arcand Template:AcademyAwardBestForeignLanguageFilm 2001–2020 Template:Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Language Film Template:César Award for Best Film Template:ACCT Best Picture Template:Lumières Award for Best French-Language Film
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https://letterboxd.com/film/jesus-of-montreal/
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Jesus of Montreal (1989)
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https://letterboxd.com/film/jesus-of-montreal/
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My first Denys Arcand and such a great film. Why haven't I checked him out until now?. I found myself deeply moved by the end. A group of five actors (3 men and 2 women) stage a provocative and iconoclastic version of the traditional Passion Play and gradually their stories merge into a contemporary rendering of the disciples and Jesus in his final days.
This is not the gentle reverent Jesus but the angry radical Jesus who decried the social hierarchies of his time. In some ways it's similar to Pasolini's "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" but in a contemporary setting. Arcand (who wrote as well as directed) cuts between extended sequences of the performance - which is frankly…
Just when I thought the films in my Film & Religion class were getting worse every week, we ended up viewing the second best movie of the semester.
Jesus of Montreal follows an acting troupe working on a play about the life of Jesus. The film not only works as a clever satire, but also a sharply brilliant commentary on religion, theater, and even advertising. Maybe it's because we studied this film intensively and that usually heightens a film for me, but I really loved some things about this movie. The humor was alright in parts and wildly funny in others and the acting is good (though the lead guy gives a really great turn in the end), but the writing…
A film with layers as it manages to provide one of the best portrayals of Jesus Christ ever in the form of a Passion Play being put on within the world of the film as well as a narrative rooted with palpable emotions and a social commentary. We kind of get a double narrative here, because while we watch the Passion Play unfold, you forget for a moment that you’re actually watching a film about the actors’ struggle and the complicated relationship we have with art form.
Not only do you get to see this battle in the artist of whether to pursue the kind of work you’re passionate about or the more mainstream less substantial work that gets you…
A gentle, quiet natured man comes to town. We find out he is an actor. His history is somewhat unclear. He is contracted by a priest to update a version of the passion play that the priest had written 20 years ago. The play will be preformed on the church grounds.
The man gathers a cast consisting of a man who was working as a voiceover guy in the porn industry. A man doing voiceover for science documentaries. A woman working at a homeless shelter, and a beautiful female model working in the advertising industry.
This troupe writes and performs an avant-garde "new theater" presentation of the play. The audience loves it, the priest does not.
The priest has been…
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https://filmtalk.org/2017/10/05/martin-provost-my-films-always-begin-whenever-i-start-writing-the-script-thats-when-the-adventure-starts-for-me/
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INTERVIEWS WITH ACTORS AND FILMMAKERSINTERVIEWS WITH ACTORS AND FILMMAKERS
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2017-10-05T00:00:00
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Martin Provost (b. 1957) started his career in his native France as a stage and screen actor, and he was a member of the Comédie française. He turned to screenwriting and filmmaking twenty years ago when he made his directorial film debut “Totilla y cinéma” (a.k.a. “Tortilla and Cinema”), but only after “Séraphine” (2008), based…
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FILM TALK
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https://filmtalk.org/2017/10/05/martin-provost-my-films-always-begin-whenever-i-start-writing-the-script-thats-when-the-adventure-starts-for-me/
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Martin Provost (b. 1957) started his career in his native France as a stage and screen actor, and he was a member of the Comédie française. He turned to screenwriting and filmmaking twenty years ago when he made his directorial film debut “Totilla y cinéma” (a.k.a. “Tortilla and Cinema”), but only after “Séraphine” (2008), based on the life of French painter Séraphine de Senlis, played by Yolande Moreau, he got recognized and became one of France’s leading filmmakers who—first and foremost a writer—prefers to script his own work.
His latest effort as a director-screenwriter was “Sage femme” (2017, a.k.a. “The Midwife”), a character drama starring two titans of French cinema—Catherine Frot as a dedicated midwife working in a maternity clinic. She befriends Catherine Deneuve, a free-spirited and former mistress of her deceased father.
Mr. Provost was a jury member at the Festival International du Film Francophone de Namur in Belgium, where this interview was conducted.
Mr. Provost, is it a necessity for you that your films are based on your own screenplays?
That’s interesting because I recently talked to a producer about a new project, based on a screenplay written by somebody else. I can’t tell you much about it at this point, but it’s true, writing has always been terribly important to me—I also wrote for the theater and wrote several novels. I always have the urge to write every day. So my films always begin whenever I start writing the script; that’s when the adventure begins for me. A screenplay is never a finished product, unlike a novel for example. Everybody needs it on the set, and for me, it’s even a helpful tool for editing my films. So I like writing, it inspires me, and my favorite places to write are a train or a plane—small places that are moving. They inspire me a lot.
You’re an excellent writer for actresses, like Carmen Maura, Yolande Moreau, Emmanuelle Devos, and in your latest film, “Sage femme” [a.k.a. “The Midwife”], you had cast Catherine Deneuve and Catherine Frot. In each of your films, women get magnificent, often powerful roles, on their plate. I’m sure that’s by choice?
Yes, I seem to ignore the concept of the traditional leading man [laughs]. Well, after all, this is the 21st century, and all you see are leading men. On any film poster, you can see them, and where are the women? That’s why it’s more difficult for actresses to find strong roles. But there’s also another and more personal reason. I was born in the French region of Bretagne [a.k.a. Brittany]. My mother and my grandmother have always been very strong women, I was always surrounded by women, they raised me—as my father was in the Navy, I didn’t see him the whole time—and they all liked me, so I have been very familiar with women for as long as I can remember. And in Bretagne, the women are in control of their own life; they are really in charge. They may be fishermen’s wives who do the grocery shopping and take the children to school, but they also manage their own lives because they are so powerful. So maybe that explains why I prefer to focus on female characters in my films. But I’m not the first filmmaker to do that; there have been many more, such as Federico Fellini.
When watching your films, like your latest feature, “Sage femme,” it’s hard to imagine any other actress playing the characters portrayed by Catherine Deneuve and Catherine Frot.
That’s because I write those parts for each one of them. That’s how I made my two films with Yolande Moreau: I had met with her and got to know her. If we would never have met, I’m sure I wouldn’t have made those films. The same with “Violette”; the screenplay was written for Emmanuelle Devos. And when I wrote the script of “Sage femme,” I had Catherine Deneuve and Catherine Frot in my mind and between my ears because they were going to play those roles. I could hear them talking while I was writing, I could hear them saying their lines. So I really had to enter into their own world to make sure the dialogue became theirs. When we were shooting “Sage femme,” Catherine Deneuve once told me, ‘This dialogue that you have written, this is totally me. You really took the words right out of my mouth.’ So that’s my working method, and I like that very much.
Is it easy for you to make your films and in the meantime compete with the big-budget blockbusters at the box office?
It’s never easy to make films, but considering the position I’m in right now, I am very fortunate to make the films I want to do. Before I did “Séraphine” [2008], it was pretty difficult for me, but since then, it has been a lot easier. “Séraphine” was a turning point in my career, so yes, for the past ten years, I have been able to do what I wanted to do. Even though things have changed in the meantime, fortunately a lot of films are still being made in France. But when I think about the filmmakers I grew up with… Yasujirô Ozu for example, when he began in the 1920s and 1930s, he made about three films a year, and so many of them turned out to be masterpieces. And it takes Jean-Claude Carrière only a week to write a screenplay, can you imagine? Now it often takes a year to finish a screenplay. So it has become a whole different ballgame to make a film now. You write a screenplay because you want your financiers to read it, and then it needs to be a piece of literature. But making a film is also a technical process. If you write a technical screenplay—as you’d shoot the film—nobody would be able to read it because such a script would include all the different and various constructions for the entire cast and crew. But when your producers say, ‘Okay, this is the budget I got, now we need to make a few choices or compromises,’ then you have to ask yourself, ‘What kind of film do I want to make? What are the choices I will make?’ And once you’re on the set, or you shoot a scene in the streets of Paris, things might look entirely different from what you had imagined. How do you deal with that? What do you do? So you have to make choices all the time—life is all about making choices.
How do you work with your actors then? You rehearse a lot?
We go through the entire script; with Catherine Deneuve and Catherine Frot we only needed to go through it once, and that was enough. Catherine Deneuve has her own working method; she is very free. Don’t let her enter a room the way you want it. Give her enough space and freedom, and it works out perfectly. I learned a lot from her.
France is one of the most cinephile countries in the world. Has that ever been something you took into consideration?
Absolutely, I grew up during the golden era of French cinema, with François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and so many others. The other day, I saw “Jeune femme” [2016], directed by Léonor Serraille, and I liked it tremendously; it was such a wonderful film. She had won the Golden Camera at the Cannes Film Festival. So I am very proud to be part of this world of filmmaking. On the other hand, and let’s not forget that, there’s also a whole world of cinema beyond the borders of France.
Festival International du Film Francophone de Namur, Namur (Belgium)
October 2, 2017
“Sage femme” (a.k.a. “The Midwife,” 2017, trailer)
FILMS
NEA, a.k.a. NEA: A YOUNG EMMANUELLE (1976) DIR Nelly Kaplan PROD André Génovès, Yvon Guézel SCR Nelly Kaplan, Jean Chapot (book by Emanuelle Arsan) CAM Andréas Winding ED Hélène Plemiannikov MUS Michel Magne CAST Sami Frey, Ann Zacharias, Françoise Brion, Micheline Presle, Heinz Bennent, Ingrid Caven, Robert Freitag, Martin Provost (Raphaël)
LA ZIZANIE, US title THE DISCORD (1978) DIR Claude Zidi PROD Marcel Berbert, Christian Fechner SCR Claude Zidi, Pascal Jardin, Michel Fabre CAM Claude Renoir ED Robert Isnardon, Monique Isnardon MUS Vladimir Cosma CAST Louis de Funès, Annie Girardot, Maurice Risch, Jean-Jacques Moreau, Geneviève Fontanel, Jacques François, Martin Provost
ALICE (1988) DIR – SCR Gabriel Benattar CAM Jean-Louis Sonzogni ED Gabriel Benattar, Christian Dior CAST Anne Consigny, Alain Fromager, Denis Manuel, Nadia Mourouzi, Martin Provost
PENTIMENTO (1989) DIR Tonie Marshall PROD Charles Gassot SCR Tonie Marshall, Sylvie Granotier CAM Pascal Lebègue ED Luc Barnier MUS Steve Beresford CAST Patricia Dinev, Antoine de Caunes, Magali Noël, Laurence César, Etienne Bierry, Jean-Pierre Jorris, Martin Provost (Frédéric)
TORTILLA Y CINÉMA, a.k.a. TORTILLA AND CINEMA (1997) DIR – SCR Martin Provost PROD Yannick Bernard, Chantal Perrin, Ramón Pilacés CAM Éric Guichard ED Monica Coleman MUS Bruno Bertoli CAST Carmen Maura, Marc Duret, Michel Aumont, Marina Tomé, Marianne Groves, Mouss Diouf, José Otero
20, AVENUE PARMENTIER (2002) DIR – SCR Christophe Jeauffroy PROD Eric Mahé CAM Dominique De Wever ED Agnes Contensou MUS Daniel Barba CAST Barbara Schulz, Sagamore Stévenin, Julien Jeauffroy, Violetta Sanchez, Christian Krezel, Christophe Garnot, Martin Provost (Manu), Valérie Daradjian
LA VENTRE DE JULIETTE (2003) DIR Martin Provost PROD Didier Boujard, Jean Michel Savy, François Marquis SCR Martin Provost, Marc Abdelnour, Philippe Lasry CAM Jean-Claude Larrieu ED Christophe Pinel CAST Julie-Marie Parmentier, Stéphane Rideau, Carmen Maura, Nathalie Richard, Patrick Chesnais, Tom Novembre, Ariane Ascaride
SÉRAPHINE (2008) DIR Martin Provost PROD Miléna Poylo, Gilles Sacuto SCR Martin Provost, Marc Abdelnour CAM Laurent Brunet ED Ludo Troch MUS Michel Galasso CAST Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur, Anne Bennent, Geneviève Mnich, Adélaïde Leroux, Nico Rogner, Françoise Lebrun
OÙ VA LA NUIT, US title THE LONG FALLING (2011) DIR Martin Provost PROD Julie Salvador, Christophe Jeauffroy SCR Marc Abdelnour (adaptation by Martin Provost; novel by Keith Ridgway) CAM Agnès Godard ED Ludo Troch CAST Yolande Moreau, Pierre Moure, Edith Scob, Jan Hammenecker, Laurent Capelutto, Loïc Pichon, Servane Ducorps
VIOLETTE (2013) DIR Martin Provost PROD Gilles Sacuto, Miléna Poylo SCR Martin Provost, Marc Adbelnour, René de Ceccatty CAM Yves Cape ED Ludo Troch MUS Hugues Tabar-Nouval CAST Emmanuelle Devos, Sandrine Kiberlain, Olivier Gourmet, Catherine Hiegel, Jacques Bonnaffé, Olivier Py, Nathalie Richard, Stanley Weber
SAGE FEMME, a.k.a. THE MIDWIFE (2017) DIR – SCR Martin Provost PROD Olivier Delbosc CAM Yves Cape ED Albertine Lastera MUS Grégoire Hetzel CAST Catherine Frot, Catherine Deneuve, Olivier Gourmet, Quentin Dolmaire, Mylène Demongeot, Pauline Etienne, Pauline Parigot, Marie Gil-Pierre
TV MOVIES
LE DEVOIR DE FRANÇAIS (1978) DIR Jean-Pierre Blanc SCR Denis Lalanne (also novel) MUS Jacques Loussier CAST Frédéric Andréi, Martin Provost, Clémentine Amouroux, Gisèle Casadesus, Michèle André, Catherine Miltry
MESSIEURS LES RONDS-DE-CUIR (1978) DIR Daniel Ceccaldi SCR Daniel Ceccaldi (novel by Georges Courteline) CAM Alain Levent MUS Georges Delerue CAST Claude Dauphin, Raymond Pellegrin, Daniel Ceccaldi, Evelyne Buyle, Roger Carel, Roland Armontel, Bernard Le Coq, Martin Provost (Medare)
TARENDOL (1980) DIR Louis Grospierre SCR (adaptation by Louis Grospierre; novel by René Barjavel) CAST Jacques Penot, Florence Pernel, Michel Duchaussoy, Daniel Gélin, Nathalie Keryan, Françoise Brion, Martin Provost (Fiston)
HISTOIRES DE VOYOUS: OPÉRATION PRIMEVÈRE (1981) SCR (adaptation by Dorothée Dhan; novel by Pierre Boileau, Thomas Nercejac) CAST François-Eric Gendron, Wolfgang Höper, Pierre Londiche, Germain Muller, Martin Provost, Johannes Schaaf, Michel Such
L’HISTOIRE EN MARCHE: LES PRISONNIÈRES (1985) DIR Jean-Louis Lorenzi SCR Jean-Louis Lorenzi, Stellio Lorenzi, Guy Vassal CAST Sophie Duez, Hélène Vauquois, Martin Provost (Mathieu Seguin), Blandine Métayer, Robert Bazil, Fabienne Tricottet, Violette Malglaive
TV MINI-SERIES
LES FOLLIES OFFENBACH (1977) DIR Michel Boisrond SCR Marcel Jullian, André Roussin, Shervan Sidery, Georges Neveux, Daniel Ceccaldi CAST Michel Serrault, Catherine Samie, André Thorent, Philippe Ariotti, Marco Perrin, Martin Provost
AU PLAISIR DE DIEU (1977) DIR Robert Mazoyer SCR Paul Savatier (novel by Jean d’Ormesson) CAM Jean Badal ED Maryse Siclier MUS Antoine Duhamel CAST Jacques Dumesnil, Paul Barge, Heidi Stroh, Pino Colizzi, Alain Floret, Yves Beneyton, Sylvie Granotier, Martin Provost (Philippe, jeune)
BANLIEUE SUD-EST (1977) DIR Gilles Grangier SCR (adaptation by Jean herman; novel by René Fallet) CAST Paul Le Person, Maurice Biraud, Odette Laure, Christopher Beaunay, Philippe Mathieu, Valérie Pascale, Martin Provost
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Aurore (2005 film)
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Aurore is a 2005 Quebec biographical drama film that was directed by Luc Dionne and produced by Denise Robert and Daniel Louis. It is based on the true story of...
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https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Aurore_(2005_film)
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Aurore Gagnon, born in 1909 to Marie-Anne Caron and Télesphore Gagnon, is the second child of the couple. During the first nine years of her life, Aurore enjoys a happy life; her mother often calls her "little ray of sunshine".
During the fall of 1917, Aurore's mother develops tuberculosis. She is brought to the hospital for several months, and doctors conclude she will never recover. Plans are made to give custody of Aurore and her sister Marie-Jeanne to Télesphore and his cousin's widow, Marie-Anne Houde (often simply referred to as Télesphore's cousin in the movie), with whom he had fallen in love.
During a visit to Marie-Anne Houde before she goes into hospital, Aurore's mother finds one of Marie-Anne's children locked inside a wooden structure. This alerts her that Marie-Anne might not treat her children well; later on in the hospital, she becomes hysterical and tearfully pleads with her father not to let Télesphore's cousin-in-law near her children. The priest of the local church, Father Leduc, upon finding out about the living state of Télesphore, his family and the fact that he has been constantly ignoring Marie-Anne Caron's health, forces Télesphore to visit her in hospital. By that point however, Marie-Anne Caron has become so distraught from the news given prior that she has been driven to madness, to the point where she begins depressingly humming and begins showing signs of false memory, calling Télesphore "Charles" and talking about an unconfirmed sister not visiting her as an example (She could be referring to Marie-Anne Houde but that is not clarified). This increases her deterioration and results in her having to be moved to another room with a restraint around her hand, as her madness became so severe that she tried inflicting self harm by attempting to cut off her ring finger. Télesphore leaves in a haste from the sight of his now mentally-disturbed former wife. This would be the last time they interact with each other.
During these events, Aurore sees her father kissing Marie-Anne. The girl accuses him of never having loved her mother and trying to replace her. Before Télesphore can discipline Aurore, her older sister Marie-Jeanne steps in and tries to reason with her. Aurore says that she intends to tell their mother what's going on, but Marie-Jeanne dissuades her from doing so, saying that their mother's illness has affected her mind, referring to the last visit between her mother and father. Later that night, Aurore writes a letter to her mother saying how much she misses her. She walks out into the pouring rain to deliver the letter, but she collapses just outside the house.
Aurore's mother dies in 1918, and Télesphore and Marie-Anne marry immediately after the funeral. Télesphore sends his children to live with his late wife's parents as he tends to his farm. When Father Leduc catches wind of this, he accuses Télesphore of skipping out on his duties as a parent. He then orders Télesphore to bring his children back to the village as soon as possible.
When two of Marie-Anne Houde's stepchildren die unexpectedly, many of the villagers believe she is responsible for it. One day, at the general store owned by Oréus Mailhot, Fortierville's justice of the peace, two villagers confront Télesphore about the deaths of his two children. Télesphore loses his temper and starts a fistfight with one of the villagers. Oréus breaks the fight up and sends Télesphore home.
The situation soon becomes worse for Aurore, who has since lost her faith in God. During Father Leduc's visit to her school, he berates her for incorrectly reciting the Catechism and for asking him not to shout at her. That afternoon, as they are walking in the village, Marie-Anne confides to Father Leduc what Télesphore had told her a few days prior: Télesphore and his first wife were drunk the night Aurore was conceived. Marie-Anne believes that because of this, Aurore is a child of sin and should be dealt with accordingly, yet Father Leduc warns her not to exaggerate. That night, Marie-Anne slaps Aurore and yells at her for talking back to the priest.
As time goes on, the mistreatment becomes more and more brutal, and it especially seems to worsen whenever Marie-Anne is pregnant.
One day, Marie-Anne is cleaning the house, and she is visibly stressed due to her crying newborn. She reprimands Aurore for not knocking before coming in, and Aurore talks back to her. As Aurore is walking up the stairs, Marie-Anne grabs a 2x4 with nails and hits her in the leg with it. Arcadius Lemay and his wife Exilda happen to be walking by and hear Aurore screaming. Exilda wants to go to the Gagnon house and check on Aurore, but Arcadius shuts her down, telling her to mind her own business. Exilda accuses her husband of being afraid of Télesphore, and she starts to make her way over to the Gagnons', but she relents after Arcadius admonishes her.
A few days later, Aurore wanders away from home and sits in front of an oncoming train, but Télesphore and Marie-Anne manage to save her just in time. That night, Télesphore beats Aurore while shouting and swearing at her. Marie-Anne forces the other children to listen to Aurore's screams.
Oréus examines Aurore's leg; Télesphore and Marie-Anne tell him that their neighbors' sons hit her. When Oréus talks to Aurore in private, he tries to reassure her that he can help her, but out of fear, Aurore sticks to the story that her parents came up with. Oréus still has his doubts and orders Télesphore and Marie-Anne to send Aurore to the hospital. Before Télesphore leaves, he is angrily confronted by Oréus, who swears to get to the bottom of the situation.
At the hospital, Aurore has told the nuns that she tripped, and that that is why her leg is injured. One of the nuns, Sister Anna, comes to change her bandages and asks her again how she hurt her leg. Aurore avoids the question and instead writes a letter to Marie-Anne, asking her and Télesphore to pick her up and take her back home. Sister Anna believes that Aurore is being abused, yet the Superior (informally called "Mother Superior") tells her what she has heard about Aurore from Father Leduc—namely, that Aurore is a compulsive liar. Sister Anna suggests that Aurore is only lying out of fear, but the Mother Superior promptly rebukes her for questioning the priest.
After Aurore returns from the hospital, she goes with her family to confession, where Father Leduc accuses her of having lied to the nuns at the hospital. While waiting for her stepdaughter, Marie-Anne steals two gold clips from the church's altar and slips them in her dress pocket. After telling the priest that she wants to be with her mother again, Aurore runs out of the confessional. Marie-Anne grabs her and asks her where she is going, but Aurore simply walks away.
That night, Marie-Anne has a heated argument with Télesphore. She shows him the gold clips and claims that Aurore stole them from the church. Télesphore then breaks off the handle of his axe, marches up to Aurore's room, and starts beating her with the handle.
Marie-Anne Caron's father, Nérée, shows up to Oréus' shop and demands he do something to protect Aurore. Oréus tells Nérée that the reason no one has done anything is because everyone is scared of Télesphore. Nérée then shows Oréus the contract from Télesphore's first marriage, which states that Télesphore and his wife will get money every time one of their children dies.
Oréus promptly confronts Father Leduc with the marriage contract and threatens to report him to the local bishop if he refuses to cooperate. Meanwhile, Marie-Anne has gathered all of her children in the kitchen, and after reciting an excerpt from the Catechism, she takes a red-hot metal poker out of the fireplace and burns Aurore with it repeatedly as the other children watch in horror. Marie-Anne continues to burn Aurore with the poker until well after nightfall; she only stops after one of her sons pleads with her.
One day, Exilda stops by the Gagnon house and walks upstairs, discovering Aurore unconscious. Marie-Anne then surprises her, and the two go downstairs. Marie-Anne tries to justify her treatment of Aurore, claiming she was a detestable child who was conceived in sin. Exilda soon becomes fed up with her and yells at her to be quiet. When Télesphore gets home, Exilda tells him to go upstairs and see what has happened.
When Oréus and several others, including doctors, arrive at Aurore's home, it is too late—she has collapsed on the stairs and has suffered another beating at the hands of Marie-Anne. Doctors are unable to save Aurore, and she dies of blood poisoning.
As he is conducting an autopsy on Aurore, Father Leduc sees all of Aurore's wounds and realizes that she was, in fact, being abused. He then breaks down in tears. Shortly after, he pays a visit to a very drunk Oréus, who swears at him. Father Leduc confesses to Oréus that he never wanted to move to Fortierville; his dream has been to make it to the Vatican. Oréus then blames Father Leduc for not intervening sooner, which might have saved Aurore's life.
After Aurore's funeral, Télesphore and Marie-Anne are immediately arrested. Télesphore is sentenced to life in prison for manslaughter. Marie-Anne is initially sentenced to death by hanging for second degree murder. She is, however, given a life sentence, but health issues force her to leave the jail, and she later dies from breast and brain cancer.
The following Sunday, during his sermon, Father Leduc urges the people of Fortierville to put Aurore's tragic death behind them, but Oréus swears that he will never forget it. He and all the other churchgoers then walk out of the church.
Wracked with guilt and remorse, the priest later kills himself with explosives.
The film ends with an epilogue of Aurore's abusive parents and a picture of her real-life grave.
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claire simon – cinéaste
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en
|
http://clairesimon.fr/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/cropped-icone-32x32.png
|
http://clairesimon.fr/en/
|
CLAIRE SIMON was born in Britain, but spent most of her childhood in the Var. A student of ethnology, Arabic and Berber. She made her first self-taught short films at the beginning of 1980s. Her time at the Ateliers Varan proved decisive, where she discovered the virtues of direct cinema. Alongside her work as an editor, she made several short films, including LA POLICE, which won the best short film prize at the Belfort Festival.
In 1991, Claire Simon made a highly acclaimed drama series for the small screen, SCENES DE MENAGE, in which a housewife (Miou-Miou) performs a domestic task while thinking aloud about her married life.
A year later, with RECREATIONS, a documentary, she filmed human comedies in the playground of a nursery school, and the film was released in cinemas in 1997. Meanwhile, the filmmaker made a name for herself in the documentary world with COUTE QUE COUTE, At All Costs chronicling the struggle and downfall of a small ready meal company.
In 1997, she made her first feature film, SINON, OUI, based on a true story about a woman who invents a pregnancy and steals a child.
After this film, which was shown at Cannes as part of Director’s Fortnight , she went on to shoot ÇA C'EST VRAIMENT TOI for television, with students from the TNS, mixing documentary and fiction at the European Parliament. Grand Prize for Fiction and Documentary at the Belfort Festival.
Drawing on authentic stories that reflect her taste for the novelistic, she filmed her 15-year-old daughter's flirtation (800 KM DE DIFFERENCE) and the novel of a lifetime (MIMI) premiered in the Forum at the Berlinale 2004. In 2006, she returned to the realm of pure fiction with ÇA BRULE/ IT BURNS (presented at the Directors' Fortnight), about a rebellious teenager with a burning love for a fireman. In 2008 she directed LES BUREAUX DE DIEU, GOD’S OFFICES in which famous actresses play the roles of family planning counsellors. (with Nathalie Baye, Nicole Garcia, Isabelle Carré, Michel Boujenah, etc.) Grand prix de la SACD à DIRECTOR’S FORTNIGHT à Cannes), drawing a thin line between documentary and fiction.
We find this characteristic in GARE DU NORD (2013 with Nicole Garcia, François Damiens, Reda Kateb, Monia Chokri) and GEOGRAPHIE HUMAINE (documentary), in which the filmmaker compares our passage on earth to a passage through a railway station.
In her highly acclaimed documentary LE BOIS DONT LES REVES SONT FAITS (2015), Claire Simon films the Bois de Vincennes as the accessible form of a lost paradise, a place where everyone comes to find refuge and invent their own utopia, it premiered at LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL
LE CONCOURS (2016), won the Best Documentary Film Award at the 2016 Venice Biennale.
It was released in the US by Metrograph
PREMIERES SOLITUDES (2017) was presented at the Forum at the Berlinale 2018. A funny and mischievous portrait that blows away all the clichés about today's teenagers.
A documentary serie LE VILLAGE 9X 52' or 18 X30. Nine hours of suspense around documentary and agriculture in a small village in the Ardèche. She made a feature documentary out of the serie THE GROCER’S SON , THE MAYOR, THE VILLAGE AND THE WORLD, which pemiered at IDFA and was presented at True False and at the MOMI.
During the lockdown she made a documentary for television “ Garage engine and men” and prepared a feature “I want talk about Duras” which premiered at San Sebatian film festival, about the love between Marguerite Duras and Yann Andrea 38 years younger . A film about submission.
Then she did OUR BODY a documentary feature which opened the Forum at the Berlinale, released also in the USA by Cinema Guild ,and won a lot of prizes . In a the gynecological unit of a French Hospital she draws the epic life of women body from youth to old age, and she was caught also herself as a patient.
In 2023 she went back to children with a film about a elementary school in suburbs of Paris “ELEMENTARY” showing the extraordinary desire to learn of the children and the incredible genius of the teachers. It has been selected by Cannes’ Official Festival.
Filmography :
2024 APPRENDRE
2022 NOTRE CORPS
2021 VOUS NE DESIREZ QUE MOI fiction
2021 GARAGE DES MOTEIRS ET DES HOMMES
2020 LE FILS DE L’EPICIERE LE MAIRE LE VILLAGE ET LE MONDE
2019 LE VILLAGE série documentaire
2017 PREMERES SOLITUDES
2016 LE CONCOURS
2015 LE BOIS DONT LES REVES SONT FAITS
2013 GARE DU NORD fiction
2013 GEOGRAPHIE HUMAINE
2008 LES BUREAUX DE DIEU fiction
2006 CA BRULE fiction
2002 MIMI
2001 800KM DE DIFFERENCE
1997 SINON OUI fiction
1995 COUTE QUE COUTE
1992 RECREATIONS
1991 SCENES DE MENAGE (10 CM) fiction
1988 LA POLICE CM fiction
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0
| 7
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https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/jesus-of-montreal-1990
|
en
|
Jesus Of Montreal movie review (1990)
|
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""
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"Roger Ebert"
] | null |
The Passion play has been a success for more than 40 years in the famous Montreal basilica, but the passage of time has made it seem old-fashioned, and modern audiences are growing restless. It's time for an overhaul.
|
en
|
/assets/fav/apple-touch-icon-57x57-9e12b6d6d15bfb3e86f09c3fc7d58a6f8a2d808cb856df9c1ada23480cda1dae.png
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https://www.rogerebert.com/
|
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/jesus-of-montreal-1990
|
The Passion play has been a success for more than 40 years in the famous Montreal basilica, but the passage of time has made it seem old-fashioned, and modern audiences are growing restless. It's time for an overhaul.
So the priest in charge hires some new actors - younger, more inventive - to stage a revised and updated version. And they make the mistake of taking their material literally.
The teachings of Christ, it has often been observed, would be radical and subversive, if anyone ever took them literally. And they would be profoundly offensive to those who build their kingdoms in this world and not in the next. The actors who rewrite the Passion in "Jesus of Montreal" create a play that is good theater and perhaps even good theology, but it is not good public relations. And although audiences respond well and the reviews are good, the church authorities are reluctant to offend the establishment by presenting such an unorthodox reading of the sacred story. So they order the play to be toned down.
But by the time they act, a curious thing has happened to the actors. They have come to believe in their play, to be shaped by the roles they play. "Jesus of Montreal" does not try to force a parallel between the Passion of Christ and the experiences of these actors. And yet certain similarities do appear, and Daniel (Lothaire Bluteau), the actor who plays Christ, discovers that his own life is taking on some of the aspects of Christ's. By the end of the film we have arrived at a crucifixion scene that actually plays as drama, and not simply as something that has been forced into the script.
"Jesus of Montreal" was written and directed by Denys Arcand, the best of the new generation of Quebec filmmakers. His previous film was "The Decline Of The American Empire," in which a group of Montreal intellectuals gathered to prepare a meal and talk about the meanings of their lives; it was sort of a conversational version of "The Big Chill." This film is much more passionate, and angrier. It suggests that most establishments, and especially the church, would be rocked to their foundations by the practical application of the maxims of Christ.
Many of the scenes have obvious parallels in the New Testament. In one, an actress from the troupe appears at an audition for a TV commercial and is asked to take off her clothes - not because nudity is required in the commercial, but more because the casting director wants to exercise his power. Arriving late at the audition, Daniel, the Christ figure, shouts out to his friend to leave her clothes on. And then, when the advertising people try to have him ejected, he goes into a rage, overturning lights and cameras. It is a version, of course, of Christ and the moneylenders in the temple.
Another way in which "Jesus of Montreal" parallels the life of Christ is in the way a community grows up around its central figure.
Filled with a vision they believe in, nourished by the courage to carry on in the face of the authorities, these actors persist in presenting their play even in the face of religious and legal opposition.
It's interesting the way Arcand makes this work as theology and drama at the same time; in a sense, "Jesus of Montreal" is a movie about the theater, not about religion.
If you go to the movie, pay close attention to Bluteau in the title role. He is considered the most powerful actor to come out of Canada in years, with his emaciated good looks and his burning intensity, and he has recently received strong reviews for his stage work in London.
Bluteau is an actor of the Mickey Rourke-Eric Roberts-James Woods school, consumed with fire, intense in his concentration, and he is just right for this role.
As for the film itself, I was surprised at how absorbed I became, even though right from the beginning I assumed I would see some kind of modern parallel of the Passion. Arcand doesn't force the parallels, and his screenplay is not simply an updated paraphrase of the New Testament.
It's an original and uncompromising attempt to explore what really might happen, if the spirit of Jesus were to walk among us in these timid and materialistic times.
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https://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/17/movies/film-therese-little-flower-of-jesus.html
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en
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FILM: 'THERESE,' LITTLE FLOWER OF JESUS
|
[
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[] |
[] |
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""
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[
"Vincent Canby"
] |
1986-12-17T00:00:00
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/vi-assets/static-assets/favicon-d2483f10ef688e6f89e23806b9700298.ico
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https://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/17/movies/film-therese-little-flower-of-jesus.html
|
''Therese'' was shown as part of the recent New York Film Festival. Following are excerpts from Vincent Canby's review, which appeared in The New York Times on Oct. 2. The film opens today at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 63d Street and Broadway.
''THERESE,'' Alain Cavalier's cool, unsentimental, astonishingly handsome consideration of the life of St. Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897), is a far cry from ''The Song of Bernadette.'' Here are no heavenly choirs, no visions bathed in celestial light, no skeptics suddenly transformed into believers by miraculous, not otherwise explicable phenomena.
Instead, ''Therese'' is resolutely objective. It examines the religious faith and exaltation of Therese Martin, later to be known as the Little Flower of Jesus, in the pragmatic way with which she herself seems to have accepted the experience of her conversion. As played - radiantly and with a good deal of humor - by Catherine Mouchet, Therese remains a mystery not to be analyzed but to be accepted as a fact of church history.
''Therese'' is one of those rare films whose visual beauty is not ornamental or a substitute for something else. It's been composed by Mr. Cavalier, and photographed by Philippe Rousselot, as if it were a series of tableaux, set against what appears to be a neutral, yellowy-green backdrop, on a stage so shallow that the camera's only choice is to move from side to side and, on occasion, into a close-up. Though ''Therese'' initially looks theatrical, it doesn't look like filmed theater.
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https://www.myreviewer.com/DVD/50788/Jesus-Of-Montreal-UK/50809/Review-by-Mark-Oates
|
en
|
Review of Jesus Of Montreal
|
https://www.myreviewer.com/favicon.ico
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https://www.myreviewer.com/favicon.ico
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[] | null |
Blow-your-brains-out depressing Franco-Canadian arthouse melodrama about a group of actors staging a passion play that stirs up Catholic opposition. ...
|
/favicon.ico
| null |
3 / 10
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https://cineuropa.org/en/film/351686/
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en
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Rafiki
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Cineuropa - the best of european cinema
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apple-touch-icon.png?v=190924
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Cineuropa - the best of european cinema
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https://cineuropa.org/en/film/351686/
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Copyright Disclaimer
The images used on this website have been provided by journalists and are believed to be free of rights. However, if you are the owner of an image used on this website and believe that its use infringes on your copyright, please contact us immediately. We will remove the image in question as soon as possible. We have made reasonable efforts to ensure that all images used on this website are used legally and in accordance with copyright laws.
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1028
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https://www.omdb.org/en/us/movie/4486-jesus-de-montreal
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Jesus of Montreal (Jésus de Montréal)
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Jesus of Montreal: Movie from 1989 with Lothaire Bluteau, Catherine Wilkening, Johanne-Marie Tremblay
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/favicon.ico
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1028
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https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0214105/
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Isabelle Dedieu
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Isabelle Dedieu. Editor: Die Invasion der Barbaren. Isabelle Dedieu is known for Die Invasion der Barbaren (2003), Rafiki (2018) and Jesus von Montreal (1989).
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en
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IMDb
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https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0214105/
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1028
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dbpedia
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https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0214105/awards/
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en
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Isabelle Dedieu
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Isabelle Dedieu - Awards - IMDb - Awards, nominations, and wins
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en
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IMDb
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https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0214105/awards/
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1028
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https://www.tiktok.com/%40legeekjordyy/video/7396340693708459296
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en
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Make Your Day
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[] |
[] |
[] |
[
""
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[] | null |
en
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1
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https://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/archives/fiction/Peregrines.html
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en
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Les Peregrines by Jeanne Bourin: Archived Book Discussion
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Archived book discussion of Les Peregrines by Jeanne Bourin
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Les Peregrines ~ Jeanne Bourin ~ 9/02 ~ Books in Other Languages (French)
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Roslyn Stempel
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
MmeW
Ginny
Ginny
betty gregory
Ginny
Justin
Ros; I am going to join you and Eloise on this one. Jeanne Bourin writes French so simply that anyone with a little skill can read quite well. I read Les Peregrines some years ago and am more than willing to do it again. She writes what I call french-french ie; she is a French speaking person writing in French. That is quite different than a French translation of a English work. In french- french one finds French constructs which are not quite same as English constructs. However, I found that it does not take long to get used to French-French. I am looking forward to the pleasure, Ros, and I hope the start date is not long after Eloise returns from Spain.
Justin
Ros; We are going to find it necessary to do something about accents. Eloise tried to help me with accents a while back but I was unable to follow through successfully.
Justin
Ginny: I see you are the guiding light for this work. Sorry, I thought Ros was doing it. I'm with you.
Justin
Betty Gregory; Reading is slow at the beginning but by page four you're knocking off sentences and by page twenty or so paragraphs seem easy and before you know it you're doing several pages in a sitting. Try it. You'll like it. Besides, I know that Eloise will make it all seem tres facile.
Ginny
Roslyn Stempel
Roslyn Stempel
Justin
Ros; Les Peregrine is a romantic novel dealing with Medieval France and the Crusades. You pegged it. I guess it's not literature but it may be more appealing than Sartre's stuff to a group that has not looked at anything written in French since High School or college. The problem will be one of getting used to reading in french without having to cope, as well, with the existentialist qualities of Sartre.I think, as a group, we can do one or the other but not both. Jeanne Bourin will attract more participants. The nice thing about Bourin is that we have lots of historically interesting periods to chose from. We can live in the 12th century or the 16th century or in the 11th century as is proposed. By the way, what is the number of the list. Is it back with Beowulf's funeral?
Justin
English speakers who would try to reawaken earlier courses in French in order to read Les Peregrine can adopt some tricks that have helped me in the past. Use an index card as a bookmark. Let the index card contain all the forms of the verbs; faire, etre, and avoir. On the back add all the common adverbs you can fit in the space with their translation. Very handy little document. It saves numerous trips to the dictionary. Buy a small edition Collins French English. Some of us use Le Robert Micro and you will too after your vocabulary buillds up. You will also find that an author's vocabulary is quite limited. There are words one prefers so they are used over and over again. You will get used to these and readilly recognize them. You will probably start out reading and translating every word but soon you will read for gist and translate crucial words. Les Peregrine is going to be fun because it deals with a family that accompanies a warrior to Constantinople on one of the Crusades. It was either Louis' or Richard's. I forget. But the trip itself is worthwhile and the land they invade is well described. If you attempt the reading I know you will stay with it and what's more you will have opened a whole new world of French literarure for your self and the French catalogue is very rich.
Roslyn Stempel
MmeW
Justin
MmeW; Yes I have tried with out success. Perhaps, I am not doing it properly. I depress control and hold it while I depress "'", then I depress e or a but nothing happens. Control plus ' results in a no print.
Roslyn Stempel
jane
MmeW
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Mme. I have been able to make the character map work but the "control ' " has not yet given way to my touch. I will continue to try. It was nice to hear from Eloise, I know she will be much help for everyone when she gets back.
Ginny
Roslyn Stempel
I intend to finish the book and find it moderately entertaining but can't pretend to be truly enthusiastic about it partly because of its heavily religious orientation. As you know I am not a Christian.It's possible to see the Crusades as a succession of brutal massacres rather rhan as a holy war, depending on one's point of view. I think some of the historical detail is interesting and want to read more about the period.What do you think will be points worth discussing in the book? Ros
Ginny
MmeW
jane
MME W: A bookmark or favorite will always take you to the exact "page" you bookmarked. That's why that method is not suggested here at SN. If you would click on Subscribe instead, when you come to SN and click Check Subscriptions, you'll be taken to the first new post since you were there last. Another way is to simply come to Books and Literature and come to this discussion manually. Clicking on it from the Main Books page, will bring you to the first new post since you were here last...as long as you're logged in to SN, of course, so the software knows who you are.
Ginny
MmeW
Hah! I think I've got it. If you remove the /+postnumber at the end of the URL, you can bookmark it and it comes up at the last page. That must have been what I did last time. We shall see where it comes up when things are going fast and furious.
jane
Ginny
Theron Boyd
MmeW
jane
jane
MmeW
Ginny
jane
Elose De Pelteau
Joan Grimes
Joan Grimes
MmeW
My Les Ps arrived a few days ago (third time was the charm)! But I'm waiting till August to read, being a bear of very little brain (or short-/long-term memory.
jane
Mme W: It's great you have it finally. I've not started to look yet...hmmm..guess maybe I should pretty soon.
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
MmeW
Ginny
MmeW
Ginny, I have never had to do that before.? How strange. Or maybe I never noticed it before. How do you change the size?
jane
jane
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny, as I was browsing through 'Les peregrines' one young woman mentions how beautiful 'La Chanson de Roland' was. I thought about you.
Ginny
MmeW
jane
Oh, my, Mme...I'll assume you said something nice above since I can't begin to read it.
Ginny
mssuzy
Glad I discovered this site, but where do I find Les Peregrines en francais? My local bookstores don't have it. Ebay? I was in Carcassonne last summer. Obviously the city has been named after Dame Carcas, one of the few French heroines in history. That city has been completely renovated to look as it did in the Middle Ages. You can probably find it on a website in France (wanadoo). There were 9 crusades that I remember, starting in 1095 with the Pope's Council in Clermont-Ferrand - 70 kms north of my hometown - in the middle of France. There were also 2 "children's" crusades, which you don't find too much in the history books. I think it was a great political idea, rally against the "Infidels" - and around the Roman Catholic Church - and take your feuding elsewhere. The Middle Ages are a fascinating period to me; but, in Carcassonne I deplored the tourism attack, all the plastic swords and helmets and assorted "souvenirs" everywhere. Dame Carcas would be astounded! If you want to read La Chanson de Roland in French, good lluck, it's not easy even for the French, we had to read it in school as one of the great medieval classics. Brrrr...!
Ginny
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
patwest
jane
robert b. iadeluca
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
MmeW
MmeW
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Justin
Suggested method: Read in French. Post in English with occasional French inserts. Encourage the fluent people to comment on the postings. Just to get us started. They will have a few laughs at the start. I suggest a page the first week, two pages the second week, and then increase until we are unable to handle the translation. Someone will shout stop.Slow down. By the way, I think , the word for Pilgrim is "Pelerinage".Peregrine is the word for traveler. There were lots of them on the roads in 12th century. There were also bandits on the roads. I am looking forward to starting on 9/1.
Justin
It would be nice if someone like Malryn who is familiar with the secret places on the internet, would provide us with maps as we go along. Les Peregrines is first a journey, then a long visit with distant relatives and finally a battle.
Ginny
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
Malryn (Mal)
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
MmeW
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
robert b. iadeluca
MmeW
robert b. iadeluca
patwest
A new link to Plot Summaries ~ submitted by Eloise is in the heading.. A nice overview
MmeW
Robby, yes, but much more polite--"it's all the same to me." Je m'en fiche is more I don't give a d***.
Elose De Pelteau
MmeW - Right
robert b. iadeluca
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
Justin
Justin
Let's see if I can find the accents. Je suis desole. What I did was this: I clicked on Start, Programs, Accessories, system tools,and character map. Then I selected e in the character map and copied the character.Then clicking on edit and paste, I received e where I wanted it to be. Is there a shorter route to accents?
Elose De Pelteau
patwest
Justin
One must not think that because we put a map of the Third Crusade in the heading that Les Peregrine is concerned with that crusade. 1099 is the year of the first crusade. It was instigated by Pope Urban and was carried out by the nobles in conjunction with ordinary citizens. In that sense, it was different from the Second and Third Crusades which were run by Monarchs. In the First Crusade the kings of Europe and the papacy were at odds. The Pope at this time was flexing his muscles against the sovereigns of Europe. Urban wanted to be top dog and as a result, it was the nobility and citizenry who responded to his call for help in opening the way for pilgrims to the shrines of Palestine. It was however, a put up job because pilgrim access was not ended until the crusaders attacked.
robert b. iadeluca
Justin
Incidently, I think, the crusades continue to contribute to the animosity between Islam and the West.
robert b. iadeluca
Justin
The Crusades were seen by the arabs as Frankish Invasions. Amin Maalouf wrote " The Crusades through Arab Eyes", a work that helps to shed balanced light on this period. It was Saladin who said, "Regard the Franj! Behold with what obstinacy they fight for their religion, while we, the Muslims, show no enthusiasm for waging holy war. The tables, today, seem to have turned. Have they not?
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Justin
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
robert b. iadeluca
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Ginny
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Yes Ginny and the accompanying text explained the Labyrinth's purpose. It was built for people who stayed behind so they could spend time in prayers while they were meandering and imagining that they were among the Crusaders.
MmeW
Justin
MmeW:Merci.
Justin
Desol`e. Is the timing wrong.
Justin
In the mid to late twelth century, there was a fire in Fulbert's Basilica in Chartres. The entire church was demolished except the west facade with its two towers and the Royal portal and a crypt which housed a tunic of the Virgin Mary. The faithful believe that the Virgin stopped the fire before it reached her crypt which contained some dozen or so survivors of the fire as well as her tunic. It was this church that the parcheminier and his family attended before starting on their dangerous plerinage and not the great cathedral we see to day.
Justin
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
GingerWright
GingerWright
Justin
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Malryn (Mal)
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Yes Ginny, I'll be here if anyone wants me.
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny, on my keyboard, which might be different from yours, my ^ circumflex is next to the 'p' and if I do shift, I get the ¬ trema like in....Elose
MmeW
Ginny, I have no idea what the international keyboard is, but have you tried Cntl+Shift+6, release and type the a? On the Mac it is Cntrl+Shift+i, then a.
Justin
^a, ^a A a aa a What am I not doing right? MmeW
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
MmeW
MmeW
Also, just from what I've read, I think the Crusaders consist of the armies of the dukes AND the pilgrims accompanying them. They hope to overwhelm the infidel. Foucher de Chartres says: ...seul notre nombre fait notre force.
MmeW
MmeW
MmeW
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Justin
Justin
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
MmeW
Justin
The works of Burin can be read as a simple little tales of le Moyen Age or they can be read in depth as we tend to read a book. Burin is an excellent historian and to get full benefit from her tales one must have some knowledge of the history of the Middle Ages. Much of what has happened before the encampment on the beach at Brindisi is referred to in just the first few pages. Par example: In discussing those crusaders of weak resolve Foucher mentions the battle at Rome against l'antipape Guibert. That battle at Rome is part of the investiture struggle which began in earnest in 1075. Gregory Vll, sometimes called Hildebrand, was Pope. He had declared earlier that the Roman Church had never erred, the pope is supreme, and that he alone may depose an emperor. No synod may be called unless he calls it. He may depose, transfer or reinstate bishops. He alone is entitled to the homage of all princes. That's tough stuff for an emperor to swallow and Henry lV of Germany, said "no way" and called a synod which in 1076 deposed Gregory Vll. In 1084 Henry entered Rome and had himself crowned by Gregory's replacement and Henry's appointee, Guibert, the antipape. In 1085, Robert Guiscard, a normand baron from southern Italy and friend of Gregory put an army together including saracens and attacked Henry and the antipape. Gregory fled to Salerno leaving the field to Henry and the antipape. I think this is the reference that Foucher de Chartres makes to the antipape Guibert and la lutte fratricide.
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
MmeW
Elose, what do you think "hors la loi" means insofar as the church is concerned? Does outlawed=excommunicated or what?
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
Roslyn Stempel
Ginny
Roslyn Stempel
MmeW
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny - You should not be having any problems with accents if you have the International Keyboard. Is it only one accent or several that does not work? I have a permanent problem with the accent grave, when I want one on the 'u' as in 'ou est-il'. The accent is on the key, but what comes out is ` and I can't put it over the 'u'. Oh! well!
Roslyn Stempel
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
MmeW
Ginny
Justin
Eloise: Help us out here. On page 20, I read" Je me suis renseigne aupres d'un des patrons des nefs huissieres qui nous attendent au port." I translate that to mean " I am directed to one of the captains of the guide ships who awaits us at the door."
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Eloise; Oh well, I got some of it right anyway. Thanks.
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny, no, no. There is something wrong with your International keyboard. It's not you.
Justin
Eloise: The next line tells us, " during the crossing the hatchway formed a closed door with the seams solidly closed and caulked." You may recall that during WWll we used small boats with ramps that dropped at the bow and other ships with doors that swung open at the bow. They drew very little water even though the connection was below the water line. I suspect that bailing was necessary during storms on ces nefs. By the way, that was a fine observation about Bourin. I have read several of her works and confirm your observation. She understands the religious influence in her characters and makes them express a medieval mindset.
MmeW
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
J'essaye de me rattraper.
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Non, j'essaye de me rattraper.
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Ok, mais il faut un 's' la deuxime personne du singulier, "tu essayes". Gotcha.
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Je ne parle pas l'Allemand. Allez Stop.
Justin
Robby: Vous nous voulez tutoyer?
MmeW
Justin
I must have misread Eloise's correction of Robby's comment. Robby wrote "Je essaye de me ratraper". Eloise wrote "J'essaye de me ratraper." Je was contracted to read J'. Not so?
MmeW
Sorry, Justin, Robby first wrote: J'essaie de "catch up." It was that one that I was looking at, and THAT J'essaie was right, not j'essaye (or je essaye).
Justin
Is J'essaye not the first person singular present indicative form of essayer? I know Canadian French is different but can it be off so much that the form of the verb changes from French-French. I wish I were not so rusty.
Justin
Garin's children are well educated. Pere Ascelin who is representative of the Bishop of Chartres, is brother-in-law to Garin. He has taught the children to read and to write and to understand latin. It was a rare thing in the middle ages for people, including the nobility, to read and write latin. That was the language of the church and the skills of a churchman. The monks held in monesteries the available codexes or codices and scrolls. They were the writers, the scribes of the period. A saxon language was spoken as was middle French among the common people.Ginny should be able to tell us about the use of latin at this time- 1097.
Elose De Pelteau
MmeW - I am so glad you still remember grammar. From now on, I will refrain from teaching French, Ouf! what a relief. Justin grammar is the same in all the francophonie, just like English is in the anglophone countries.
robert b. iadeluca
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Robby, c'est une belle carte de l'Italie merci. Bouche close est plus joli que bouche fermee c'est tout. Il y a aussi bouche cousue.
MmeW
robert b. iadeluca
Justin
Justin
Justin
Robby; You raise a good question. Where is everyone at the moment? I am reading at the bottom of page 20 where we learn that Pere Ascelin has taught latin to the children of Garin.
Justin
Robby: J'applaudi votre effort pour ecrire en francais et maintenant j'essaye vous accompagner.
MmeW
Justin
MmeW
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
robert b. iadeluca
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Roslyn Stempel
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
Justin
Ginny: Peut etre, la teinte de la croix cousue sur les vetements et on a porte depuis huit mois a tache le peau ces noyes.
Ginny
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
Justin
Ginny: Graver means to impress and to imprint as well as to engrave. Par example; Cette idea se grava dans sa memoire.
Justin
Nous voyons sur page vingt-et-un gue des moines itinerant etaient l'hommes de "mail" de moyen ages.
MmeW
Je me demande si la croix brodee sur leurs vtements qu'ils portaient depuis huit mois n'avait pas laisse une empreinte, une marque, une trace sur la peau. Les pelerins voulaient que a soit quelquechose de surnaturel, venant de Dieu. Mais vraiment c'etait l'empreinte de la broderie, portee si longtemps. Thus "gravee"?etched in a way by being worn so long. Could that happen?
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Eloise: It is my mutilation of the French language that is confusing you. What I thought I said was that these poor drowned folks had worn their dye stained and embroidered crosses so long ( for eight months) without bathing or changing clothes that the inprint of the cross appeared on their skin. I thought that is what "graver" meant.
Justin
Eloise: "L'homme de mail de Moyen Age" is another imaginative attempt to say in French what is so easy to say in English. Itinerant monks served as mailmen in the Middle Ages. I suppose I should have used "courrier" or "poste".
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Roslyn Stempel
Elose De Pelteau
Roslyn - dans mon edition Franois Bourin/Lacombe, il y a 446 pages mais je ne vois pas Texte Integral inscrit en premire page. Toutefois, je suis certaine que c'est le texte integral.
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Justin
J'ai aussi le poeme. Page 18 bottom dit" nous n'aurions pas notre suffisance,
Justin
Here are a few thoughts on the "Dark Ages". Dating of the Dark Ages is loose. The time period we are dealing with, 1097, is not in the dark ages,in my judgement. The birth of Abelard in 1079 is, for me, the beginning of the twelth century renaisance. What does the term "Dark Ages" mean? It is a time when learning stopped. In the mid-fifth century, the Romans lost to the Germans in the same way the British of a later time period lost to the American colonists at Lexington and Concord- guerilla warfare. From that time on Byzantine influence diminished in Europe. Great central governments were overrun by invaders and for the next five hundred years people were more concerned with absorbing or fighting off the invaders. There was little time for learning so it retreated into the monasteries and there it remained until Abelard and the Scholastics came along. There were exceptions during this period that's why scholars vary in their views. In Senior net we have just finished Beowolf which was retained because it entered a monastery during the "Dark Ages".
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
Roslyn Stempel
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Justin
Ros: Very nice to have you in here. It seems to me Boulieu's Dictionery of Medieval Crafts may define wax-makers. I might have a copy on my shelves somewhere. I will look.
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
mssuzy
Bonjour Eloise, je viens de recevoir le livre aujourd'hui, merci, je vous reglerai ca cette semaine. A quelle page en etes-vous? J'en ai deja lu 25, c'est en effet tres interessant et j'aime beaucoup cette periode. A bientot.
Elose De Pelteau
Mssuzy - Je suis contente qu'une franaise vienne se joindre nous. Si vous reculez dans les messages precdants vous verrez comment a se passe. Nous commenons et nous en sommes encore au premier chapitre. Il y a tellement de choses apprendre sur cette periode de l'histoire et Les P nous en donnent l'occasion.
robert b. iadeluca
Justin
Justin
In May of 1097 there were four armies at Constantinople. The preceding year, Peter The Hermit, and some one from Germany, put together about 12,000 people and a dozen knights and set off for Constantinople. On the way they held a pogrum for Jews in Germany and butchered great numbers of people. When they arrived in Anatolia, Alexius, The Greek King of Constantinople, saw that they were not what he had asked Urban to supply and tried to ship them back. Instead these banded rabble attacked the City of Nicea. Skilled archers came out of the city and annihilated them. This was the advance guard of the first Crusade.
Justin
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
mssuzy
Bonjour a tous. Do we speak English or French on this site? I got the book yesterday and have already devoured 146 pages. That tells you if I like it or not. Le Moyen-Age est l'une de mes epoques preferees, although I both like and detest it. How insensitive and selfish of the Pope - and others - to send all these poor people off on this monstruous equipee! Something like what's happening in reverse with the "martyrs" of Islam? One thing that irks me in the book, although it is very well written, is the language J. Bourin uses. I am 100% certain that these people, the peasants, did not speak in this fancy language. They most likely used a local patois, which is never mentioned. I also don't see anywhere mention of the feudal system, which practically enslaved them. I admire all of you who are not native speakers, this book is using a lot of terms which only exist in the dictionary. I spent the day in Constantinople, and am now at the races, got to go see who is winning. Justin, how come you know so much about those infamous Crusades?
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Justin
mssuzy
Bonjour, you courageous readers of Les Peregrines. Justin, Anseau le Bel had 5 sisters, not 2, this is just something that "m'a saute aux yeux". And yes, it's always a lot more difficult to actually speak or write a language, that comes last, after listening and understanding. So you are on the right track. Back to the language: I agree that J. Bourin had to write this novel in French-French, as someone mentioned earlier, but all these Croises did not speak French, not even medieval French. Again, every region, every province, every village within each of the above, spoke its own patois which, believe me, had nothing to do with the official language as we know it. Patois is lost with the new generation, but older people in the villages still speak - I would understand the patois of my grandparents if I heard it again. I grew up bilingual, french and patois. And "medieval" French had run-in sentences, no punctuation; plus the vocabulary was very different from what we know now. This explains why all these people had one common language, latin, which is also why the "quartier latin" in Paris. The "educated" layer of society, namely the clergy, communicated in that language. But enough with that, I'm going back to Constantinople. Au revoir.
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
robert b. iadeluca
robert b. iadeluca
robert b. iadeluca
Roslyn Stempel
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
mssuzy
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Ginny
mssuzy
Bonjour a tous. Today I was no longer in Constantinople, but with the Croises, further down the road. Ginny asks if all the Croises felt that same fervor? How can we know? They were supposed to, that's what we know. I am glad to see that at least one woman in France had enough good sense not to go: Anseau's mother - with 5 small daughters. Can you imagine the mother of 5 babies and toddlers and little people on those roads? Apparently, women did not HAVE to go, as men did. As far as food (provisions), all along the tale Garin's family buys or recives things. The uncle (representing the low clergy) had useful connections all along. The soldiers? Well, they did what every soldier everywhere always did:take, accapparate, steal wherever they were. It was called, to justify it, to live off the land. I saw it first hand in France. Things have not changed that much. These 3 beautiful daughters are probably suposed to represent virtue, purity, innocence, and the attacks against these virtues during particularly unpleasant circumstances of life. I can't help comparing les Croises with young Palestinians or Afghans now. Anyone else does too? Ginny, you asked before when the feudal system came to France, and that bugs me. I don't have a date but will look it up. However, the way I remember from school and reading is that it was a simple evolution: between the end of the Roman Empire around the 5th c. and that of Charlemagne crowned in 802, we had all sorts of tribulations with the Carolingiens and Merovingiens kings (I can never remember which came first). They battled one another a lot and whoever won some battle was given a province, a duche or whatever. They then proceeded to build a chateau to protect that land and its people, or more likely their newly acquired title and position; and so began an interdependence between Lords or seigneurs and the "little" people, peasants at the bottom, artisans, military etc. Does that make sense? Croises are calling me, I'll be back later.
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Roslyn Stempel
Justin
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
robert b. iadeluca
mssuzy
Bonjour! Ce livre est tellement passionnant que je n'ai pas pu le poser, j'en suis aux dernieres pages. Et je le redis, je vous admire tous qui continuez a le lire avec un dictionnaire, je ne crois pas que j'aurais cette ardeur. Le vocabulaire est extraordinaire et J. Bourin un auteur etonnant dans les descriptions qu'elle nous donne. C'est pourquoi je ne peux pas m'arreter. Quand j'aurai termine, je recommencerai plus lentement pour gouter et savourer les passages preferes comme on deguste ou savoure un excellent dessert, pour faire durer le plaisir. Question "salle de bain" m'amuse beaucoup. Ca m'a rappele les deboires d'une amie, francaise, qui travaillait dans le lobby de l'Ambassade des E.U. a Paris. Des Americains sont entres et lui ont demande "Where is the bathroom?" et elle, tres francaise et de surcroit nouvelle, leur a repondu "We don't have any". S'ils avaient demande "les toilettes", elle aurait compris tout de suite. Quant aux pelerins, ils faisaient sans doute, certainement meme, comme beaucoup de Francais avant les autoroutes: on arrete la voiture. l'homme se tourne et femmes et enfants disparaissent dans le fosse ou derriere un arbuste. J'ai ete elevee comme ca et ca me paraissait tout a fait naturel - jusquau moment ou j'ai emmene mes petits-enfants americains en France et qu'ils ont pousse des cris d'horreur!
robert b. iadeluca
robert b. iadeluca
MmeW
MmeW
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
MmeW
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
MmeW
AAlice
Ok, Eloise, I have my "Learning to speak French" book out and so far it is not much help. I think I will read some of the previous post and see if I can figure out what is going on.
Justin
MmeW
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Roslyn Stempel
MmeW
I was under the impression that the horses were suspended from straps, so I wonder how the horse got the purchase to kick Garin...
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Joan Grimes
robert b. iadeluca
Joan Grimes
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
MmeW
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Justin
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
Roslyn Stempel
Justin
Roz: I do not find "choazes" in Le Robert (Micro). S'il vous plait, expliquez vous?
Ginny
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Justin
I will be happy to construct a crude map showing the route however, several things stand in the way. I have a scanner, but as yet I have been unable to convert images from the scanner file type (ZIF) to JPEG so you can open the image when you get it. If I can figure that out, I can begin to work on a map.
Roslyn Stempel
Roslyn Stempel
Elose De Pelteau
MmeW
Elose De Pelteau
MmeW
Malryn (Mal)
MmeW
Mal, normally I would guess dice, too, but my Petit Larousse defines osselet as each of the little bones taken from the leg or foot of the sheep and with which children played. Since Gauthier is playing "osselets" with his little brother, maybe they are playing a children's game (like jacks without the ball). You remember those simple days before Mattel...
Justin
Tandis que Garin dort le sommeil du blesse, les autres font passer s'amusent. Brunissen remarqua "Pour eux, rien n'est change." Cependant, Flaminia agenouillee cte de sa grand-mre, elle met sa soeur sur ses garde contre le pche de desesprance. Religieux pensee permet on peu independant de pensee.
Justin
Brunissen repond l'accusation de desesprance, "ici-bas, qui peut juger une supplique sur une autre? Ici on peut se trouve le principe guident le moyen age la vie. Tout les choses est gouverne le ciel mais le ciel ne parle jamais.
Roslyn Stempel
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
MmeW
Elose, what a beautiful website. Merci beaucoup de l'avoir trouve pour nous. Je l'ai "bookmarque" pour plus tard lorsque j'atteindrai Constantinople dans le livre. Incroyable qu'on s'est servie de ces belles ttes de Meduse comme base pour les colonnes dans la citerne. La mousse verte leur donne un air "sci-fi."
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
MmeW
Selon mon Petit Larousse, bonace = calme de la mer
Marilou
Ginny
Justin
Je pense grandmre Berthe la Hardie et le notaire pre Acelan avisent Landry, le garcon, qui doit etre un homme rapidement. L'enterrment au mer est desenivre mais necessaire. Le patron sait comment necessaire. Il dit, c'est l'ame qu'est importante. Pas le corps.
robert b. iadeluca
MmeW
En esprit, Robby, en esprit...
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
Justin
Bienvenue, Marilou. Nous avons nous engageons avec des autres Montreal heureusement si je pense vous etres tres bienvenue.
Marilou
Merci pour votre accueil. Vous avez l'air d'un groupe de joyeux lurons! Je suis heureuse de venir renforcir les rangs des canadiennes franaises...Just watch us! M. Robby, it does'nt matter how old you are, I wish you had had a good day yesterday. Glad to meet all of you. Le choix du livre Ç Les perigrines È est un defi interessant, parce qu'il est bien ecrit, qu'il nous plonge dans une autre epoque avec un vocabulaire qui n'est pas simple mme pour les gens dont la langue maternelle est le franais. Je lve mon chapeau aux Ç anglophones È qui relve le defi.
robert b. iadeluca
Justin
Ginny
Ginny
MmeW
Justin
MmeW: quoting from psalm 137: 5 is a fine thing to do. When I want a psalm that fits a topic I'm thinking about, I thumb through them but am rarely able to recall one that fits out of hand. You have my admiration.
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Justin
Pourquoi lie M. Garin Mose? M.Garin mort sur une pelerinage la Terre Sainte et avant entrant la Terre Sainte. Mose aussi. Le groupe lui accompagnant continua seule vaincre la Terre Sainte. Mose aussi. Mose etait sur une mission saint. M. Garin aussi. Les semblables sont nombreuses.
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
MmeW
Ginny, I think the reason that Berthe is so upset about the burial at sea is that church cemetary ground is consecrated ground, so the burial at sea was just like throwing Garin in the trash. Plus there would be no grave to visit.
Justin
MmeW: I concur. In addition to the features you mention there is also the immediate finality, the complete disappearance of the body in it's canvas bag in a matter of seconds and the thought that the fish will eat the remains. I have experienced several multiple burials at sea. They were all quick and efficient. I didn't think much about the burials at sea at the time because we were also puting bodies in large holes dug in the sand by bulldozers just to get them out of the sun and underground in a hurry. When one dies or is killed when young the immediate finality of the thing can be shocking unless one has very many pressing things to do at the same time. It is only later, that one remembers things and is sad about loss. I never envied the burial squad it's job nor would I have liked to be a piper among the sideboys in a burial at sea. When watching, it is then that one remembers and the lonliness begins.
Justin
Pre Ascelin demande, apres le mort de M.Garin, "comptez-vous poursuivre ce plerinage"? Pourquoi "comptez"? Est ce que veut dire le mot aussi veut dire?
Justin
Ici J'ai ete parle M. Garin nourri les poissons quand Berthe dit," Mon fils, du haut du ciel o il nous voit." Qu'est-ce-que je sait?
MmeW
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Marilou
Elose De Pelteau
MmeW
I think of something I saw recently about a novel being inciting incident, crisis, crisis, crisis, climax, denouement. (Darned if I remember where I saw this.) But I think in a way the death of Garin is the inciting incident. Up till then they were proceeding in a regulated way on the crusade and suddenly everything was different for this family. Their response to this "change in plans" will "mettre en relief la famille" and propel the novel forward to more crises.
Elose De Pelteau
MmeW
I saw that last night, Elose, but things are back to normal here now (for me).
robert b. iadeluca
Justin
Nous visitons l'opulence de Constantinople dans le livre deux. La maison nos amis visitent est precedee d'un vestibule dalle de marbre et une immense pice de reception reservee aux hommes. Nous faisons encore. Une pice reservee aux hommes. Je suis desole, Mesdames et medmoiselles.
Elose De Pelteau
Roslyn Stempel
Marilou
Ne soyez pas desole M.Justin, les appartements des dames sont souvent luxueuses mais secrtes et seules les femmes choisissent qui peut avoir le privilge d'y entrer... Marilou
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Justin
National Geographique ce mois decri Istambul l'aujourdui. Il y'a les cartes geographiques et les tableaux nous aurions examine. Si quelq'un peut scan et expose les images, je serai reconnaissant.
Justin
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Justin
Robby: What are you doing up at 3:32am and on seniornet? Eloise comes in at that hour every once in a while. What a bunch of night owls you are .
robert b. iadeluca
Sharon E
Ici Sharon. J'ai reu le livre aujourd'hui grce Elise et je commencerai le lire tout de suite. Je dois vous attraper (catch up with you?)bientt. Sharon
Justin
Ginny: You always ask relevant questions. Painting in the early middle ages ( about 800 or so) was for an aristocratic audience. It appeared in miniature form in prayer books. In the Eleventh century much painting in fresco served to inform the illiterate about church themes and biblical stories. Manuscript illumination was primarily for missals, for abbey bibles and for psalters which were the religious tools of the wealthy. Sculpture was the primary art form of le Moyen Age.
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Eloise; Je pense vous avez raison dites il y'a le contraste entre celles croises et ceux de Constantinople. C'est un contraste de luxe et salete. Les croises doivent passe sept cent kms de terre avant ils atteignent Constantinople. Ils auront sale sur le corps et sur les habits. Leur amis a Constantinople n'auront pas assez de cette parfum cache cette odeur de sale.
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Sharon E
Elise, when I went to the URL on clothing, there were only the names of the pieces of clothes and nothing happened when any of them were clicked on. Is it me or the site? Sharon
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
MmeW
Sharon E
Merci pour le bienvenue. J'ai commence le lire mais seulement un peu ce moment comme j'ai ete bien occupee depuis que je l'ai reu. J'espre en lire plus cet aprsmidi avant d'aller au piquenique de notre village. Je pense que Mme a bien explique les faux pelerins. Sharon
Justin
Mme: D'accord. Toutes aventures de ce type accompagnent de "camp followers" qui ne partegent pas l'affair mais qui veulent profiter l'affaire. Ils sont les faux pelerins.
Justin
Icasia, la belle soeur de Gabriel, dit quel un doit dire. "Ce fou de Pierre qui se disait ermite" il nous amene des familles, des malades,des enfants ,et meme des estropies nous aider lutter contre les infideles. Maintenant, viennent le compte de Blois et le duc de Normandie. Sont-t-ils come Pierre or amenent ils des armee?
mssuzy
Bonjour! |Aujourd'hui j'ai un peu plus de temps et je viens vous rendre visite. Ou en etes-cous de votre pelerinage? Robby-Eloise, j'ai eclate de rire en lisant vos histories de "salete des villes et salete des campagnes". Moi j'habite en banlieue, ce qui n'existait pas a l'epoque, alors c'est dans quelle categorie? Ou en etes-vous? Ils sont partis de Constantinople, non? Quelle epopee!"The Age of Faith" by the Durants, I forgot which volume, has a lot if info about the Middle Ages and I went from 1 book to the other. Passionnant. Serez-vous a la Bookfest as Wash.? A bientot!
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Cette princesse Ann qui est discuta est en realite Anna Comnene, la fille de l'empereur. C' etait elle qui se confie plus moins les croises qui les motifs etait souponner.
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Roslyn Stempel
Sharon E
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Eloise: Je surprend que vous ne fait pas reconnaisance l"eunuque dans autre les tasches que la garde de l'harem. En Chine un servi a l'administrateur. Si aussi en l'autre les pays.
Elose De Pelteau
Marilou
Roslyn Stempel
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Posters of LP who are also posters in Durant's C will note on Page 95 in LP a reference to "certains portraits de l'art cretois... Qui portraits refere-t-elle ici? La Parisienne, peut-etre. Qui? Il y a un portrait, une femme, tout corps, Knossos que aurait ete propos.
Elose De Pelteau
mssuzy
Bonjour tout le monde! I gave my Peregrines away to my daughter, so I can't answer all your questions because i can't go back to the book, but isn't Constantinople a grand place to visit? and isn't that Icasia the perfect b....? spoiled, jealous, lazy, self-centered, I can't think of any redeeming quality for her. Oh pardon Robby, j'oubliais d'ecrire en anglais. Enjoy your stay in C. as it will change drastically later on. J'ai beaucoup aime ce passage, sauf cette horrible personne, la soi-disant hotesse. Ce qui m'a quelque peu surprise, c'est que le beau-pere fasse un tel cas de son ami le pretre qu'il lui offre l'hospitalite, a lui et a sa famille, alors qu'ils n'etaient pas du tout du meme rang social. C'est peut-etre cela qu'Icasia represente; on ne melangeait ps les classes. Il fallait donc que le pretre soit beaucoup plus qu'un modeste cure de village pour s'etre lie d'amitie avec un monsieur tel que les Danielis. Il se trouve aussi que cet humble cure soit connu des nobles du temps. Il est actuellement le pivot du livre, beaucoup disparaissent en route, mais lui reste jusqu'a la derniere page, Dieu merci. Represente t'il le bon cote de l'Eglise catholique, par opposition a beaucoup d'autres, y compris l'eveque lui-meme? Bref. Ce melange de races, de rangs sociaux, de points de vue, de luxure outranciere et de pauvrete abysmale, la ville de tous les vices et de toutes les richesses envahie par les pelerins pauvres en objets materiels mais riches de leur Foi - est-ce que la societe humaine a tellement change? Assez pour ce soir, bonsoir
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Ces pelerins, se fatiguent et malpropre,ils avancent sur Constantinople, ville cosmopolite avec divers residents. Il y a Grecs, Hongrois , Venitiens , Turcs, Russes, Germains, Bulgares, Syriens, Perses, Armeniens, Juifs, Georgiens, Arabes, et Ethiopiens. Ils ne sont pas Chretiens tout. Il appare que seule le roi et sa cour est Chretien. Peut-etre des autres additionment. Les Pelerins sont dormir prochain les murs hors le ville. Leurs effet sur la ville soient endommagant.
Roslyn Stempel
Sharon E
Elose De Pelteau
Marilou
Roslyn Stempel
Roslyn Stempel
Justin
Justin
Roz: Oui, d'accord. C'est une quete pour les sangs des Saracins par un peuple autrement tranquille.
Elose De Pelteau
Sharon E
Il y a beaucoup de peches commis au nom de religion. Je ne sais pas qui a dit cela, mais je crois qu'il est tellement vrai. Sharon
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
mssuzy
Est-ce que toutes les guerres ne sont pas les memes? Commandees par les riches au pouvoir pour envoyer les petits gars du peuple se faire tuer. Les Croisades n'etaient guere differentes, sauf qu'avec le Pape, on y a mele un etendard de religion.le resultat etait le meme. Que reste-t'il de tant de peines?
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Roslyn Stempel
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
robert b. iadeluca
Roslyn Stempel
mssuzy
Bonjour a tous. Roslyn, I don't see theh primary goal of this novel as Jerusalem; to me, it is entertaining the reader, and that, Jeanne Bourin does wonderfully. The language is not easy for non French native speakers, I grant you that, but it is beautifully written, and it kept my attention, I couldn't put it down until the end. Maupassant wrote wonderful stories, and probably easier to read. By the way, has anyone seen Le Misanthrope de Moliere? It's playing in Washington, in English unfortunately, but it's one of the great classics. Has anyone seen the movie "8 women" in French?
Justin
Je se trouve jouissant l'ecriture beaucoup. Lisant francaise est pas difficile mais parlant et entendant est trs difficile pour moi. Allons y continuons avec Les P u fini. Donc nous choisissons d'autre le livre. Eloise et Ginny choisirent cet on. Nous sommes vingt percent complet. Pourquoi pas le fini? Si, il y a trop adjective. Des ecriteurs decrivent en excessivement. Des artistes peintent en excessivement. Il y a amusement en la critique.
Ginny
mssuzy
Bonjour! Ginny, thank you for your comments, I wish we had more time to tlak but everybody was very busy. Anyway, there will be other times... "nus" means naked; "soupirer" is to sigh, not to whisper, and I feel these people had plenty to sigh about. Could we, westerners, possibly live as they did? No. And what motivated all these pilgrims, as I consider these crusades to be pilgrimages: Faith, Hope for salvation? Duty? Obedience? And I am only thinking of the innocent masses, not the politicians, clergy or warlords, or brigands. By all means, continue till the end, through the family crises, through losses and relationships changes, through pain and joy; that's what makes a good novel so hard to put down. The Crusades are the necessary background, but what makes the novel interesting is the story of people, ordinary people like ourselves placed in extraordinary situations.
Elose De Pelteau
Roslyn Stempel
Roslyn Stempel
Mais si, Mme.Eloise, on sait deja que ce Bohemonde est vraiment "beau mec") -- a hunk--et "matou" -- a tomcat -- qui aimerait beaucoup gouter un morceau, "bonne bouche," si delicat et charmant que la petite Alais. Ros
Sharon E
Roslyn Stempel
Justin
Notre amis veulons aller la messe.Elles doivent s'etre enveloppee dans une voile epais se promener au dehors de la maison. Les Nouveaux Romains pensent que le regard des hommes ne doit pas se poser sur celles qui ne sont ni leur mre, ni leur epouse, ni leur fille. C'est la practique des musulmans aujourd'hui. C'est le message de Saint Paul dans la Bible. Son message les Corinthians contient avis etat de femmes. Couvrez votre le tete. L'Elise latin demande les femmes couvrent les ttes msse. Qu'estque c'est l'origin de cet avertissment ? Pourquoi l'exist? Sait quelq'un?
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Helen is the mother of Constantine, the emperor. She was said to have discovered a relic of the true cross of Christ. Justinian is a fifth century Roman emperor based at Constantinople. His image and that of Theodora appear in a mosaic in a church in Ravenna, Italy which was the capitol of the Roman west.
GingerWright
Elose De Pelteau
Roslyn Stempel
GingerWright
Justin
Roslyn Stempel
Je veux chercher l'origine des couvertures pour les tetes de femmes. Aux juives orthodoxes les femmes dans le synagogue portant toujours un morceau de fabrique sur la tete, comme le kipah des hommes. On croit que Dieu les a ordonne de couvrir la tete afin de montrer l'humilte. Les femmes catholoques aussi couvrent la tete, mais pas les hommes, sauf le pretre, l'archeveque, etc,
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Roz: Oui, je comprend, mais quel est l'origin. Pourquoi? La tete de femme, est il si raide il la doit couvrit ou est il aussi tres jolie et donc une tentation pour les hommes?
Justin
In the Alexiad translated by Dawes, I find the following description of Bohemond, the Crusader by Anna Comnena.The work is dated in the early twelth century. "He was a marvel for the eyes to behold, and his reputation was terrifying.A certain charm hung about this man but was partly marred by a general air of the horrible.For in the whole of his body the entire man shewed implacable and savage both both in his size and glance, methinks, and even his laughter sounded to others like snorting.
Justin
Eloise: Try Corinthians 2. Look particularly at Chapter 11, verses 4-15. St Paul doesn't think much of women. Marriage, par example, is to be resorted to only to avoid fornication. He prefers that men remain single as he is single.
robert b. iadeluca
Elose De Pelteau
Marilou
Justin
Marilou: Trs bien. Il fait froid dans la tete.
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Roslyn Stempel
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Roslyn Stempel
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Bohemond etait sale type dans le corps d'un dieu.
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Sharon E
Justin
Justin
Justin
Of more interest than the picture perhaps, is that our friends will see this church when they enter Jerusalem. It will have more of the original characteristics than we see to day. The Church will have been damaged by the Saracens confirming in the minds of the Crusaders the evil nature of the Saracens and the reason for them being there in Jerusalem.
Justin
The laity were often confined behind a choir screen during Mass. In the case of The Holy Sepulchre there was no confining screen and it was not possible to have then attend Mass and yet be outside in the cloister. Had I the opportunity I would have erased the sentence in my first post referring to the cloister. It is not accurate.
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Buildings have encroached upon the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to such an extent that all that is visible on the exterior is the entrance of the west transept and the back of the rotunda. The choir and apse which is visible in the picture above is probably from the early 12th century and the rotunda from a much earlier period, perhaps even a Constantinian period. Capitals appear to be duplicated and column bases are simplistic in both parts of the church but the flooring and the marble in the side altar and other stone is clearly much older in the rotunda.
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Roslyn Stempel
Justin
I am a man with a wife, three daughters, four grandaughters, and a female-spayed cocker. The heavy influence of women in my life has fostered an awareness of women's needs and attitudes which makes me a nontypical male. When my girls were interested in dance, I did several seasons of ballet theatre. When my girls were interested in voice, I did several seasons of opera. I still enjoy opera. If I had had boys it would have been baseball games and hockey. I have read Pamela and Clarissa, Moll Flanders, and Vanity Fair. I see these as women's books. I have also read Jane Austin and Willa Cather. I enjoyed these works perhaps because I am familiar with female motives and responses but also because I was interested in the technical aspects of Richardson's works. I do not enjoy reading trivial material and so do not read the "romance" novelists. I rarely watch movies and almost never watch fictional TV. I must come away from a book feeling enriched in some way. I think that's possible with books written by but not necessarily for women.
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Berthe La Hardie est malade. Quelq'un doit rester avec elle. Qui? Les armees preparent sortir. Ils sont entrer en Asie Minor ensuite le travers le Bosphorus. Comment? Les vaisseaux sont encore apparaitre.
Ginny
Sharon E
Pretty cool, Ginny! Sharon
Justin
Ginny: That's a nifty knight you've added. How about an opponent on the right side?
Marilou
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
audrine
audrine
Elose De Pelteau
GingerWright
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Marilou
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Je commence lire en chapitre quatre. Ici nous parlons de la malade, Berthe et sa bien-tre. Nous parlons des Nouveaux Romains qui sont ici parce que Constantin L'emperor du Romains se divise le royaume- orientale et occidentale. Suivre que, nous sommes Romains touts- Orientales et Occidentales.
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
GingerWright
Eloise, Thank you so much for the clickable. I have been to it and shall return for more of it.
Sharon E
Oui,Elose, le lien est merveilleux. Je regrette que je ne vienne pas trs souvent, mais je suis trop occupee quelquefois et je n'ai pas lu beaucoup, mais bientt, je retournerai avec la connaissance des 4em et 5em chapitres. Sharon
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
On voit si souvant en L'Ancien Testament l'avertissment tuer et ne tuer pas. Cet viens Dieu. Nous le voyons encore en Les P. "Dieu le veuille', dit les croises. Mais la meme temps le Dieu says " Tu ne tueras pas". Brunissen le dit encore en chapitre quatre. Comment fait-on le resoud?
Traude S
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
GingerWright
Eloise, Thank You.
Justin
An excellent summary. Thank you, Eloise.
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
GingerWright
Eloise, I have Enjoyed Your clickables and thank You for them as it says alot to me. However it maybe that people do want to post in French so I am so sorry for interupting this discussion. Please accept my apologies. Ginger
Elose De Pelteau
GingerWright
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Justin
Interessant, je li dans Maalouf, un historien Arabe des Crusades, que la ville Nicee se rendit basileus sans lutte. Ses hommes entr la ville nuit et la matin prochain le drapeau de l'emperor byzantine parait a l'hampe. Les hommes de France restent dehors les murailles. Ces admettent paisiblement mais une fois a l'interieur, ils tuer tout le monde-les grecs et les turcs. L'armee du sultan et le sultan sont dehors les murailles. Ils abandonne la cite et ils retrait a un autre ville battre encore. C'etait les grecs qui rende la ville la basileus. Mde. Bourin dit une histoire different.
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Maalouf is an Arab historian who gives us a view of the invasion of the French in the Middle East in the eleventh century that can not be seen from the point of view of a French crusader. The Turks were defenders of lands they had but a few years earlier taken from the Greeks. The population of Nicaea was yet 80% Greek and 20% Seljuk Turkish soldiery. The Turks, that night in Mid June, were off fighting a more traditional enemy.The Sultan was with them. The Greeks back in Nicaea, surrounded by the French, capitulated to the Byzantine Emperor, and put themselves under his protection. They were, in the main, good catholics of the eastern persuasion. The Greeks flew the flag of the Emperor in the morning and expected to be saved from destruction. The Crusaders, camped outside, had no such notion. When they were invited in to the city they managed to destroy the city in the search for booty and also to anilhilate every man woman and child. Many were killed in interesting ways that I won't bother you with.
GingerWright
I am enjoying all of your posts. Thanks
Justin
Eloise: I also think we have problem. Have you emailed all those who have participated in the past? They may not be interested in discussing the crusades or if they are, they wish a more scholastic venue. They may not feel they have anything to learn from posting in French. They may find Bourin trivial. I don't know, but if we are to continue, we must have more posters. I don't want the first effort to post in a foreign language to fail by stopping in the middle. Let's get Robby's advice.
GingerWright
Justin and Elouise Where is Ginny and Robby?
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
robert b. iadeluca
Justin
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
GingerWright
GingerWright
GingerWright
It is very disappointing to a discussion leader I would imagine to have a Lot of people drop out.
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Sharon E
Elose et tous, je regrette que je n'ai pas ecrit ici pendant longtemps mais mon horaire est trop rempli ce moment pour lire le livre. Nous partirons dimanche pour Chicago pour celebrer "Thanksgiving" avec tous nos enfants et petits enfants. Nous retournerons le premier decembre. Peut-tre pourrai-je le lire pendant notre voyage. Sinon, j'essaierai lire beaucoup mon retour. Sharon
Elose De Pelteau
Marilou
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Justin
Alais va lit a quinz ans et reveille a vengt-et-un ans. La sagesse vien rapidmente en le matin.
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Eloise: Mais, pourquoi, "Tassez Vous". Pourquoi pas, "Merci Beaucoup, Madame." Ce n'est pas un peche le parler. Est il?
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Eloise: Bien sur. C'est les intentions d'auteur nous parlons.
Ginny
Justin
Justin
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Ginny
Justin
Flaminia's motives are very clearly, hot pants and guilt, in that order. Nature calls, then religion responds. God's creation does it's thing and then man in his religious intuition , often at variance with the intent of God, passes judgement. Jesus never said anything about marriage and divorce. He simply provided the wine to make the revelers friendlier.
Justin
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Justin
Justin
You may find it interesting to know that the very chapter we have been talking about- chapter 24, is the basis for much of the glorious work in glass and stone done at cathedrals such as Amiens, Laon, Noyon, Sens, Soissons etc. in the 12th and 13th centuries. There was great emphasis at that time on the imminent prospect of death. It could come at any time to anyone, noble or serf, so one had better be ready for it. Art iconography of the period very often showed bodies in a state of decay with the admonition "this could be you in a few days." The message was the old boy scout motto- Be prepared.
Justin
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
I know what "fait au tour" means but " La Tour des Vents". What does that mean? The turn of the winds, perhaps, a change in direction. Help, Eloise.
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Merci vous beaucoup, on et tout, pour un annee du conversation.
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Equiping a knight was a costly business. If one measures the cost in cows, 47 were required to arm, cover, and mount a knight upon a charger. A helmet cost six cows, a coat of mail cost 12 cows, a sword cost 7 cows, and a horse cost 12 cows. How about that?
GingerWright
Justin
In 1054 at the Council of Narbonne, Christians who broke the Peace of God were threatened with excommunication. Further, the Council declared that no Christian may kill another Christian, for there is no doubt that he who kills a Christian spills the blood of Christ. The Truce of God prohibted warfare and killing on Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Ascension day. As I remember, our little family with Bohemond, left for Anatolia in Easter week. Little did we realize the constraints they were operating under. Further, either Bourin or the knights have chosen to ignore these religious laws. I think, in reality, the Church found it expeditious to ignore these rules in the quest to retrieve the "Terre Sainte".
Justin
In the eleventh century knights were ordained. Knighthood was a sacrament administered by the church. The would be knight purified himself by bathing and fasting. The sword was placed on the altar.It was offered as a defense fo churches, widows and orphans against the scourge of pagans and that it may be just in attack and defense. The new knight was dubbed with the last blow he could receive and not return. He promised to attend Mass everyday and fast frequently. He pledged to use the sword to defend the Holy Church against infidels, to defend the widow and orphan, and not to kill a vanquished or helpless enemy in battle, not to give evil counsel to a lady, and to give aid to a fellow being in distress. This code may be found carved in stone in Chartres Cathedral. I wonder how these guys felt at Nicaea and at Antioch where they killed Greek Christians by the barrel full.
GingerWright
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Justin
Maalouf says the Turkish spies were roasted alive. Their screams were to be a warning to the Turks not to send any more spys. Tant pis, I think the spies were Greek catholics who were expected to blend well with the French catholics. The Greeks did that because their familes were held inside the walls as hostage for their return.
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Eloise: Conditions in the middle east were in a state of flux at the time. The Seljuk Turks were new comers to the area. The Byzantines, most of whom were Greek Catholic and Armenian Catholic, were predominant. The Seljuk Turks took Antioch just three years before the Crusaders appeared. The city at the time of capture belonged to Alexius Comnenus. Thats why he appealed to the Pope for help. The great majority of the population in Antioch both at the time of capture by the Turks and when the French laid seige, were Greek catholics. The Byzantine Emperor was Greek (orthodox) Catholic. When the French laid seige to Antioch there were only a few Turks in town and they were primarily soldiers. When the Emir wanted spies he certainly would not go to Turkish soldiers. Their appearance would be a dead give away. I must check my sources but I am quite sure he chose his spies from among the Greek Catholic inhabitants of Antioch.He could easily manipulate these people by holding the family hostage. When Maalouf says they are Turkish spies, he means they are spies for the Turkish cause, not that the spies are Turks. Comnene's people were among the French so the Antioch Greeks could mix without outward clues to give them away. The spies were quite successful for some time before they were caught.
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Sharon E
Elose, je suis desolee que vous tes malade. J'espre que vous alliez mieux tout de suite. Sharon
Justin
Flaminia est moi. Elle se souvenir la trve de dieu. C'est part du serment de chevallier et agreable a toutes quand ils etait consacree. Il engage ne tuer ni battre pas pendant le Careme, tout l'Avent et toutes fetes religieuse. Des mercredi soleil couchant jusqu au lundi suivant soleil levant, l'Eglise avait interdit de se battre. Pourquoi ces chevalliers le refuse de connaitre maintenant sur pelerinage?
Ginny
Justin
The Holy Lance is purported to be the one used by a Roman Centurian at the crucifixion of Christ to put him out of his misery. The wound was probably intended as a coup de gras. As I understand it, this puncture was common in crucufixions. There are many stories about the finding of the Lance in Antioch. Some say it was planted by the finder. Others say that it was just some rusty old spear that was dropped by a Byzantine and has no significance other than that. Others say it is the lance that pierced the side of Jesus and that the finder had a holy vision telling him where to look. Who knows? Having said all that one must also say that the finding of the lance rejuvenated the crusaders into plodding on to Jerusalem.
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Ici nous sommes a le bataille pour l'Antioche. Quelq'un a ouvre le port derniere. Grande Victoire. Nous entrons furtivement dans le port derniere et nous commencons le massacre. Une fois interieur nous voyons Andronic, le moine fausse, encore. L'amour rentre l'histoire. Ils sauvent eux-memes mourant et embrassent.
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Ginny
Sharon E
Elose De Pelteau
Justin
Je suis proche le fini du livre.( 5:2) Le plaisir etait moi. Eloise, merci beaucoup. Sans votre aide je le n'a pas li tout.
Justin
Ginny you were a constant help in keeping this book alive. I would like to try another work in French but which one, that's the big question. It would be nice to get one that involves more french posters. Eloise is the spark plug who makes it work. When she is at the helm all we need is the right book.
robert b. iadeluca
Ginny
Elose De Pelteau
Sharon E
Elose De Pelteau
GingerWright
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https://www.mpmpremium.com/catalogue/rafiki
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MPM Premium
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Born in Nairobi, Wanuri is part of the new generation of African storytellers. Her stories and films have received international acclaim. Her films screened in numerous film festivals around the world. To date, Wanuri has written and directed six films. Rafiki is her second feature film. She is the co-founder of AFROBUBBLEGUM, a media company that supports, creates and commissions fun, fierce and frivolous African art. In 2008, Wanuri completed her first feature film From A Whisper based on the real life events surrounding the twin bombings of US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar esSalaam in 1998. The film won awards at the Africa Movie Academy Awards including Best Director and Best Picture, the Golden Dhow award at Zanzibar International Film Festival and Best Film at Kalasha, Kenya Film and TV awards. Shortly after she completed a documentary about the life of Nobel peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai entitled For Our Land (2009) for M-Net ‘Great Africans’ Series. Her short Science Fiction Film Pumzi (2009) that was partially funded by Focus Features, Goethe Institut and Changa Moto Fund in Kenya, screened atSundance in 2010. Pumzi won Best Short at Cannes Independent Film Festival, May 2010 and took Silver at Carthage Film Festival in 2010. Wanuri was named a TED Fellow in 2017 and World Economic Forum cultural leader in 2018. Wanuri published her first children’s book, The Wooden Camel (Lanata Publishing), she is currently in post porduction on a feature length documentary “GER” (To Be Separate) and in pre-production on “Rusties” a near future science fiction film set in Nairobi.
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https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0214105/
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Isabelle Dedieu
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Isabelle Dedieu. Editor: Die Invasion der Barbaren. Isabelle Dedieu is known for Die Invasion der Barbaren (2003), Rafiki (2018) and Jesus von Montreal (1989).
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https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0214105/
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https://www.myreviewer.com/DVD/80469/Jesus-Of-Montreal-Special-Edition-UK/80487/Review-by-Mark-Oates
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Review of Jesus Of Montreal (Special Edition)
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https://www.myreviewer.com/favicon.ico
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I reviewed this movie before and I called it a \'Blow-your-brains-out depressing Franco-Canadian arthouse melodrama about a group of actors staging a ...
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/favicon.ico
| null |
4 / 10
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https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/transfixed/
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en
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TRANSFIXED – Dennis Schwartz Reviews
|
[
"https://www.reelfilm.com/images/gender.jpg"
] |
[] |
[] |
[
""
] | null |
[] |
2019-08-05T22:32:30+00:00
|
en
|
https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/transfixed/
|
TRANSFIXED (Mauvais genres)
(director/writer: Francis Girod; screenwriters: from the novel by Brigitte Aubert/Philippe Cougrand; cinematographer: Thierry Jault; editor: Isabelle Dedieu; music: Alexandre Desplat; cast: Robinson Stévenin (Bo), Stéphane Metzger (Johnny), Richard Bohringer (Paul Huysmans), William Nadylam (Maeva), Frédéric Pellegeay (Alex), Marcel Dossogne (Professeur Ancelin), Ginette Garcin (Louisette Vincent), Stéphane de Groot (Pryzuski), Charlie Dupont (Courtois), Marcel Dossogne (Professeur Ancelin); Runtime: 106; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Humbert Balsan; Picture This! Entertainment; 2001-France/Belgium-in French with English subtitles)
“A sleazy crime story about transvestites in Brussels being chopped up by a madman.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Mauvais Genre which can be translated as Gender Bias, also goes by the name Transfixed. It’s a sleazy crime story about transvestites in Brussels being chopped up by a madman. Director Francis Girod adapts his film from the novel by Brigitte Aubert. It’s co-written by Girod and Philippe Cougrand.
The film opens as a transvestite, an operation away from feminity, named Bo (Robinson Stévenin) visits his Alzheimer beset grandmother and watches as his estranged father, Professor Ancelin (Marcel Dossogne), gets arrested for fondling a boy in his clinic. The officers, Paul Huysmans (Richard Bohringer) and his subordinate Courtois (Charlie Dupont), bring Bo down to the police station and play ‘good cop-bad cop’ as they coerce him to testify against his father for sexually assaulting him as a child. Bo was not believed as a child when he told the same story to the police and has ever since found no love for the authorities. Bo’s mom eventually found out the truth and dealt with it by committing suicide, while Bo ran away and became a transvestite nightclub entertainer.
Meanwhile Brussels is suddenly plagued with a rash of mutilation serial killings of transvestite hookers, who happen to travel in Bo’s social circle. While the pair of vice cops make Bo a prime suspect and get no cooperation from him, the homicide detective Pryzuski (Stéphane de Groot) works solo and enlists the help of Bo to keep tabs on his more experienced hooker transvestite friend Maeva (William Nadylam) as a possible target. But despite the murders or his father’s arrest, Bo’s interest is fully captured by her sociopath new roughhouse neighbor Johnny (Stéphane Metzger). He’s a small-time crook with a shady past, who pals around with his brutish crime partner Alex (Frédéric Pellegeay). Though Johnny treats Bo like dirt and shows no interest, Bo’s obsessed with the certifiable nutcase. Bo’s love for him doesn’t diminish even after the cocaine snorting thug sets him up for a beating. Johnny rewards Bo’s further overtures of love by breaking his arm.
This tabloid crime story gets needlessly complicated due to incredulous circumstances and the piling on of unneeded sleaze. But the bizarre murders take a back seat to the twisted one-way love story between Bo and Johnny, as the question raised becomes if unconditional love can overcome pure hate. As the surprises and bodies keep mounting up, the narrative seems to get lost in a deeper fog of plot devices. With no tension maintained and a convoluted drama to deal with, the film dies near the end as it puts all the pieces to the puzzle together by laboriously explaining everything from the psychological motives to the history of several of the transvestites to who was the shadowy mystery man dressed in black and wearing an eye-patch.
Nothing seemed to go smoothly in this weary story, as by the payoff I was as unconcerned about the murders as seemingly were the screenwriters. Though I must say, that Robinson Stévenin gave a sensitive and riveting performance as a troubled man living a messy life as a woman in high heels.
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https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/rafiki-2019
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Rafiki movie review & film summary (2019)
|
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A lyrical ode to finding a kindred spirit amidst an uncaring majority.
|
en
|
Roger Ebert
|
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/rafiki-2019
|
“Rafiki” is a lesbian romance set in a place where such love stories, in real life and onscreen, are forbidden by law. It is the first Kenyan film to be screened at Cannes and, more importantly, the first film with a positive message about homosexuality to play in Kenyan theaters. The latter occurred after a successful Supreme Court defeat of a ban imposed by the government. In the ruling, the judge wrote, “I am not convinced that Kenya is such a weak society whose moral foundation will be shaken by watching a film depicting a gay theme.” And yet, morality is a commonly used excuse wielded like a cudgel against civil rights at worst, mere representation at best. Why is the act of being seen in a positive light such a “moral” threat?
Director Wanuri Kahiu creates a lyrical ode to finding a kindred spirit amidst an uncaring majority by using Monica Arac de Nyeko’s short story, “Jambula Tree” as her basis. The cinematography is as lively, colorful and engaging as the hairstyle of Ziki Okemi (Sheila Munyiva), the boisterous object of affection for our protagonist, Kena Mwaura (Samantha Mugatsia). Several times, lens flares from the Sun invade the frame containing Ziki, presenting her as the center of Kena’s galaxy. Ziki’s astonishingly festive coif becomes a complementary personality symbol, the yin to the grungy yang of Kena’s skateboard and backwards baseball cap; Kahiu often introduces these characters into scenes by their trademarks.
<span class="s1" The way Kena dares to publicly gaze at Ziki reveals a mixture of the naïveté in handling a first love and a teenager’s penchant for defiance. Ziki returns the gaze even more forcefully, which scares Kena. Their feelings are not tolerated by society, and while their story has a simplicity that feels at times a bit too light, Kahiu never shies away from the inherent danger the lovers face. When violence befalls Ziki and Kena, Kahiu’s tight framing is as harrowing as the act itself. The canvas of the screen is often used as a representation of feeling rather than narrative, with scenes cropped so we can only see pieces of the action. It makes the most intimate moments seem larger-than-life, which is exactly how they must feel to our heroes.
Ziki and Kena are the daughters of rival politicians, which adds an extra layer of problems to their relationship. Gossips like storefront owner Mama Atim (Muthoni Gathecha) can’t wait to wag their tongues about the burgeoning friendship between the progeny of political enemies. There’s also a class difference. Kena’s dad, John (Jimmy Gathu) runs a store while the more financially successful Okemis are, in the words of Kena’s mother, “folks who can elevate you.” These issues would be enough strife for most cinematic lovers, but there’s also the patriarchal ideas perpetuated by Nairobi society. “Good Kenyan girls make good Kenyan wives,” we’re told. The men we meet like Blacksta (Neville Misati) flaunt the one-sided rules of romantic entanglement, peppering any and every woman with raunchy come-ons. They also torture the one man they consider to be gay, yelling homophobic slurs at him as he quietly walks through the neighborhood.
This nameless man—the film never reveals whether he is gay or just perceived as such—becomes a rather blatant symbol of the country’s homophobia. He never gets a line of dialogue, which bothered me initially because I saw his existence as an empty gesture. But, late in the film, Kahiu upended my expectations in a scene where he quietly sits next to a battered, heartbroken Kena. As the two share the frame, neither making eye contact with the other, I hoped for some exchanged words. Instead, the scene ends in silence and I realized that the visual of a shared solidarity was more powerful than anything that could have been said in that moment.
“Rafiki” has several quiet scenes like that, which elevates the familiar material. And unlike older films such as “The Children’s Hour,” this doesn’t end with sacrifice and punishment but with hope and ambiguity. Munyiva and Mugatsia are both excellent, sharing an energetic chemistry that the film can’t help but amplify in its tone. This is a bittersweet yet ultimately positive depiction of young, forbidden love that radiates empathy by showing how misguided it is to be against this kind of devotion. Kahiu draws blood with a “pray away the gay” scene that left me fuming, but she also finds a surprising level of understanding in a few secondary characters.
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| 76
|
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/phenomenology-of-the-icon/bibliography/BCE001FAB87405DD9D2C6E443579B236
|
en
|
Phenomenology of the Icon
|
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] |
[] |
[] |
[
""
] | null |
[
"Stephanie Rumpza",
"Sorbonne Université",
"Jean-Luc Marion"
] | null |
Phenomenology of the Icon - August 2023
|
en
|
/core/cambridge-core/public/images/favicon.ico
|
Cambridge Core
|
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/phenomenology-of-the-icon/bibliography/BCE001FAB87405DD9D2C6E443579B236
|
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
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https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jun/30/benedict-mason-on-meld-viewing-my-work-through-different-eyes
|
en
|
Benedict Mason on Meld: Viewing my work through different eyes
|
[
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[] |
[
""
] | null |
[
"Guardian staff",
"Benedict Mason"
] |
2016-06-30T00:00:00
|
Film inspired Mason’s composition Meld, and the process of turning the piece into an actual film was fascinating, writes the composer
|
en
|
the Guardian
|
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jun/30/benedict-mason-on-meld-viewing-my-work-through-different-eyes
|
Meld is the second piece I have written for the Albert Hall, and it is hard to imagine that it could be performed anywhere else. All its levels, boxes and corridors formed an integral part of the composition. Over the years I have composed many pieces where the building in which the performance takes place takes on a role equal to that of the musicians.
At the Albert Hall for Meld’s 2014 premiere, each of the 144 musicians was placed throughout the building with precise maps and instructions: at any one moment, one could say exactly where each was to be found. The musicians also play while moving: some do carefully choreographed dances. But this is not a crazy happening for the sake of it. Everything is very precisely organised and notated to the millisecond.
During its 40-odd minutes, the piece proceeds through sections that complement each other, and build only on the experience of the previous ones. This takes a certain time, and the position and content of the sections is crucial. The overall shape is very important and the piece takes an unexpected turn half way through.
My inspiration for this approach comes from a deep fascination with film, and montage - especially the editing of sequences of less important shots and the many ways that these can build into something more significant.
In my music I am fascinated by how the logic and order of different elements is crucial to how the expression, tension and argument comes over. As in a film, every cut is a turning point - though as a viewer or listener, one hardly notices these corners. I felt the same way about the composition of Meld, and how a potential re-ordering of sections or elements would collapse the tension.
Certainly this became very apparent during the editing work that Isabelle Dedieu undertook so painstakingly in these last weeks to create the film. It was very significant how this film was put together. I was lucky to have an experienced editor - Dedieu worked wonders with the material. Good editing continually keeps up the interest, while balancing, navigating and refining the options available. The film is now the ‘product’. My work was just the acoustic version in the concert hall.
The seated audience see and hear the performance from only one vantage point, though all delegated audience seats are equally valid and privileged. While all remained audible, not everything was visible.
Dedieu was actually in the audience at the Prom, but frequently found things in the filmed material that she could not notice at the live performance, and which through her shot selection and editing clarified her understanding of the piece as a spectator. While I knew my piece too well to be an impartial observer, her edit has made the musical narrative logical for the first-time listener.
Film is pliable and can emphasise the shape intended in the music, and the mood. I found the counterpoint between the rhythm of musical elements vis à vis the “silent” rhythm of changes of shot fascinating.
The film has also become a private view showing the extraordinary musicians of the Aurora Orchestra - who give and show more than just playing their instrument - intimately. With the editing, they became characters and personalities. In the film there is now an added sense of celebration: the music is not meant to be ritualised in any way.
The filmed material we had available was gathered at the performance - there were no chances to retake, and not every musician was filmed.
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https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bioworkstechnologies_innovative-agar-and-agarose-bead-manufacturing-activity-7153358321951854592-53xL
|
en
|
Works Technologies on LinkedIn: Innovative agar and agarose bead manufacturing patent enables greener…
|
https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/sync/v2/D5627AQEqPVgroaB6zw/articleshare-shrink_800/articleshare-shrink_800/0/1710946549625?e=2147483647&v=beta&t=sNFEcSetmhXGAaEwm9a3BMQJJMlbvVV7-dx1JycyRVk
|
https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/sync/v2/D5627AQEqPVgroaB6zw/articleshare-shrink_800/articleshare-shrink_800/0/1710946549625?e=2147483647&v=beta&t=sNFEcSetmhXGAaEwm9a3BMQJJMlbvVV7-dx1JycyRVk
|
[
"https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D4D3DAQGW7lEuMGgxdw/image-scale_191_1128/image-scale_191_1128/0/1663315010026/bioworkstechnologies_cover?e=2147483647&v=beta&t=lUQyfpNX7C6Ak97eorDQn98RXBUns8SEXYP4IRdxEN4"
] |
[] |
[] |
[
""
] | null |
[
"Bio-Works Technologies"
] |
2024-01-17T12:12:06.906000+00:00
|
😃 We are feeling excited at Bio-Works!
💚 Why? Because The Swedish Intellectual Property Office has granted our patent for an innovative method for…
|
en
|
https://static.licdn.com/aero-v1/sc/h/al2o9zrvru7aqj8e1x2rzsrca
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https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bioworkstechnologies_innovative-agar-and-agarose-bead-manufacturing-activity-7153358321951854592-53xL
|
New publication post: Bio-based polymeric films from organic waste. "Citrus waste has been used as a source of bioplastics for research in different ways. Because the juice industry produces significant amounts of residue each year, it would be advantageous to use the byproducts in the creation of new materials. Researchers have long explored eco-friendly methods to convert citrus and other organic waste into polymers for producing biodegradable films. The goal of this study is to create biofilms from orange waste (OW) and ginger waste (GW) using an ultrafine grinder and study the films’ properties. Since pectin has the ability to gel, and because cellulosic fibers are strong, citrus waste has been studied for its potential to produce biofilms. After being washed, dried, and milled, orange and ginger waste was shaped into films using a casting process. Tensile testing was used to determine the mechanical properties of biofilms, while dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) were used to determine their thermal properties. As the number of grinding cycles increased, the suspension’s viscosity increased from 29 mPa.s to 57 mPa.s for OW and from 217 mPa.s to 376 mPa.s for GW, while the particle size in the suspension significantly decreased. For OW and GW films, the highest tensile strength was 17 MPa and 15 MPa, respectively. The maximum strain obtained among all films was 4.8%. All the tested films were stable up to 150 °C, and maximum degradation occured after 300 °C." Thanks all the colleagues who were involved in the work. @MDPIOpenAccess (https://lnkd.in/dQD8da2K)
The global #bioplastics production will more than triple between 2021 and 2026, from around 2.4 million tons in 2021 to 7.5 million tons in 2026, according to market data compiled by European Bioplastics. The development of #biodegradable, #biobased #polymers and #plastics from #renewable sources such as plants, animals, and microorganisms are gaining engrossing attention nowadays as an essential element to protect the environment from the harmful toxic effects of non-biodegradable synthetic polymers/plastics. 2nd Annual World Biopolymers and Bioplastics forum will bring together more than 150+ industry experts in Amsterdam on Feb. 28-29 to discuss the latest developments, cutting-edge technologies, new challenges and opportunities in #bioplastics and #sustainable #biocomposite. Our @Bart Vanhof will present a case study about ‘Decarbonization Targets Driving Introduction of Bio-attributed Plastics´on Wednesday Feb. 28 at 09:50 AM. Don’t miss this opportunity to know about the topics surrounding the World Bioplastics and Biopolymers event including the benefits, policy, structure, challenges and drive. Grab this opportunity to network and exchange ideas with intellects who specialize in this special sector and industry. https://lnkd.in/d-uHprTT
Our infrastructure: Pilot plant to produce plastics based on lactic acid. The entire plant is used to produce the biodegradable plastic polylactide from the fermentatively obtained raw material lactic acid. The ability to carry out the entire process on a single-digit kg scale is unique in Europe! Furthermore, the individual modules of the plant can be used for various other synthesis processes. The plant is located at the Fraunhofer-Institut für Angewandte Polymerforschung IAP and is operated by our research department "Circular Polymers". A detailed description of the plant can be found at 👉https://lnkd.in/djiXX2xV In the coming weeks, we would like to introduce you to the technical equipment of the Fraunhofer CCPE. This will give you an insight into the equipment our scientists use on a daily basis to shape the path to the circular economy! #infrastructure #circulareconomy #fraunhoferccpe #CircularPolymers #Lactide #PLA #biobased
"Now for something completely different." One advantage of doing broad searches of the literature is that sometimes you come across a paper that teaches you about things you never even imagined. For example, who knew that a 1:1:1 ratio of sucrose:fructose:glucose would be a liquid at room temperature (see Figure 1)? I sure didn't. This excellent review by Ling and Hadinoto describes deep eutectic solvent as great solvent in extraction of biological macromolecules. Quoting from the abstract: "Greater awareness of environmental sustainability has driven many industries to transition from using synthetic organic solvents to greener solvents in their manufacturing. Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) have emerged as a highly promising category of green solvents with well-demonstrated and wide-ranging applications, including their use as a solvent in extraction of small-molecule bioactive compounds for food and pharmaceutical applications. The use of DES as an extraction solvent of biological macromolecules, on the other hand, has not been as extensively studied. Thereby, the feasibility of employing DES for biomacromolecule extraction has not been well elucidated. To bridge this gap, this review provides an overview of DES with an emphasis on its unique physicochemical properties that make it an attractive green solvent (e.g., non-toxicity, biodegradability, ease of preparation, renewable, tailorable properties). Recent advances in DES extraction of three classes of biomacromolecules—i.e., proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids—were discussed and future research needs were identified. The importance of DES’s properties—particularly its viscosity, polarity, molar ratio of DES components, and water addition—on the DES extraction’s performance were discussed. Not unlike the findings from DES extraction of bioactive small molecules, DES extraction of biomacromolecules was concluded to be generally superior to extraction using synthetic organic solvents."
Safety and sustainability are key when it comes to the development of bio-based solutions in the paint and coating sector. As consumers especially in the realm of DIY application, furniture and clear coatings and wall paint are in close contact with the material, these need be risk-free. But how do we secure that bio-based paint and coatings are more sustainable and have positive impact on communities and environments? Learn more about it in our upcoming webinar by the #PERFECOAT project 📅 10 June, 1-2pm, online 😀 Registration: https://lnkd.in/e_TxSQ7Q With experts: Kamal Azrague (SINTEF) – Sustainability Assessment Menthods and LCA Assiya Kenzhegaliyeva (SINTEF Digital) – Social Sustainability Assessment Andy Booth (SINTEF Ocean) – Toxicology and Safety Assessment Kindly funded by the Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE JU) JU. Technische Universität München, Evonik, TalTech – Tallinn University of Technology, Imperial College London, Chromologics, Celignis Biomass Lab, FunzioNano AS, Remmers Gruppe, Borregaard, Organik Kimya #coatings #PERFECOATProject #safety #sustainability #toxicity #webinar #circulareconomy #CBEJU #LCA #SLCA #TEE #TEA
NABIHEAL supports the twin #green and #digitaltransformations, by using resilient, sustainable, and secure raw materials. We also contribute to the circular economy by the effective reuse and recycling of raw materials, such as the molecules of high biological and therapeutic value, extracted from tissues of biological origin. The use of in vitro assays supports evironmental #sustainability and #circularity and complies with the European efforts to facilitate the 3R’s (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement of animal experiments). Moreover, the employment of green manufacturing technologies such as #DELOS, which doesn’t need metals or carbon, and such as a microreactor, which can reduce the environmental impact of the harsh down processing conditions (pH, temperature, use of detergents, etc.) contribute to environmental protection and sustainable economy. Finally, we will implement Safety-and-Sustainability-by-Design (#SSbD, led by BNN - BioNanoNet) aspects for the development and processing of these smart materials. NABIHEAL follows the “Do no significant harm principle” as a sustainable project without harmful impact on the environment.
💖#Materials #SpecialIssue #Paper 📝"Influence of Molecular Weight on the #Enzymatic #Degradation of #PLA Isomer Blends by a #Langmuir System" Authored by Donghyeok Im, Vishal Gavande, Hak Yong Lee, and Won-Ki Lee. Polylactides (PLAs) and lactide copolymers are biodegradable, compostable, and derived from renewable resources, offering a sustainable alternative to petroleum-based synthetic polymers owing to their advantages of comparable mechanical properties with commodity plastics and biodegradability. Their hydrolytic stability and thermal properties can affect their potential for long-lasting applications. In this study, authors have studied the effect of molecular weight on stereocomplexation. A solution polymerization method was introduced for synthesizing the desired molecular weights of PLLA and PDLA. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gprViEqE #biodegradable #polymer; stereochemical #polylactides; stereocomplex; #enzymatic degradation; #Langmuir #monolayer (The paper is collected in the following special issue, "Bio-Based Materials and Their Environmental Applications" https://lnkd.in/gcDrQ4Vf)"
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Words Radiating Images: Visualizing Text in Abel Gance’s La Roue
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Paul Cuff
Abel Gance’s silent drama La Roue (1922) has been credited as both a masterpiece of cinematic innovation and as a miscarriage of retrograde literariness. Divided for its premiere exhibition into a prologue and six “chapters,” the film echoed the format of a popular novel â and its eight-hour timeframe was novelistically expansive. Gance’s protracted tale of desire, grief, and reconciliation possesses aspects that are at once realistic and symbolic, morbid and humorous, pessimistic and uplifting, material and spiritual. The film’s aesthetic nature is no less complex: its abundant visuality (natural locations, superimposition, rapid montage) is underpinned by elaborate textuality (authorial visibility, lengthy intertitles, literary citations). As a creation that is at once lettered and cinematic, adaptive and original, romantic and modern, La Roue demands a flexible critical approach.
Ascription: The Boundaries of Criticism
The narrative of La Roue concerns the engine-driver Sisif (Séverin-Mars), who falls in love with his adopted daughter Norma (Ivy Close) â as does his biological son Elie (Gabriel de Gravone). When railyard owner Jacques de Hersan (Pierre Magnier) discovers this secret, he blackmails Sisif into letting him marry Norma and remove her from Nice to Paris. Soon after Elie discovers the truth about Norma, Sisif’s sight is badly impaired in an accident; father and son are forcibly transferred to a funicular line near Mont Blanc. Norma journeys to the mountains, but Elie is killed by the jealous Hersan â who dies after the fight. The blind Sisif shuns Norma and lives alone, but eventually the two reconcile and the old man dies peacefully.
Contemporary reviews were remarkably consistent in holding this film’s “literary” qualities to be a kind of cultural backwardness. Ãmile Vuillermoz said La Roue contained “all the elements of a masterpiece” but was grossly imperfect; Gance revealed himself to be an “inspired poet [and an] extraordinary visionary” who “concocts a novelistic tale of the utmost mediocrity” (“Un film d’Abel Gance” 329-30). Léon Moussinac claimed La Roue could only be called a masterpiece by striving to “forget everything about the film that is unbearable if not actually odious,” and by ignoring Gance’s “extreme bad taste” â a “literary [culture] that has nothing to do with [the film’s] visual brilliance” (5). Critics often took romanesque (novelistic) to be akin to romantique (romantic), accusing La Roue’s extensive melodrama of resembling the unwieldy theatrical creations of French romanticism. In repeating the errors of nineteenth-century drama, wrote René Clair, Gance aimed for sublimity but succeeded only in being “grotesque”: “Oh! â if only he would renounce literature and have faith in cinema!” (87-89). This cry of frustration was not without genuine goodwill. Gance’s peers wanted to see him succeed, but felt he needed rescuing from personal inclinations. Vuillermoz beseeched the filmmaker to accept friends’ advice, but the only voice Gance seemed to hear was his own: “he obeys [his genius] with mystic docility” (“La Roue” 3).
Following its premiere in December 1922, La Roue was subject to various anti-literary salvage operations. Ricciotto Canudo proscribed the film be severely reduced into a “rhythmic suite,” wherein formal invention could operate independently of melodrama (“La Roue” 1-2). Gance would indeed prune his premiere version for general release in 1923, and again (more radically) for rerelease in 1924. Yet it was Canudo himself who first reshaped La Roue by turning it into an eponymous three-volume novel (ed. Ferenczi, 1923). It is no small irony that the way to “fix” this literary film was to transform it entirely into prose â and that Gance later tried to do the same. In 1929-30, the filmmaker sought to publish a new adaptation of La Roue. Prevented by Canudo’s widow from reworking the 1923 novelization, Gance commissioned Jean Arroy to create an entirely new text based on his original scenario (ed. Tallandier, 1930). While undertaken to make La Roue more concise, both novelizations in fact expanded Gance’s text for the sake of greater coherence.
Less charitable attempts to reclaim the modernity of La Roue simply denied Gance’s authorship. Since Blaise Cendrars was listed as a production assistant, members of the Parisian avant-garde championed his creative achievements over those of Gance. Ezra Pound deemed the only “essentially cinematographic” aspects of La Roue to be its depictions of machinery in motion and credited these sequences exclusively to Cendrars; the remainder was “the usual drivelling idiocy of the cinema sentiment,” for which he blames Gance without even mentioning his name (273-74). Future generations of critics followed suit: Stanley Lawder claims Cendrars “created those parts of La Roue” which had the most cultural impact (89-90), while Peter Wollen regards “Cendrars’s editing” as “the most influential intervention of the avant-garde” in film history (272). And despite providing a lengthy analysis to show that Gance’s assistant in fact had no creative impact on the shooting or editing of La Roue, Mikhail Iampolski still leaps to credit Cendrars with the film’s title (132-33).
Even the most frequently-quoted review â by Jean Cocteau â praises the film without naming its director: “There is cinema before and after La Roue as there is painting before and after Picasso” (qtd. in Daria 82). This comparison confers a modernist pedigree on Gance’s film while neatly sidestepping the issue of authorship. Cocteau’s position as an avant-garde writer, painter, and filmmaker makes him a convenient spokesperson for the major aesthetic camps of modernist Paris. Recent accounts of La Roue more regularly cite his words than those of Gance’s ambivalent contemporaries â just as the most frequently reproduced poster for the film is Fernand Léger’s cubist collage and not the conventional design issued by Pathé. Indeed, Cocteau’s slogan now appears alongside Léger’s image on the DVD front cover for La Roue.1 Yet the earliest reference to this epigraph is an unreliable hagiography of Gance from 1959, which provides no source whatsoever â La Roue’s stamp of modernist approval may well be spurious.2
Some commentators now override the objections of Gance’s avant-garde colleagues. For Giovanni Dotoli, La Roue embodies “All the painting and all the literature of its era” (14-15). Likewise, Lucy Fischer isolates the most “modern” elements of La Roue (mechanization, psychology) to compare Gance with his established peers: Cendrars, Eisenstein, Freud, Léger, Marinetti, Munsterberg, Dziga Vertov (189-211). Yet this roster is in marked contrast to the authors cited by Gance in La Roue’s intertitles: Baudelaire, Cendrars, Claudel, D’Annunzio, Hugo, Khayyam, Kipling, Sophocles â and in the various editions of the film’s screenplay, which add Byron, Chamfort, Hamp, Pascal, Poe, Shelley, Tasso, Wilde, and Zola to this bibliography.3 Indeed, despite the pioneering visual experimentation of his work, early critics more frequently compared Gance with writers than with filmmakers: Balzac, Hugo, D’Annunzio, and Rostand were common reference points. The “subtlety and richness” of his creations (not to mention their sheer size) expanded the horizons of the seventh art: “Gance did for cinema what Proust did for the novel” (Dutourd 7).
While recent scholars often associate La Roue with an intertextual array of modernist sympathies, this essay will explore neglected literary influences: Gabriele D’Annunzio, Victor Hugo, Rudyard Kipling. I am interested in these figures precisely (perhaps perversely) because of their unfashionability within modern cultural studies. Appreciation for prodigious expressive talent is frequently outweighed by embarrassment at their ideological romanticism (Hugo), nationalism (D’Annunzio), or imperialism (Kipling). Even Gance’s contemporaries (both left- and right-wing) viewed these writers as symptoms of an outmoded sensibility. For Maurice Bardèche and Robert Brasillach in 1935, the idea that this filmmaker was “another D’Annunzio” or a maker of “Hugolian” films signalled Gance’s “total absence of critical sense and even of intelligence” (242-43).
If this cultural milieu was already becoming out-of-date in the 1920s, today it is in danger of being obscured entirely. No complete print of La Roue now exists, while Gance’s quotations fluctuate across surviving copies; even with extratextual evidence from archives, the text of La Roue is liable to exceed any effort to grasp its totality.4 (Indeed, not all the titles I discuss here feature in the forthcoming restoration by the Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé, which conforms to the general release edition of 1923). Paper evidence for these literary aspects can be as elusive as lost celluloid. Gance met D’Annunzio while performing in his plays and befriended Kipling in the hope of adapting his work, yet scant written correspondence between them survives â and none is published. The nature of artistic influence thus becomes subterranean, a notion Gance readily acknowledged. Though the poet died four years prior to the filmmaker’s birth, Gance felt so strongly connected to Hugo that he considered it a case of literal “reincarnation” (Brownlow, “Napoleon” 24).
Room must be made in the critical imagination for these expurgated and esoteric dimensions of artistic affinity. Accordingly, this article does not so much seek to trace documentary links between artists as to follow the echoes of thought and method across their work. I suggest how various forms of reading and writing are vital aspects of La Roue and seek to highlight overlooked elements of adaptation and intertextuality. As Gance told Jean Mitry in 1923, the relationship between film and literature was based on a sense of emotional and intellectual communion:
Before making an exclusively visual work, I sought to demonstrate the rapport of the “image-text” â in other words, to prove the way images radiate around these quotations.
As a diamond takes in light while its every surface scintillates, so these citations imply and confer different aspects â irradiating their power through the images that gleam around them (“Abel Gance” 8).
Signatures: The Author Within the Text
The necessity for an intertextual reading of La Roue is apparent from its very first image: a handwritten note on paper, signed by Gance, dedicating the film to “la mémoire de ma chère jeune femme, née Ida Danis, morte à vingt-sept ans.” We are invited to read “femme” as “wife,” and Gance’s phrasing oddly implies Ida died under his own name; she did not, for they never married. Yet the filmmaker’s personal loss during the production of La Roue was familiar to his audience, having been widely publicized in the press. Not only did Gance lose his fiancée, but also his close friend Séverin-Mars and his adoptive father Adolphe Gance. In a funeral address for Séverin-Mars, Gance read out a letter he claimed that the actor’s ghost had deposited on his desk in a ray of sunlight;5 his speech compared a memory-laden brain with a necropolis in which the dead “dig their graves” â La Roue was a mystical medium through which the deceased and the living could converse (“Inauguration” 4). Gance was following a path laid by D’Annunzio who, after his experiences during the Great War, regarded himself as “the firstborn of the dead;” literature was a vessel in which author and departed coexisted:
Week after week I live with the dead; my life dies and is restored in them; I lie low alongside them, or raise myself on my elbows to recognize them â to examine them â to re-experience them â or simply to encompass them in my arms (Per l’Italia 398).
In private, Gance obsessively memorialized Ida’s name in his manuscript notebooks and addressed her as if she were still alive; publicly, the published screenplays of Napoléon (1927) and La Fin du Monde (1931) and his autobiography Prisme (1930) all begin with written epitaphs to her. Paper is a fragile bearer of identity throughout La Roue. The only evidence of Norma’s parentage is a manuscript letter that Sisif burns; Elie discovers the truth when he finds a family record book in which Norma’s name is absent. This document also reveals connections between author and characters: the fictional Sisif shares his birthday (25 October) with Gance. Prophetically, Gabriel de Gravone (as Elie) resembles Gance in his youth while Séverin-Mars (as Sisif) eerily resembles Gance in old age. (Contemporaneously, the filmmaker considered adopting the creative pseudonym “Elie Flamme” (“Carnets” 8: [Oct.?] 1919).) Later in La Roue, both siblings hide illicit correspondence inside a violin and the discovery of their papers leads to Elie’s murder.
Gance’s private life was likewise mediated on paper. The woman who began translating the screenplay of La Roue into English was Helen Pollock, a “sweet American girl with the soul of a dragonfly” whom Gance met in New York â and became his first amorous temptation after Ida (“Carnets” 10: n.d. [1921]). By the time La Roue premiered, he had wed Marguerite Danis â the sister of his late partner. Gance continued to make public tributes to Ida, leaving Marguerite painfully conscious of being a substitute for her dead sibling. In the wake of Marguerite’s suicide attempt in October 1930, the couple divorced. Though the press reported this personal crisis, Gance never discussed publicly any other tragedy than that of Ida. D’Annunzio more readily adapted his personal life: he fictionalized his wife’s attempted suicide in Il trionfo della morte (1894); his relationship with Eleonora Duse is laid bare in Il fuoco (1900); his diarized account of an affair with Giuseppina Mancini that ended in her insanity was published partially in the novel Forse che sÃ, forse che no (1910) and wholly in the memoir Solus ad Solum (1939).
Kipling was famously reticent to acknowledge deep emotional trauma, though quick to adapt it for his fiction. His destructive infatuation with Flo Garrard is entirely absent from the posthumous autobiography Something of Myself (1937), whose text was completed by Kipling’s widow. Yet the experience shaped The Light that Failed (1891), a morbid tale of unrequited love: in his youth Dick falls for Maisie, a fellow orphan; after a successful career as a war artist, Dick reencounters Maisie â who still rejects his love; Dick then descends into bitterness, blindness, and eventual death on a remote battlefield. The novel’s mixture of heterosexual obsession, suggested homoeroticism (Dick and his comrade Torpenhow, Maisie and her roommate), and emotional irresolution clearly appealed to Gance â whose work frequently features the same themes. Gance began negotiations through Pathé to film an adaptation, and in November 1919 he stayed with the author’s family at Burwash. Discussing The Light that Failed, Gance “startled” Kipling by telling him that Maisie was a lesbian â identifying the truth about Garrard’s sexuality long before modern biographers confirmed it (Brownlow, “Rudyard Kipling” 30). Soon after leaving Burwash, Gance embarked upon La Roue â another tale of orphanhood, unrequited love, and blindness. As well as these broad similarities, Gance reworks curious details from Kipling’s novel: both Maisie and Norma own a pet goat, while during their sightless isolation Dick and Sisif are accompanied by faithful dogs (Binkie and Tobie, respectively). Furthermore, Dick’s final painting is a “Melancholia” â inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s last poem, “Annabel Lee” (1849), another fictionalized account of personal grief. Gance deeply admired “Annabel Lee,” and its theme of post mortem obsession clearly resonated after the death of Ida Danis.
On this theme, Gance’s book Prisme mimics the two-part structure of Victor Hugo’s poetry collection Les Contemplations (1856): a “before” and “after,” separated by the death of the author’s beloved. Like Hugo, Gance was concerned with the universality of fate. The opening quotation in La Roue’s first episode is from Les Contemplations, the preface of which insists on the connection between Hugo’s tragedy and that of his readers: “My life is yours, your life is mine, you exist as I exist; fatality is indivisible” (1: ii). The credit sequence of La Roue likewise imprints its author’s presence: Gance appears first as written signature, then in two cross-dissolved shots of himself gazing out at the viewer. In this haunting prelude, he is superimposed over the smoky environment of railyards â his semi-transparent face aesthetically inseparable from the texture of his filmic world (see Figure 1). Is the fiction emerging from its creator or is the creator dissolving into the fiction? Hugo’s artwork also played with the visual relationship between author and world; in the calling cards he designed, his name merges with the amorphous, inky landscape it inhabits. The illustrations he created for his novel Les Travailleurs de la mer (1866) include a frontispiece in which his name is part of the fiction’s precipitous ocean landscape (see Figure 2). Rather than the permanence of authorial identity, Hugo’s image propels his signature towards dissolution and darkness. For Gance as for Hugo, the author is as fatalistically ephemeral as his protagonists.
Fate: The Impulse and Influence of Texts
While The Light that Failed provided Gance with elements of dramatic plot, Kipling’s novel Kim (1901) offered a philosophical framework for his protagonists’ destiny â the “wheel” as symbol of mankind’s perpetual enslavement by worldly desire. The moral backbone of this narrative is the pilgrimage of an elderly Lama to Buddhism’s holiest sites. As he explains to his young apprentice: “I go to free myself from the Wheel of Things by a most broad and open road” (Kipling, Kim 13). Removing all contextual information other than Kipling’s name, La Roue cites these words immediately before Sisif attempts suicide â the most pessimistic way of interpreting the original passage. At the end of the film’s prologue (as Sisif ruminates on his decision to adopt Norma), Gance quotes the Lama’s remark on hearing an old soldier describing his sons joining the army: “And they likewise, bound upon the Wheel, go forth from life to life â from despair to despair” (76). The parallel to La Roue is apt, since Elie will grow to follow his father’s destructive psychological path. Gance’s quotations commentate on characters’ actions in the same way as Kipling’s Lama: “all Desire is illusion and a new binding upon the Wheel” (174).
Yet La Roue frequently strays from the Buddhistic resignation of Kipling’s novel to the violent fatalism of D’Annunzio â a clear (if critically unacknowledged) influence on Gance. The dramatic core of La Roue is evident in the filmmaker’s early (unrealized) stage dramas, works that mimic the darker impulses of D’Annunzian tragedy: Les Traîneurs de nuages (1913-18) concerns homosexuality and romantic rivalry between father and son; La Voix du sang (1914-15) depicts a father’s jealousy over the incestuous relations of his estranged son and daughter, climaxing in a massive conflagration. La Roue alludes to and quotes directly from D’Annunzio’s play La città morta (1898), sharing its explicit references to Greek tragedy and taboo-breaking desire. D’Annunzio’s play opens with a character reciting Sophocles’ Antigone to her blind companion and is set during an excavation of the mythical Atreides royal family tomb. Several intertitles in La Roue cite Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Gance described Sisif as an “Oedipus of the railroad,” a figure “caught by an ancient force of Fate ... in a mechanical medium” (qtd. in Rivolet 4).
Both La città morta and La Roue hinge on intimate confessions. In a gloomy interior scene in D’Annunzio’s drama, Leonardo reveals to Alessandro that he has fallen in love with his own sister. His recollections come in a broken flurry of words and images: the sleeping Maria’s naked feet “coloured by the flames” of the hearth; the waking “monster” within him; the “infamous dreams” his sister inspires; the “torture” of insomnia in the bedroom that adjoins hers; the fear of committing a “crime” in his delirium; restless eyelids like “fire upon fire.” The act ends with Leonardo and Alessandro standing side-by-side at the window, silently gazing across a landscape, which is “scattered by fires that light up the extraordinarily calm and pure evening” (La città morta 157-66). In La Roue, Sisif’s lengthy confession to Hersan takes place in the shadowy interior of his railyard home, illumined only by firelight. Though titles offer occasional excerpts of his long speech, their content is relayed visually: Sisif’s memories flood across the screen with the fusillade grammar of Gance’s rapid montage â a rhythmic equivalent of his turbulent thoughts.6 Like Leonardo, the first flicker of forbidden desire is woken by the sight of Norma’s bare feet and legs â isolated in repeated close-ups.7 Sisif’s eyes are ringed by the shadows of insomnia, and (again like Leonardo) he recounts his nighttime vigils outside Norma’s bedroom and the barricades he erects to keep himself downstairs. As in D’Annunzio’s scene, at the end of the confession Sisif and Hersan go to the window and look over a twilit landscape punctuated by smoke. Later in La Roue, Gance quotes directly from D’Annunzio’s confession scene. Two cross-dissolved intertitles interrupt the familial reunion of Elie and Norma: Gance uses Leonardo’s words to suggest the corruption of Elie’s feelings for his “sister” â everything within him “becomes poison and contamination” (156-57).
Gance and D’Annunzio infuse the modern settings of their fiction with notions of ancient destiny. Paolo Tarsis, the pioneering aviator of D’Annunzio’s Forse che sÃ, is referred to as the “builder of wings” and linked to Icarus; named after Sisyphus, Sisif calls himself “the man of the wheel.” D’Annunzio interviewed pilots to glean precise technical terms for his novel, yet he felt that archaic Roman terms were more evocative for twentieth-century machinery â he even tried to get the industry to adopt his own vocabulary. Gance filmed La Roue on location in the railyards of Nice, cast real mechanics as extras, and screened extracts to rail workers to get feedback on the film’s accuracy. Yet during production, he changed his title from the realist slang of “Les Gueules Noires” to the sentimental “La Rose du Rail,” before settling on the symbolic “La Roue.”
Per the oedipal love-triangle in La Roue, in Forse che sà Paolo’s lover Isabella is having an affair with her brother Aldo â the revelation of incest ultimately drives her insane. D’Annunzio also uses Gance’s central image of destiny, describing “the profound wheel” to which the “secret lives” of his characters are “tied” (123). Forse che sà discusses medieval “breaking wheels” and Gance’s film integrates this image within the design of its intertitles (see Figure 3). Paolo’s brotherly co-pilot Giulio tells Vanina that an Indonesian fortune-teller prophesized a garland of roses would be the emblem of his fate. Giulio takes the rose Vanina is wearing with him on his flight, but he crashes and is killed.8 After a fatal train crash, Sisif finds the orphaned infant Norma under a rose bush â a flower caught in her dress. For Giulio, Vanina is the “rose of the sky”; for Sisif, Norma becomes the “rose of the rail”.9
Like Aldo in Forse che sÃ, Elie is an artistically-inclined youth who uses his creativity to seduce. For Norma, he conjures a vision of the Arcadian world in which he wants to live â and imagines being married to “a woman as beautiful as you.” Through a slow dissolve, Gance transforms Elie into a renaissance luthier â and the film’s tinting switches from blank-and-white to rose, as if the mise-en-scène was itself becoming stained glass. When Elie opens his window, he now looks out onto a terraced garden in which Norma has become a robed maiden with a dove perched on her hand. Gance’s scene exactly matches the transformation provoked by the words of Aldo in Forse che sÃ. He and his sister Isabella stand looking through a window over a ruined villa, and they mentally recreate the palace around them: a renaissance fantasy in which Isabella is married to Aldo. As this verbal fantasy leads to the siblings’ shared vision of wearing archaic finery, so the gothic font of Elie’s spoken desires presages a visual realization of their content: scripture provokes imagery.
Mise-en-scène: The Language of Images
Though both Gance and D’Annunzio attracted criticism for their verbosity, each sought to surpass the expressive restrictions of language. Gance sought to escape culture’s “worn-out parables” and castigated words as “the Judases of our kingdom” (Prisme 372). He believed that “the ineffable we feel inside ourselves” lay beyond “even our loftiest verbiage:” words “deformed” their intended meaning, accruing “an embellished poetic value which kills their essential value” (68-9). D’Annunzio envisaged a new means of communication successfully expressing the soul’s relationship with the universe: “by giving words unforeseen destinies and by empowering analogies with revelation,” future artists “will make us feel how our spirit is constantly generated, expanded, perpetuated, transfigured by its countless contacts with other spirits and with the mystery of our surroundings” (Libro segreto 160). He imagined an alternative way of reading â or listening â to reality:
the most secret communion of the soul with things can only be grasped here, when we pause; these are the words of silence. the most precise and subtle page of introspection appears coarse and false if we examine it not by the light of intelligence but by the warmth of feeling, seeking to look beneath the falsifying sheen of our habitual verbiage. (159)
For D’Annunzio, the superior artist would act as a kind of translator of the invisible: “Everything speaks to me, everything is a sign for me to read. in all things there is a will to revelation: a will to speak, as in poetry. the fortuitous alignment of objects generates a hermetic scripture” (299). Likewise, Gance believed “the language of silence” would enable humans to communicate with the animate universe around them, and allied this definition with film: “cinema is the translation of the invisible world by the visible world” (“La Cinématographie” 11).
La Roue embodies exactly the kind of sign-filled, poetic reality of which D’Annunzio writes. The mise-en-scène frequently seems sentient, visually remembering and commenting upon the characters and their plight. After Norma has left home, Sisif hides her old clothes in a chest beneath the stairs; his furtive return to this cache of mementoes is interrupted when one of Elie’s violins inexplicably falls from a hook on the wall above him. Startled, he stashes the chest and departs. Elie later appears and retrieves the chest; another violin falls from the wall, and, during his own examination of Norma’s clothes, a vision of Sisif appears in superimposition to threaten him. Achieved by re-exposing the negative in-camera, superimposition allows two separate planes of time to coexist: the frame is invaded by that which is absent. With oppressive regularity, and in a remarkable variety of forms, the past haunts the present in La Roue. Sisif forbids any mention of Norma’s name, yet its text appears in ghostly superimposition in their room â ominously looming in the space between father and son (see Figure 4). Even after the word fades into nothingness, a subsequent scene shows a vision of Norma appearing in Elie’s window. He first tries to shoo it away, next to obscure it behind a curtain, and finally to bury it with his cloak â but the layering of celluloid cannot be undone, and he runs away from the indelible record of Norma’s face.
Such readable forms are all-pervasive within La Roue. After introducing each human character through a facial close-up, the film’s credit sequence shows close-ups of mechanical characters: signals, trains, wheels, rails. After titles (absent from many prints) announcing the “Chanson des Rails” and “Chanson des Roues,” there is an elaborate montage of the railyard’s moving mechanisms: inanimate surroundings brought to life through moving images. Furthermore, Gance’s mise-en-scène is perpetually filled with circular forms, asserting the omniscient presence of the symbolic “wheel.” Objective reality becomes subjectively informed; the images of wheels are repeated so often that they come to haunt the imaginations of audience and characters. Kipling uses repeated images for a similar purpose in The Light that Failed; here, the “wrathful red disc” of twilight caught upon a puddle (14) reappears as the “savage red disc” of the sun glimpsed in the desert (33) â and fiery, circular images later haunt Dick’s descent into blindness: “flaming commas and Catherine-wheels floated inside the lids” while “weaving circles and floating pin-heads before his eyes” (200-01). Through extensive color stencilling, Gance realizes the red discs of rail signals in La Roue â and, like Kipling, he fills Sisif’s deteriorating eyes with a dizzying array of circular hallucinations (see Figure 5).
Many of Gance’s intertitles superimpose their text over live action images, transforming the screen into an animate page. Acting as visual voiceovers, they also present the possibility of voices appearing scripturally from within the filmic world. Sisif not only talks to his train engine, but it replies â its words superimposed over jets of steam or clouds of smoke (see Figure 6). Under the assumption that the apparition of these words represents human “delusion,” Kristin Thompson judges this scene “unintentionally risible:”
it comes across as if the train is suddenly talking out loud. In a sound film it’s easy to understand that a sound can originate subjectively in the mind of a character. People don’t, however, tend to imagine sounds as written words!
On the contrary, it is my understanding that the train is talking to Sisif; its words appear in superimposition because cinema allows objects to speak â metaphorically and literally â through celluloid.
Though many have cited the influence on La Roue of Emile Zola’s La Bête humaine (1890) and Pierre Hamp’s Le rail (1912), the detailed naturalism of these texts lacks the spiritual dimension so central to Gance’s film. In La Bête humaine, the engine driver Jacques Lantier regards his locomotive “La Lison” with quasi-sexual longing; yet while Zola hints at the manmade personality of this machine, he never gives (literal) voice to the train. La Roue has more in common with Kipling’s short story “.007” (1897), which features dialogue spoken by a company of trains. Remarkable apparitions of non-human voices also occur in Kipling’s tale “The Bridge-Builders” (1893), where animal avatars of Brahman gods discuss the construction of a modern railway bridge â and in The Light that Failed, where the sea-poppy associated with the memory of Maisie reappears in the form of a rose that “nodded its head as one who knew unutterable secrets” (243). In La Roue, garden flowers greet Norma with individual cries of “Bonjour!” and bid her “Au revoir!” when she leaves. Gance followed the example of Hugo, whose Les Contemplations features numerous examples of animistic dialogue. In one poem, a churchyard statue and a songbird happily greet each other “Bonjour!” in another, a tree issues a spoken diatribe against the prospect of being felled to make a scaffold (1: 191-93, 307-09). The collection climaxes in a visionary lecture delivered by “the shadow’s mouth,” revealing that the material universe is entirely filled with souls â humankind is only one instance of consciousness (2: 347-84). For these authors, page and screen do not simply document the natural surface of reality but unearth and give voice to its inner life.
Erasure: The Life and Death of Text
In his poem “Le bien germe parfois,” Hugo suggests that inspiration comes unbidden from some unconscious source: “I feel compelled to write all these things/ Which seem, upon the fawn and trembling parchment,/ To issue sinisterly from the shadow of my hand” (Toute la lyre 65). Indeed, Graham Robb claims that Hugo’s “greatest contribution” to modern literature was:
the revelation that words were creatures with a life of their own, that to write a poem was not to go shopping for the best verbal approximation to a known reality, but to engage in a mysterious collaboration, to invent a new reality. (538)
This “mysterious collaboration” between creator and creation was also the subject of Gance’s Prisme (originally entitled “Moi”) and D’Annunzio’s Libro segreto (whose full title translates as “The hundred and hundred and hundred and hundred pages of the secret book of Gabriele D’Annunzio who is tempted to die”). Both works collate a lifetime of private notebooks for public readership; each book acts as a container for the assembly of fragmentary thoughts â the material equivalent of their authors’ bodily vessels. The tonal peculiarity of D’Annunzio’s Libro segreto is rendered scripturally in its absence of upper-case letters within paragraphs; it is as if some aspect of narratorial presence has been surrendered or lost. Beginning with a pseudonymous account of its author’s death, the Libro segreto perpetually returns to the image of writing and erasure. In one passage, D’Annunzio records himself examining a glass goblet: watching the light it projects across the page on which he translates its qualities into prose, marvelling at the vessel’s shadow mingling with that of his hand. The stem suddenly breaks and cuts his flesh, but D’Annunzio continues to write as his page is ensanguined:
The blood drops are like seeds spilled from the fertility of my spirit: beyond symbols, beyond space, beyond time; they vanish into the world’s inexistence, into the immateriality of creatures born and unborn, into the discordance of signs which neither reveal nor conceal themselves. (Libro segreto 34-6)
As this abstract yet intimate passage suggests, D’Annunzio was obsessed with the materials of literature: he evokes “my way of putting aside the written page, taking care that the last line â still wet with ink â doesn’t stain me with blood; the thrilling pause as i select a fresh white sheet to blacken” (lxxvi). The paper, printing, binding, and typeface of his books were as important as their written content. D’Annunzio was especially fond of red ink, and the more elaborate first editions of his plays boast splashes of colored text and linework (see Figure 7). Gance would follow suit in the promotional materials for film premieres, which were as elaborate as D’Annunzio’s first editions (see Figure 8).
The photographic printing and chemical coloring of celluloid was likewise essential. La Roue features an array of delicate color stencilling: roses blooming red against yellow firelight, lamps gleaming gold in the dark, white snow stained with blood drops. One of the film’s opening shots shows a painted signal over which is superimposed an arm raised in strange concordance â the hand parting the quivering yellow pigment with eerie power. This curious scene presages the later image of Sisif’s hand as a screen bearing the tragic path of his life (see Figure 9). Gance recorded personal instances of coincidence and déjà vu: “Your ultimate words will seize your hand to beg you to write them down. Why is your hand today a supplicant for words?” (“Carnets” 5: 16 Oct. 1917) He believed that ideas could arrive on “psychic waves” projecting from the dead or as “memories of the future” echoing from a predestined posterity (Prisme 65, 124). Though Kipling was reticent to acknowledge these kinds of “psychical experiences,” in Something of Myself, he relates a dream that exactly presaged an event at a memorial service for the war dead; the author wondered why he had “been shown an unreleased roll of my life-film” (215-17).
For D’Annunzio, the memory of death was likewise a trigger to intense self-examination. After witnessing the final moments of a friend, he sat down to write:
In the circle of lamplight, I laid my hands on the paper to examine them. ⦠[I]t seemed to me that they lived a life of their own â that they did not belong to me. I raised them and looked at them against the light: they trembled a little, and a red line flared between my grip. I felt pity, then pride. On the thumb, index, and middle finger, my recent labour had deepened the signature of the pen. (D’Annunzio, Contemplazione della morte 92-3)
D’Annunzio found hands perpetually fascinating and his autobiographical works frequently ruminate on bodily deterioration. In his Libro segreto, he describes “the far-off, funereal bearing of my hands. the intensity of their poses: like severed hands that you can know neither by their character nor by their rapport with the owner (presumably deceased)” (118). The author’s fantasy is an appendage that survives without the trunk that carried it in life. D’Annunzio relates a dream in which he undertakes “a fantastic voyage in an airplane that i design to function on land and at sea”; what begins comically as a kind of Georges Méliès film becomes disturbingly surreal, as the craft morphs into his creative organ: “my hand is freed from arms, from torso, from body; it is alone â unique. it rises with my desperate courage toward the sky, like a constellation of five stars” (414-18).
All these images of uncanny creation map the act of writing onto the author’s body: their mutual dependence is both generative and erosive. The first chapter of Hugo’s Les Travailleurs de la mer is called “A Word written on a blank page” and concerns the hero’s name traced in snow â its ephemeral form slowly melting into nothingness, as he himself vanishes into the waves in the final chapter. If the text is a fragile embodiment of identity, so the idea of a blank page is a foreboder of death. This is true for authors as for protagonists. As I discussed earlier, the image of Gance at the start of La Roue positions the author somewhere in-between emergence and disappearance. Physical loss and artistic creativity is a recurrent theme in Gance’s work: the blind poet of his (unrealized) play Homère (1914), the deaf composer and blind singer in his films Un Grand amour de Beethoven (1936) and La Vénus aveugle (1941). Thanks to their extreme length and intricate montage, the labor of editing La Roue and Napoléon caused Gance retinal damage â a cinematic signature akin to D’Annunzio’s imprinted hand.
The wider landscapes of fiction are also sites of textual transubstantiation. In Kipling’s Kim, the Lama repeatedly longs for the isolated splendour of “my Hills,” the Himalayas: “Thus should a man abide, perched above the world, separated from delights, considering vast matters.” (359) The final intertitles of La Roue feature black text on a plain white background â the design is relieved not only from the wheel-wrack motif that marks most captions in La Roue, but from all worldly reference. Visual blankness answers Sisif’s rhetorical question to his dog Tobie: “is the wheel is still turning⦠up there?” The white design of Gance’s final titles reflects their subject: “Sisif came to leave this life as a ray of sunlight abandons a window at dusk”; “As Sisif’s soul freed itself, one of its shadowed wings caressed again the carefree young Norma as she continued within the Wheel.” Though this written description can seem awkward (particularly in English), its imagery undeniably enhances the subsequent live-action shot: here, we see the shadows of clouds gliding across the snow-covered plateau of Mont Blanc where Norma dances in a communal ronde. Thanks to the preceding text, this sublime natural image bears greater human significance. At the moment of death, Sisif is absorbed by the landscape within the frame and by the transformative medium of celluloid â where all phenomena are passing light and shadow.
The image of a material body passing from substance, through representation, to nothingness is the subject of Kipling’s short story “Mrs Bathurst” (1904). Glimpsing the eponymous woman in a documentary film, a character describes her disappearance from the screen: “she melted out of the picture ⦠like a shadow jumpin’ over a candle” (356); later, they report the discovery of two corpses (one of which may be Mrs Bathurst) that are “burned to charcoal,” the tattoos on their desiccated flesh rendered just as “writing shows up white on a burned letter” (366-67). Kipling’s disturbingly ambiguous tale suggests that like the corpus of fiction, human bodies are impermanent texts. Reflecting autobiographically on the notion of celluloid as a fragile vessel for memory, Gance wrote: “Modern iconoclast, I submit each of my images into the holocaust of its successor so that each one burns the last â just as my idea of tomorrow will burn the one that now dictates this letter to me” (“Carnets” 16: 29 June 1924). The final black-on-white intertitles of La Roue evocatively recall the ink and paper of Gance’s opening dedication. The last shot slowly dissolves from a distant view of Sisif’s inert body to the image of a pale curtain: this unimprinted surface is a veil between the viewer and another reality. La Roue is thus bookended by potent instances of what Gance called “image-text;” the border between presence and absence â life and death â is mysteriously embodied by an empty screen that echoes a blank page. Life passes; writing is erased.
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No need to be a Christian to appreciate Jesus of Montreal (Denys Arcand, 1989)!
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[
"Virginie Pronovost"
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2020-03-06T00:00:00
|
It seems like it's been ages since I've written anything for a blogathon! Luckily, March is a month that has a lot of them in reserve, the perfect way for me to get back in business. And one of these blogathons is one of my very favourites; the O Canada Blogathon hosted by two amazing…
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en
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The Wonderful World of Cinema
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https://thewonderfulworldofcinema.wordpress.com/2020/03/06/no-need-to-be-a-christian-to-appreciate-jesus-of-montreal-denys-arcand-1989/
|
It seems like it’s been ages since I’ve written anything for a blogathon! Luckily, March is a month that has a lot of them in reserve, the perfect way for me to get back in business. And one of these blogathons is one of my very favourites; the O Canada Blogathon hosted by two amazing ladies, Ruth from Silver Screenings and Kristina from Speakeasy. After having told you about Glenn Ford’s hometown, actor Paul Dupuis, my favourite Quebecker film, C.R.A.Z.Y., I’m back with one of my best discoveries of 2019: Jesus of Montreal (Jésus de Montréal, Denys Arcand, 1989) that I watched for the first time last Fall.
Jésus de Montréal is a film I had heard of long before seeing it, especially because Denys Arcand is one of our best-reputed movie directors here in Quebec but also internationally. He won several awards, including the Oscar for Best Foreign film in 2004 for The Barbarian Invasions (Les Invasions Barbares, 2003). Among his most successful films are also The Decline of the American Empire (Le Déclin de l’empire américain, 1986), Days of Darkness (L’âge des ténèbres, 2007), and today’s subject, Jésus de Montréal. With that being said, the film in question had never really been on my to-see list. Not because I didn’t want to see it, but mostly because there are a ton of great films to see and this one wasn’t necessarily among my priorities. It’s thanks to my parents that I actually decided to watch it. They caught it on television last summer and sort of realized what a great film it was. Anyway, they sold it to me perfectly, and I then made sure to watch it as soon as possible.
Jésus de Montréal takes place… In Montreal (!) and tells the story of a group of actors who are in charge of staging a play on Jesus’s crucifixion. A Catholic priest, Father Leclerc (Gilles Pelletier), hires young actor, Daniel Coulombe (Lothaire Bluteau) to modernize the Passion play that had been presented at the sanctuary for more than 30 years. Daniel is to play Jesus, but he needs more actors to help him re-write the play and incarnate the various biblical characters. He finds them within various milieux. One of them is Constance (Johanne-Marie Tremblay), a graduated from the theatre conservatory, like Daniel and who has appeared in the play before. Martin (Rémy Girard) does dubbing for porn movies. René (Robert Lepage) narrates projections at what might be Montreal’s Planetarium (it’s never said explicitly), and Mireille (Catherine Wilkening), is a young French actress whom, so far, mostly had success playing sexy girls in TV commercials but who will prove the worlds she’s worth better than that. The play is successfully attended by an attentive public but doesn’t please Father Leclerc. The thing is, Daniel and his friends might have modernized it a little too much, by including arguments stipulating that Jesus was the son of a Roman soldier and other surprising theories.
The main reason why this film is brilliant is that one doesn’t need to be Christian or believe in any gods or religions to appreciate it. I’m the living proof! It’s not a religious film like the ones people watch during Easter. It’s just a film using one of the oldest stories ever told to build around it a rich development. Jésus de Montréal is a film with a lot of sensibility, symbolism (the connection between Daniel Coulombe and Jesus himself become, at one point, quite strong), and undeniable humour. It successfully explores the emotional extremes, the tragic and the comic, resulting in a captivating viewing. The film combines the actor’s life in 1989 as well as scenes from the Passion of the Christ re-enacted by those actors. The reason why they manage to attract such a public is not only because they re-interpreted it, but also because they know how to use their talents to tell a story in a surprising way even tho pretty much everybody knows how it ends. They write a play that gives a lot of nuances to historical facts and, therefore, makes it credible since,it’s true that it is difficult to know exactly what happened more than 2000 years ago, even with the numerous advancements in science and technology.
And Jésus de Montréal is also a film giving us a beautiful lesson of friendship and compassion. Those five actors are here for each other from the beginning until the end. They share Contance’s place and support each other during difficult moments and share their joys during happy ones. Daniel Coulombe remains at the centre of this quintet, and it’s perhaps because of him that they all become better persons. Like Jesus, he guides them without having to make a lot of efforts. He’s a rich character who sees people for more than what they are. One of the best examples would be this scene where he accompanies Mireille to an audition for a beer commercial. Before starting her audition, the crew members ask her to remove her pants and her top so they can see her body. Mireille has forgotten to bring a bikini and doesn’t wear anything underneath her sweater. She believes that she has no choices if she wants to be cast for the commercial, but Daniel begs her not to do that. He knows that she’s worth better than that, especially since she was able to prove it during the first representation of the Passion play. Enraged after those who exploit her, he gets into a violent rage and destroys the set. And, as much as the damages are big, they kind of deserved it. At the trial, he refuses to be represented by a lawyer and pleads guilty because he’s able to assume his acts. That’s wisdom for you.
Jésus de Montréal also remains particularly memorable for its casting. Indeed, it regroups a bunch of famous and highly talented Quebecer actors in the main roles or smaller ones: Lothaire Bluteau, Johanne-Marie Tremblay, Rémy Girard, Robert Lepage, Gilles Pelletier (who, interestingly, also played a priest in Hitchcock’s I Confess (1953)!), Yves Jacques, Claude Léveillé, Marcel Sabourin, Paule Baillargeon, Véronique LeFlaguais, Monique Miller, Pauline Martin, Gaston Lepage, Marc Messier, Andrée Lachapelle, Roy Dupuis, etc. You might be familiar or not with this bunch of actors, but I can assure you that’s what we call an all-star cast. And Denys Arcand has always been great for those.
If I can tell a little life anecdote… As you know, I used to work in a movie theatre in Montreal and on some occasions, I had the chance to see some of these actors. I saw Rémy Girard twice and was very intimidated as he is one of my favourite actors. I saw Yves Jacques twice as well, and he seems to be a very adorable person.
The screenplay was also brilliantly executed, not only because Denys Arcand knew how to use a biblical story and make it attractive for anybody, but also simply for being worthy of the best cinema that we make here in Quebec. I love how it caricatures all types of people, one of the best examples probably being the radio columnists and TV hosts played by Pauline Martin, Véronique LeFlaguais and Jean-Louis Millette. They are always so emotional and uses the exact same words to prove that they know how to appreciate art. We can also think of this couple of conspirators who tell Martin and René about their numerous encounters with Jesus, a very amusing scene due to the contrast between the spiritual and quite zany couple and the more down-to-Earth comedians. It’s a film with too many memorable scenes to name them all.
Jésus de Montréal was shot on location, in Montreal, using the best of its institutions, including Churches, the luminous interior used for Constance’s house, and the archive library. Interestingly, the city is often shown in a bird-eyes point of you which sort of symbolizes God’s gaze on the world. (1)
The film also features a beautiful score conducted by Jean-Marie Benoît, François Dompierre and Yves Laferrière.
On its release, Jésus de Montréal was an important critical success. Not only it was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards, but also at the BAFTA Awards and the Golden Globes. It won and was nominated for several awards at the Genie Awards and won two awards at Cannes Film Festival.
If you have never seen this film, the good news is that it’s available on YouTube with English subtitles! It’s not one of those Quebecer films that might be hard to seize for international audiences so, give yourself a favour and don’t wait too long before seeing it! It’s not HD quality, but it’s pretty fair!
And, hopefully, my review, as well as this trailer, will encourage you to watch it.
Many thanks to Kristina and Ruth for hosting this long-awaited event and for allowing me to discuss the memorable film that Jésus de Montréal is. It’s always a pleasure for me to make my fellow bloggers discover films and actors from the beautiful province of Quebec!
Make sure to read the other entries:
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Wrap-Up
See you!
Sources:
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Festival de Cannes
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2023-03-11T11:16:06+00:00
|
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Festival de Cannes
|
https://www.festival-cannes.com/p/isabelle-dedieu-2/
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1028
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| 15
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https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/jesus-of-montrealjesus-de-montreal
|
en
|
Jésus de Montréal (Jesus of Montreal)
|
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Denys Arcand’s Jésus de Montréal is a provocative satire about an actor whose life increasingly comes to resemble that of Jesus during a production of the P...
|
en
|
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/jesus-of-montrealjesus-de-montreal
|
Background
The seed for the idea of Jésus de Montréal was planted during the making of Arcand’s previous film, Le déclin de l’empire américain. An actor who auditioned for a part in the film explained to Arcand that he had a full beard because he was playing Jesus in a production of the Passion Play, while also auditioning for commercials during the day. Arcand was struck by the contrast, and after finishing Le déclin he began writing a screenplay that explored the contradiction between spirituality and commercialism. “Consumerism may be the legacy of the eighties,” Arcand explained, “but there has got to be more to life than that. Jesus of Montréal is about a yearning for something else, a search for a sort of meaning."
Synopsis
Discouraged by waning public interest, theatre-loving Father Leclerc (Gilles Pelletier) decides to commission a more engaging and modernized version of the Passion Play for his church’s annual production. He hires an androgynously ethereal young actor named Daniel (Lothaire Bluteau), who conscripts an unlikely troupe of thespians (or disciples, as the allegory would have it) to bring the play to life. Martin (Rémy Girard) is working as a voice actor for porn movies; Constance (Johanne-Marie Tremblay) is having an affair with Father Leclerc; Mireille (Catherine Wilkening) stars in commercials that use her scantily-clad body to sell cosmetics; and René (Robert Lepage) is an eccentric actor who is determined to shoehorn Hamlet’s soliloquy into the production.
Their avant-garde performance, which makes use of Mount Royal as an outdoor theatre, incorporates new archaeological evidence and biblical translations, and presents literal interpretations of many of Christ’s teachings. The play dazzles the audience but offends Leclerc. As the Catholic Church attempts to shut it down, the parallels between Daniel’s actions and the life of Christ become increasingly direct, culminating in his outburst at one of Mireille’s auditions that mirrors Christ’s anger among the money-lenders. When he is fatally injured in the final performance, Daniel is taken to a local hospital and laid crucifixion-style on an operating table, where his organs are taken to literally give sight to the blind and health to the sick.
Analysis
Jésus de Montréal has the audacity to take institutional religion and spiritual questing seriously and still call itself a comedy. The device of history as a play within a film permits Denys Arcand to move seamlessly from one line of narrative continuity to another, so that eventually the film moves towards a unifying and credible answer to the implicit question: what would Jesus look like if he walked among us today?
Daniel (Bluteau) becomes so identified with the character of Jesus that the line between ancient narrative and the contemporary life in which he is deeply immersed becomes deliberately blurred. Daniel rails against crass corporate culture like Christ among the money-changers, cultivates a sublime asceticism and ultimately transforms the material world through his struggle and suffering. So it is that we see how life among troubled and searching actors in modern-day Montréal might be marked by halo-traces of a time-honoured story of death and rebirth. Jesus de Montréal is a brilliantly witty allegory for a commercial age in which doubt is not merely conceived as an antithesis to faith; it is the permanent fact of our postmodern condition.
Critical Reception
The movie received generally positive reviews upon its commercial release. The New York Times called it “intelligent and audacious,” and Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers said it was “a sharply perceptive satire of modern Christianity.” The Guardian called it “thought-provoking and wickedly funny,” while Time Out deemed it a “delicious satire on contemporary mores… a witty, free-wheeling variation on the Gospel of St Mark [that] is never constrained by allegorical schematism and manages to make deft, original swipes at a plethora of modern 'evils': media hype, advertising, hospital bureaucracy, and of course the hypocrisy of the religious establishment.”
Honours and Legacy
Jésus de Montréal is widely considered one of the best Canadian films ever made. It won two major prizes at the Cannes Film Festival and 12 Genie Awards, including best screenplay, director, actor and motion picture. It also won the Golden Reel Award as the highest-grossing Canadian film of the year and received nominations for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards, BAFTA Awards and Golden Globes. It was ranked in the top five in polls of the Top 10 Canadian films of all time conducted by the Toronto International Film Festival in 1993, 2004 and 2015, and No. 2 in a similar Playback readers’ poll in 2002.
In 2014, a restored print of the film had a special 25th anniversary screening in Paris. In 2016, it was named one of 150 essential works in Canadian cinema history by a poll of 200 media professionals conducted by TIFF, Library and Archives Canada, the Cinémathèque québécoise and The Cinematheque in Vancouver in anticipation of the Canada 150 celebrations in 2017.
See also: The Cinema of Québec; Canadian Feature Films.
Awards
1990 Genie Awards
Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design (François Séguin)
Best Achievement in Cinematography (Guy Dufaux)
Best Achievement in Costume Design (Louise Jobin)
Best Achievement in Film Editing (Isabelle Dedieu)
Best Achievement in Overall Sound (Jocelyn Caron, Hans Peter Strobl, Adrian Croll, Patrick Rousseau)
Best Achievement in Sound Editing (Diane Boucher, Marcel Pothier, Antoine Morin, Laurent Levy)
Best Music Score (Yves Laferrière)
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Rémy Girard)
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Lothaire Bluteau)
Best Original Screenplay (Denys Arcand)
Achievement in Direction (Denys Arcand)
Best Motion Picture (Roger Frappier, Pierre Gendron)
Golden Reel Award (Roger Frappier, Pierre Gendron)
Others
Jury Prize, Cannes Film Festival (1989)
Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, Cannes Film Festival (1989)
International Critics’ Award, Toronto International Film Festival (1989)
Top Foreign Films, National Board of Review, United States (1990)
Golden Space Needle Award, Seattle International Film Festival (1990)
|
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| 56
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https://research.ucalgary.ca/research/our-impact/research-awards
|
en
|
Research Awards
|
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2023-06-21T19:42:56
|
Meet UCalgary's celebrated researchers
|
en
|
/themes/ucalgary/ucws_theme/favicon.ico
|
Research at UCalgary
|
https://research.ucalgary.ca/research/our-impact/research-awards
|
KubesPaulCumming School of MedicineUniversity of CalgaryOrder of the University of Calgary2023MeddingsJonathan BasilCumming School of MedicineCollege of Physicians & Surgeons of AlbertaDr. Karen Mazurek Award of Professionalism2023LetourneauNicoleNursingRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2023DimitropoulosGeorginaSocial WorkRoyal Society of CanadaCollege of New Scholars2023CrossJamesVeterinary MedicineUniversity of CalgaryLecture of a Lifetime2023EmeryCarolynKinesiologyRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2023LoveJenniferScienceRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2023HarrisonJoeScienceRoyal Society of CanadaCollege of New Scholars2023FlanaganKylaScience3M Canada Inc.Teaching Award2023ThangaduraiVenkataramanScienceRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2023ChengYufeng (Frank)Schulich School of EngineeringRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2023GatesIan DonaldSchulich School of EngineeringCanadian Academy of EngineeringFellow2023GhannouchiFadhelSchulich School of EngineeringInstitute of Electrical and Electronics EngineersR.A. Fessenden Award2023JohnstonKimberlySchulich School of EngineeringDrexel UniversityELATES Fellow2023LeungHenrySchulich School of EngineeringIEEE CanadaOutstanding Engineer Award2023SinghMeeraSchulich School of EngineeringDrexel UniversityELATES Fellow2023SundararajUttandaramanSchulich School of EngineeringCanadian Academy of EngineeringFellow2023YanushkevichSvetlanaSchulich School of EngineeringDrexel UniversityELATES Fellow2023HodginsDavid CarsonArtsRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2023ArrietaMarieCumming School of MedicineRoyal Society of CanadaCollege of New Scholars2023DesyJaneveCumming School of MedicineCanadian Association for Medical EducationMeredith Marks Award2023BobawskyKirstenCumming School of MedicineRoyal Society of CanadaCollege of New Scholars2023Holroyd-LeducJaynaCumming School of MedicineAssociation of Faculties of Medicine of CanadaMay Cohen Award2023PatockaCatherineCumming School of MedicineAssociation of Faculties of Medicine of CanadaJohn Ruedy Award for Innovation in Medical Education2023PhillipsAaronCumming School of MedicineRoyal Society of CanadaCollege of New Scholars2023TonelliMarcelloCumming School of MedicineRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2023YongVoon WeeCumming School of MedicineAssociation of Faculties of Medicine of CanadaScientist Award2023ManskeSarahCumming School of MedicineCanadian Institutes of Health ResearchCIHR-IMHA Inclusive Research Excellence Prizes2023SchneiderPrismCumming School of MedicineCanadian Orthopaedic FoundationJ. Édouard Samson Award2023ChowdhuryTanvirCumming School of MedicineKillam Visiting Scholar2023HuebertRobert NeilArtsKillam Visiting Scholar2023DumanskiSandiCumming School of MedicineCanadian Women’s Heart Health AllianceEarly Career Investigator Award2023RajSatishCumming School of MedicineCanadian Women’s Heart Health AllianceSenior Career Investigator Award2023ChoiMayCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2023AndrewsJohn (Jac)Werklund School of EducationUniversity of CalgaryOrder of the University of Calgary2023ForbesNauzerCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2023GaneshAravindCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2023KirtonChristopherCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2023KubesPaulCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2023RamanMaitreyiCumming School of MedicineCanadian Nutrition SocietyKhursheed Jeejeebhoy Award2023BehjatLalehSchulich School of EngineeringCanadian Academy of EngineeringFellow2023HuJinguangSchulich School of EngineeringChemical Institute of CanadaBao and Zhu Innovation Award2023KarimipourHadisSchulich School of EngineeringAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2023MoshirpourMohammadSchulich School of EngineeringAssoc of Prof Engineers & Geosci of AB (APEGA)Excellence in Education2023RuwanpuraJanaka YasanthaSchulich School of EngineeringCanadian Academy of EngineeringFellow2023DeDieuLaurenSciencePacific Institute for the Mathematical SciencesPIMS Education Prize2023Safavi-NaeiniReyhanehScienceInternational Association for Cryptologic ResearchFellow2023HayashiMasakiScienceInternational Association of Hydrogeologists - CanRobert N. Farvolden Award2023BurnsVictoriaSocial WorkGovernor General of CanadaQueen’s Platinum Jubilee medal2023AukermanMarenWerklund School of EducationUniverisity of ArizonaThe Kenneth S. Goodman "In Defense of Good Teaching" Award2023MayrSuzetteArtsCity of CalgaryW.O. Mitchell Book Prize2023HollisAidan MichaelArtsOffice of Health EconomicsInnovation Policy Prize2023AndrewsJohn (Jac)Werklund School of EducationCanadian Psychological AssociationElected Fellow2023TarrPatricia RaeWerklund School of EducationCenter for the Study of Childhood ArtChristine Marmé Thompson Distinguished Research Award2023KowchEugeneWerklund School of EducationThai Assoc for Educational Comm and Tech(ThaiAECT)Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Educational Communications and Technology2023SteinbergShirleyWerklund School of EducationAmerican Educational Studies Association (AESA)Critics’ Choice Book Award2023SumaraDennisWerklund School of EducationUniversity of LethbridgeDistinguished Alumni Award2023ZaidiRahatWerklund School of EducationAmerican Educational Research Association (AERA)Youth Teams in Education Research Program Award2023Culos-ReedNicoleKinesiologyKillam Annual Professor2023MayrSuzetteArtsKillam Annual Professor2023SkoneSusanSchulich School of EngineeringKillam Annual Professor2023TonelliMarcelloCumming School of MedicineKillam Annual Professor2023WellsLanaSocial WorkKillam Annual Professor2023BrownJohn Leslie StinsonSchool of Architecture, Planning and LandscapeCity of CalgaryAward for Accessibility2023RinkerKristina DianeSchulich School of EngineeringCity of CalgaryInternational Achievement Award2023CrowshoeRegProvostCity of CalgaryCommunity Achievement Award2023SmithMalindaArtsCalgary Black ChambersLifetime Achievement Award2023WasylakTracyNursingCanadian Institutes of Health ResearchCIHR-IMHA Inclusive Research Excellence Prizes2023BirnieKathrynCumming School of MedicineCanadian Institutes of Health ResearchCIHR-IMHA Inclusive Research Excellence Prizes2023RiabowolKarl ThomasCumming School of MedicineCanadian Institutes of Health ResearchAward of Excellence in Research in Aging2023NiggBenno MaurusKinesiologyPekarsky & CoCalgary's Top 7 Over 702023GugliettiMariaArtsKillam Research and Teaching AwardsKillam Undergraduate Mentorship2023GhasemlooniaAhmadSchulich School of EngineeringKillam Research and Teaching AwardsMcCaig-Killam Teaching Award2023Russell-MayhewMichelleWerklund School of EducationKillam Research and Teaching AwardsResearch Excellence Award2023BoydStevenCumming School of MedicineKillam Research and Teaching AwardsGraduate Supervision & Mentoring Award2023McDonaldBraedonCumming School of MedicineKillam Research and Teaching AwardsEmerging Research Leader Award2023ShugarDanielScienceKillam Research and Teaching AwardsEmerging Research Leader Award2023SitterKathleenSocial WorkKillam Research and Teaching AwardsEmerging Research Leader Award2023ZwickerJenniferKinesiologyWomen's Executive NetworkCanada's Most Powerful Women - Top 1002023EggermontMarjan JoseSchulich School of EngineeringAmerican Society for Engineering EducationHall of Fame2023MolooHuseinCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2023DeDieuLaurenScienceAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2023YipStevenCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2023GaoYangSchulich School of EngineeringASTech FoundationASTech Award2023KarimipourHadisSchulich School of EngineeringASTech FoundationASTech Award2023FearElise CarolynSchulich School of EngineeringASTech FoundationASTech Award2023GhoshMontyCumming School of MedicineASTech FoundationASTech Award2023BirnieKathrynCumming School of MedicineASTech FoundationASTech Award2023TutoloBenjaminScienceAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2023HerzogWalterKinesiologyAmerican Academy for Cer Palsy and Dev MedicineMcKeith Basic Science Award2023BarhaCindyKinesiologyIMPaCTIMPaCT Early Career Researcher Salary Award2023RuwanpuraJanaka YasanthaSchulich School of EngineeringImmigrant Services CalgaryLifetime Achievement Award2023SantanaMariaCumming School of MedicineInternational Society of Quality of Life ResearchPresident’s Award2023Ceballos BetancourtMaria CamilaVeterinary MedicineInternational Society for Applied EthologyNew Investigator Award2022Sanati NezhadAmirSchulich School of EngineeringKillam Research and Teaching AwardsEmerging Research Leader Award2022McMorrisCarlyWerklund School of EducationKillam Research and Teaching AwardsEmerging Research Leader Award2022WalshChristine AnnSocial WorkKillam Research and Teaching AwardsGraduate Supervision & Mentoring Award2022ToughSuzanneCumming School of MedicineKillam Research and Teaching AwardsResearch Excellence Award2022SummersMindiScienceKillam Research and Teaching AwardsKillam Undergraduate Mentorship2022DinCariKinesiologyKillam Research and Teaching AwardsMcCaig-Killam Teaching Award2022MohammadKhorshidCumming School of MedicineCanadian Paediatric SocietyEmerging Leader in Neonatology Award2022ChengYufeng (Frank)Schulich School of EngineeringASM InternationalM. 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Steacie Memorial FundSteacie Prize2022MehrotraAnilSchulich School of EngineeringChemical Institute of CanadaJules Stachiewicz Medal2022WatsonLinda ChristNursingCanadian Cancer Research AllianceExceptional Leadership in Patient Involvement2022WrightLorraine MaeNursingOrder of CanadaMember2022MoulesNancyNursingGovernor General of CanadaQueen’s Platinum Jubilee medal2022LetourneauNicoleNursingCanadian Academy of NursingFellow2022LetourneauNicoleNursingGovernor General of CanadaQueen’s Platinum Jubilee medal2022LetourneauNicoleNursingInternational Society of Psychiatric-Mental HealthResearch Award2022WellsLanaSocial WorkGovernor General of CanadaQueen’s Platinum Jubilee medal2022JamalAamirSocial WorkIslamic Circle of North AmericaIslamic Circle of North America Award2022LawtonDonald CalebScienceAssoc of Prof Engineers & Geosci of AB (APEGA)Project Achievement Award2022BarclayPaulScienceOpticaFellow2022MonteyneDavid PatrickSchool of Architecture, Planning and LandscapeVernacular Architecture ForumAbbott Lowell Cummings Award2022GaoYangSchulich School of EngineeringEngineering Institute of CanadaFellow2022HassanQuazi KhalidSchulich School of EngineeringAssoc of Prof Engineers & Geosci of AB (APEGA)Environment and Sustainability Award2022KattanLinaSchulich School of EngineeringAssoc of Prof Engineers & Geosci of AB (APEGA)Research Excellence Award2022LeungHenrySchulich School of EngineeringEngineering Institute of CanadaFellow2022MehrotraAnilSchulich School of EngineeringEngineering Institute of CanadaFellow2022RosehartWilliamSchulich School of EngineeringEngineering Institute of CanadaFellow2022BurnsRyanArtsRoyal Canadian Geographical SocietyFellowship2022ShrayaVivekArtsKeychangeKeychange Inspiration Award2022SmithDavid Donald BoydArtsJ. W. Dafoe FoundationJ.W. Dafoe Book Prize2022AhmedSofiaCumming School of MedicineHypertension CanadaSenior Investigator Award2022JonesVernon JamesHaskayne School of BusinessUniversity of CalgaryOrder of the University of Calgary2022MetcalfeAmyCumming School of MedicineCanadian Society for Clinical InvestigationJoe Doupe Award2022WeissSamuelCumming School of MedicineCanadian Medical Hall of FameAward2022ChowdhuryTanvirCumming School of MedicineNorth American Primary Care Research GroupMid-Career Researcher Award2022CantonJohnathanVeterinary MedicineCanadian Institutes of Health ResearchBhagirath Singh Early Career Award in Infection and Immunity2022LichtiDerekSchulich School of EngineeringInternational Soc for Photogrammetry & Remote SensSchwidefsky Medal2021MenonBijoyCumming School of MedicineRoyal Society of CanadaCollege of New Scholars2021BankesNigel DavidLawRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2021McCoyKathleenCumming School of MedicineRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2021HillMichaelCumming School of MedicineRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2021BeatyBartArtsRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2021DobsonKeith StephenArtsRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2021MadiganSheriArtsRoyal Society of CanadaCollege of New Scholars2021SerletisApostoleArtsRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2021ShrayaVivekArtsRoyal Society of CanadaCollege of New Scholars2021YeatesKeithArtsRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2021HershcovisM. SandyHaskayne School of BusinessSociety for I-O PsychologyFellowship2021EmeryCarolynKinesiologyKillam Annual Professor2021AhmedSofiaCumming School of MedicineCanadian Medical AssociationMay Cohen Award for Women Mentors2021EllawayRachelCumming School of MedicineAssociation of Faculties of Medicine of CanadaPresident's Award for Exemplary National Leadership in Academic Medicine2021SilviusJamesCumming School of MedicineAlberta Medical AssociationMedal for Distinguished Service2021ZamponiGeraldCumming School of MedicineCanadian Pain SocietyDistinguished Career Award2021ClarkNancyNursingCollege and Association of Registered Nurses of AlInnovation Award2021DavidsonSandraNursingCollege and Association of Registered Nurses of AlKnowledge Development Award2021ShellianBarbaraNursingCollege and Association of Registered Nurses of AlLifetime Achievement2021SunQiaoSchulich School of EngineeringCanadian Academy of EngineeringFellow2021EatonDavidScienceKillam Annual Professor2021LetourneauNicoleNursingKillam Annual Professor2021PexmanPenelope MarionArtsKillam Annual Professor2021VoyageurCora JaneArtsKillam Annual Professor2021RyanM CathrynScienceKillam Visiting Scholar2021DimitropoulosGeorginaSocial WorkAcademy for Eating DisordersFellowship2021TakeuchiMiwaWerklund School of EducationInternational Society of Learning SciencesEarly Career Award2021MonumentMichaelCumming School of MedicineCanadian Institutes of Health ResearchEarly Career Investigator in Cancer2021PhillipsAaronCumming School of MedicineAmerican Physiological SocietyArthur C. Guyton Award for Excellence in Integrative Physiology and Medicine2021WindeyerM.K. ClaireVeterinary MedicineCanadian Veterinary Medical AssociationMerck Veterinary Award2021MurchRonHaskayne School of BusinessCIO Association of CanadaMentor of the Year Award2021MarkidesJenniferWerklund School of EducationIndigenous Inquiry Circle (IIC)Emerging Scholarship Award2021Poitras PrattYvonneWerklund School of EducationSociety for Teaching and Learning in Higher EdAlan Blizzard award2021RuwanpuraJanaka YasanthaSchulich School of EngineeringNational Academy of Construction (NAC)Foreign Member2021NoelMelanieArtsKillam Memorial ChairEmerging Leader Chair2021McCoyKathleenCumming School of MedicineKillam Memorial ChairKillam Memorial Chair2021DavisBrentWerklund School of EducationCanadian Association for Curriculum Studies (CTed T. Aoiki Award for Distinguished Service2021JamalAamirSocial WorkCalgary AwardsInternational Achievement Award2021ThangaduraiVenkataramanScienceChemical Institute of CanadaAward for Research Excellence in Materials Chemistry2021BeauchampBenoitScienceCanadian Society of Petroleum GeologistsR.J.W. Douglas Medal Award2021LoveJenniferScienceChemical Institute of CanadaFellowship2021Safavi-NaeiniReyhanehScienceInternational Association for Cryptologic ResearchPublic Key Cryptography Conference Test of Time Award2021StahnischFrankArtsRoyal Society of CanadaJason A. Hannah Medal2021DobsonKeith StephenArtsCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2021DobsonKeith StephenArtsCanadian Psychological AssociationCPA Gold Medal Award2021Reimer De BruynRayleneKinesiologyCanadian Nutrition SocietyEarle Willard McHenry Award2021ToughSuzanneCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2021FrayneRichardCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2021BenselerSusanneCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2021LeighRichardCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2021KaplanGilCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2021GaudetJonathanCumming School of MedicineRoyal College of Physicians and Surgeons of CanadaProgram Director of the Year2021LemaireJane BerthaCumming School of MedicineAlberta Medical AssociationMedal for Distinguished Service2021GuichonJulietCumming School of MedicineAlberta Medical AssociationMedal of Honor2021MitchellIanCumming School of MedicineAlberta Medical AssociationAward for Compassionate Service2021Nahmad VazquezAliciaSchool of Architecture, Planning and LandscapeAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2021GilleardJohnVeterinary MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2021dela CruzAnielaNursingCanadian Association of Nurses in HIV/AIDS CareAndrew Johnson Award for Exceptional Contribution to HIV/AIDS Nursing2021ZaidiRahatWerklund School of EducationCity of CalgaryEducation Award2021ReimerAliceHaskayne School of BusinessAxis ConnectCalgary Influential Women in Business Awards2021CannonMargaret ElizabethSchulich School of EngineeringAxis ConnectCalgary Influential Women in Business Awards2021SparksHollyVeterinary MedicineBanting Research FoundationBanting-MITACS Discovery Award2021AguileraRobertoSchulich School of EngineeringSociety of Petroleum EngineersReservoir Description and Dynamics Award (Canadian Region)2021BryantStevenSchulich School of EngineeringSociety of Petroleum EngineersSustainability and Stewardship in the Oil and Gas Industry Award2021BobawskyKirstenCumming School of MedicineKillam Research and Teaching AwardsEmerging Research Leader Award2021WelchGregoryScienceKillam Research and Teaching AwardsEmerging Research Leader Award2021KingRegineSocial WorkKillam Research and Teaching AwardsEmerging Research Leader Award2021DunnJeffrey FrankCumming School of MedicineKillam Research and Teaching AwardsGraduate Supervision & Mentoring Award2021BarkemaHermanVeterinary MedicineKillam Research and Teaching AwardsResearch Excellence Award2021MurryAdamArtsKillam Research and Teaching AwardsKillam Undergraduate Mentorship2021FlanaganKylaScienceKillam Research and Teaching AwardsMcCaig-Killam Teaching Award2021WangXinSchulich School of EngineeringTECTERRAWoman of Impact2021McGirrAlexanderCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2021GhoshSumantraCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2021GoodarziZahraCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2021LivingstoneDevonCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2021ForkertNils DanielCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2021WeatheraldJasonCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2021ShimizuGeorge Kisa HayashiScienceASTech FoundationOutstanding Achievement in Energy & Environmental Innovation2021HerzogWalterKinesiologyASTech FoundationResearcher of the Year2021KurraschDeborahCumming School of MedicineASTech FoundationWomen in Innovation Award2021BiernaskieJeffreyVeterinary MedicineStem Cell NetworkTill & McCulloch Award2021ZwickerJenniferKinesiologyCanada's Top 40 Under 40Award2021ChenZhangxingSchulich School of EngineeringChinese Academy of Engineering (CAE)Foreign Member2021NeriErnestaCumming School of MedicineInternational Myeloma SocietyKen Anderson Early Career Investigator Award2021NerenbergKaraCumming School of MedicineHypertension CanadaJacques de Champlain New Investigator Award2021KothandaramanMaitreyiCumming School of MedicineCrohn's and Colitis CanadaWomen in IBD: Outstanding Researcher Award2021BultzBarry D.Cumming School of MedicineOrder of CanadaOfficer2021SiahrostamiSamiraScienceRoyal Society of Chemistry, U.K.Environment, Sustainability & Energy Division Horizon Prize2021ClarksonChristopherScienceSociety of Petroleum EngineersFormation Evaluation Award2021RunionsAdamScienceHeinz Billing Foundation of the Max Planck SocietyHeinz Billing Prize2021ScheidlerRenateScienceAssociation for Women in MathematicsFellowship2021DawsonPeterArtsHeritage CalgarySiksika Archaeology Field School Heritage Calgary Award: Advocacy & Volunteerism2021GadboisDenisArtsMoscow International Foto AwardsSilver (Art/Landscape)2021ShrayaVivekArtsTampa Bay Inter. Gay & Lesbian Film FestivalJury Award for Best Animation2021BalakrishnanJaydeepHaskayne School of BusinessAdministrative Sciences Association of CanadaBest Paper Award2021AlonsoNatalyaHaskayne School of BusinessAcademy of Management ReviewBest Symposium Award2021JacobsenMicheleWerklund School of EducationCanadian Education Association / EdCan NetworkHonorary Lifetime Membership2021JacobsenMicheleWerklund School of EducationUNESCOOpen Education Global - Implementation Award for Excellence (Group)2021BurakKelly WarrenCumming School of MedicineMedical Council of CanadaOutstanding Achievement Award in Evaluation of Clinical Competence2021DufourAntoineCumming School of MedicineCanadian Society for Mass SpectronomyYoung Investigator Award2021DavidsonSandraNursingCanadian Nurses AssociationFellow2021SinclairShaneNursingCanadian Institutes of Health ResearchCIHR CAPO Award for Research Excellence2021SinclairShaneNursingCanadian Association of Spiritual CareLifetime Achievement Award2021MonzonJoseCumming School of MedicineAlberta Cancer FoundationResearch Rockstar2021GhoshMontyCumming School of MedicineAlberta Medical AssociationAward for Compassionate Service2021PowellDwight GregoryCumming School of MedicineAlberta Order of ExcellenceMembership2021OlsonMerle EdwinScienceAlberta Order of ExcellenceMembership2021CarlsonLinda EllenCumming School of MedicineAlberta Cancer FoundationAlberta Awards for Excellence in Cancer Research2021CairncrossJohn (Gregory)Cumming School of MedicineAlberta Cancer FoundationAlberta Awards for Excellence in Cancer Research2021GalloMarcoCumming School of MedicineAlberta Cancer FoundationAlberta Awards for Excellence in Cancer Research2021BrennerDarrenCumming School of MedicineAlberta Cancer FoundationAlberta Awards for Excellence in Cancer Research2021PasiekaJanice LynnCumming School of MedicineAmerican Association of Endocrine SurgeonsOliver Cope Meritorious Achievement Award2021CarlsonHelenCumming School of MedicineAmerican Heart Association/American Stroke AssociaPaul Dudley White International Scholar Award2021MacNaughtonWallace KeithCumming School of MedicineAmerican Physiological SocietyFellow2021DavisMelinda JaneCumming School of MedicineCanadian Association for Medical EducationCertificate of Merit Awards2021KellyMartinaCumming School of MedicineCanadian Association for Medical EducationCertificate of Merit Awards2021KassamAliyaCumming School of MedicineCanadian Association for Medical EducationCertificate of Merit Awards2021LeeSamuel Song-GuCumming School of MedicineCanadian Association for the Study of the LiverGold Medal Award2021PhillipsAaronCumming School of MedicineCanadian Association for NeuroscienceYoung Investigator Award2021GillisAnne MarieCumming School of MedicineCanadian Heart Rhythm SocietyLifetime Achievement Award2021StelfoxThomasCumming School of MedicineCanadian Critical Care SocietyDistinguished Lecturer in Critical Care Sciences2021GhoshSumantraCumming School of MedicineCanadian Medical AssociationDr. Ashok Muzumdar Memorial Award for Physicians with Disabilities2021MitchellIanCumming School of MedicineCanadian Paediatric SocietyAlan Ross Award2021McKayDerek MarkCumming School of MedicineCrohn's and Colitis CanadaResearch Leadership Award2021SantamariaPedroCumming School of MedicineCanadian Immigrant MagazineTop 25 Canadian Immigrants Award2021Holroyd-LeducJaynaCumming School of MedicineWomen's Executive NetworkCanada's Most Powerful Women - Top 1002021NiggBenno MaurusKinesiologyFootwear Biomechanics ConferenceCareer Excellence Award2021EmeryCarolynKinesiologyCanadian Physiotherapy AssociationCentenary Medal of Distinction2021HerzogWalterKinesiologyCanadian Institutes of Health ResearchOutstanding Reviewer Award2021Culos-ReedNicoleKinesiologyCTV NewsInspired Albertan Award2021KaplanBonnieCumming School of MedicineCTV NewsInspired Albertan Award2021NassarNashaatSchulich School of EngineeringCanadian Journal of Chemical EngineeringLectureship Award2021MoshirpourMohammadSchulich School of EngineeringSociety for Teaching and Learning in Higher EdD2L Innovation Award2021HerzogWalterKinesiologyJournal of Orthopaedic ResearchExcellence in Basic, Clinical and Translational Science2021SchneiderKathrynKinesiologyCanadian Physiotherapy AssociationCentenary Medal of Distinction2021MartiniClementArtsTheatre BCCanadian National Playwriting Competition2021GadboisDenisArtsMoscow International Foto AwardsGold (Nature/Landscapes)2021AndrewsCyrilHaskayne School of BusinessChartered Professional Accountants of AlbertaImpact Award2021KaplanGilCumming School of MedicineCrohn's and Colitis CanadaResearch Leadership Award2021JamniczkyHeatherCumming School of Medicine3M Canada Inc.Teaching Award2020EatonDavidScienceNatural Sciences and Engineering Research CouncilSynergy Award2020ChenZhangxingSchulich School of EngineeringRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2020AddingtonJean MargaretCumming School of MedicineRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2020HershcovisM. SandyHaskayne School of BusinessRoyal Society of CanadaCollege of New Scholars2020LebelCatherineCumming School of MedicineRoyal Society of CanadaCollege of New Scholars2020MartiniClementArtsRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2020StrousMarcScienceRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2020KoshanJenniferLawCanadian Bar AssociationDistinguished Service Award for Legal Scholarship2020MilaneyKatrinaCumming School of MedicineCalgary Herald20 Compelling Calgarians Award2020ChenZhangxingSchulich School of EngineeringKillam Annual Professor2020DobsonKeith StephenArtsKillam Annual Professor2020MarshallDeborahCumming School of MedicineKillam Annual Professor2020Reimer De BruynRayleneKinesiologyKillam Annual Professor2020Van HerkArithaArtsKillam Annual Professor2020HerzogWalterKinesiologyKillam Visiting Scholar2020KutzSusanVeterinary MedicinePartners In ResearchBiomedical Science Ambassador Award2020MashruwalaRajHaskayne School of BusinessJournal of Management Accounting ResearchOutstanding Reviewer Award2020OsiyevskyyOleksiyHaskayne School of BusinessUS Assoc for Small Business and EntrepreneurshipBest Empirical Paper Award2020DavidsonSandraNursingCanadian Nurses AssociationOrder of Merit for Nursing Education2020LetourneauNicoleNursingCanadian Nurses AssociationJeanne Mance Award2020KoshanJenniferLawCanadian Bar AssociationRamon John Hnatyshyn award for Law2020MarshallDeborahCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2020McKayDerek MarkCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2020PattenScott BurtonCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2020CairncrossJohn (Gregory)Cumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2020FerrerIlyanSocial WorkAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2020VashchilkoTatianaHaskayne School of BusinessJournal of World BusinessBest Paper Award2020BraySigneCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2020LeungAlexanderCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2020PhillipsAaronCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2020WilliamsonTylerCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2020DufourAntoineCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2020HendersonRitaCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2020KeeganDavidCumming School of MedicineCity of CalgaryEducation Award2020CrowshoeLynden JohnCumming School of MedicineRoyal College of Physicians and Surgeons of CanadaThomas Dignan Award2020ColpittsGeorge WilliamArtsBusiness History (Journal)COVID-19 for Managers Essay Competition2020StapletonTimothyArtsUniversity of TexasNelson Mandela Distinguished Africanist Award2020ZwickerJenniferKinesiologyGovernor General of CanadaCanadian Leadership Conference Award2020EatonDavidScienceCanadian Geophysical UnionJ. Tuzo Wilson Medal2020MayerBernhardScienceInternational Association of GeochemistryFellowship2020EatonSarahWerklund School of EducationCanadian Society for the Study of Higher EducationResearch and Scholarship Award2020GuichonJulietCumming School of MedicineAlberta Dental Association and CollegeHonorary Membership2020HillMichaelCumming School of MedicineAmerican Academy of NeurologyScientific Breakthrough Award2020McKayDerek MarkCumming School of MedicineCanadian Association of GastroenterologyDistinguished Service Award2020Roze des OrdonsAmandaCumming School of MedicineCanadian Association for Medical EducationCertificate of Merit Awards2020PagetMichaelCumming School of MedicineCanadian Association for Medical EducationCertificate of Merit Awards2020BurakKelly WarrenCumming School of MedicineCanadian Association for the Study of the LiverEducation Excellence Award2020BurakKelly WarrenCumming School of MedicineCanadian Liver Foundation50th Anniversary Recognition Medal2020SwainMark GordonCumming School of MedicineCanadian Liver Foundation50th Anniversary Recognition Medal2020LeeSamuel Song-GuCumming School of MedicineCanadian Liver Foundation50th Anniversary Recognition Medal2020McKayDerek MarkCumming School of MedicineUniversity of LinkopingHonorary Doctorate Degree2020CiborowskiJanScienceInternational Association for Great Lakes ResearchLifetime Achievement Award2020RuwanpuraJanaka YasanthaSchulich School of EngineeringCalgary AwardsInternational Achievement Award2020StelfoxThomasCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2020HallgrimssonBenediktCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2020MetzLuanne MarieCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2020TsenkovaSashaSchool of Architecture, Planning and LandscapeCanadian Institute of Planners (CIP)Fellowship2020ThangaduraiVenkataramanScienceThe Electrochemical SocietyFellowship2020LetourneauNicoleNursingAmerican Academy of NursingFellowship2020DavidsonSandraNursingAmerican Academy of NursingFellowship2020SpanswickEmmaScienceAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2020GrimminckRachelCumming School of MedicineRoyal College of Physicians and Surgeons of CanadaEarly-Career Leadership in Medical Education Award2020LundDarrenWerklund School of EducationIARSLCEDiversity, Equity and Inclusion Award2020OrselKarsinaVeterinary MedicineCanadian Association of Bovine VeterinariansMetacam 20 Bovine Welfare Award2020SandalackBeverlySchool of Architecture, Planning and LandscapeInternational Federation of Landscape ArchitectsPresident's Award2020ArrietaMarieCumming School of MedicineKillam Research and Teaching AwardsEmerging Research Leader Award2020StadnykTriciaArtsKillam Research and Teaching AwardsEmerging Research Leader Award2020NoelMelanieArtsKillam Research and Teaching AwardsEmerging Research Leader Award2020KirtonChristopherCumming School of MedicineKillam Research and Teaching AwardsGraduate Supervision & Mentoring Award2020DroletJulieSocial WorkKillam Research and Teaching AwardsResearch Excellence Award2020Aparicio-TingFabiolaCumming School of MedicineKillam Research and Teaching AwardsKillam Undergraduate Mentorship2020FerberReedKinesiologyKillam Research and Teaching AwardsMcCaig-Killam Teaching Award2020KachraRahimCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2020RoumeliotisMichaelCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2020ChuMan-WaiWerklund School of EducationAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2020GrimminckRachelCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2020McMorrisCarlyWerklund School of EducationAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2020WoodLarry ArthurHaskayne School of BusinessFP CanadaDonald J. Johnston Lifetime Achievement Award in Financial Planning2020LeharAlfredHaskayne School of BusinessFinancial Management AssociationBest Paper in Fintech2020PogacarRuthHaskayne School of BusinessAmerican Marketing Association - EBSCOAMA-EBSCO Annual Award for Responsible Research in Marketing2020KoskinenYrjoHaskayne School of BusinessFinnish Securities Market Promotion FoundationFinnish Securities Market Promotion Foundation Prize2020TanJean-YinVeterinary MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2020ChengYufeng (Frank)Schulich School of EngineeringNACE InternationalTechnical Achievement Award2020RosehartWilliamSchulich School of EngineeringWomen in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN)Advocates and Allies Award2020McIntyreLucy (Lynn)Cumming School of MedicineOrder of CanadaMember2020BirdsellJudithCumming School of MedicineOrder of CanadaMember2020Exner-CortensDeineraSocial WorkGovernment of AlbertaInspiration Awards2020Exner-CortensDeineraArtsSociety for Prevention ResearchECPN John B. 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Sanders Award of Excellence in Health Technology Assessment2019EsteDavid ClarenceSocial WorkGovernor General of CanadaHistory Award for Excellence in Community Programming2019MannsBradenCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2019BischakDianeHaskayne School of BusinessSupply Chain Management Association100 Influential Women2019HembergerMyriamCumming School of MedicineMarch of DimesPrize in Developmental Biology2019AddingtonJean MargaretCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2019SwainMark GordonCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2019DavidsonSandraNursingLethbridge CollegeCareer Virtuoso2019OrselKarsinaVeterinary MedicineCanadian Veterinary Medical AssociationMerck Veterinary Award2019MorckDouglas WalterScienceCanadian Council on Animal CareHarry C. Roswell Award2019AddingtonJean MargaretCumming School of MedicineSchizophrenia International Research SocietyDistinguished Service Award2019BarclayPaulScienceCanadian Association of PhysicistsHerzberg Medal2019SundararajUttandaramanSchulich School of EngineeringEngineering Institute of CanadaFellow2019GatesIan DonaldSchulich School of EngineeringAssoc of Prof Engineers & Geosci of AB (APEGA)Frank Spragins Technical Award2019EsteDavid ClarenceSocial WorkCanadian Association of University TeachersLee Lorch Award2019LiveseyGraham DavidSchool of Architecture, Planning and LandscapeRoyal Architectural Institute of CanadaFellowship2019NassarNashaatSchulich School of EngineeringCanadian Society for Chemical EngineeringEmerging Leader in Chemical Engineering2019LaiLarissaArtsLambda Literary SocietyLambda Literary Awards2019MahinpeyNaderSchulich School of EngineeringAssoc of Prof Engineers & Geosci of AB (APEGA)Research Excellence Award2019JejeAyodeji AderopoSchulich School of EngineeringAssoc of Prof Engineers & Geosci of AB (APEGA)Outstanding Mentor Award2019WilksLeightonHaskayne School of BusinessCalgary AwardsCommunity Achievement, Education Award2019CannonMargaret ElizabethSchulich School of EngineeringOrder of CanadaOfficer2019OsbornGerald DavidScienceGeological Society of AmericaFellowship2019WuPatrick Pak-CheukScienceCanadian Geophysical UnionJ. Tuzo Wilson Medal2019HengDanielCumming School of MedicineGovernor General of CanadaMeritorious Service Cross2019EllawayRachelCumming School of MedicineRoyal College of Physicians and Surgeons of CanadaDuncan Graham Award2019EllawayRachelCumming School of MedicineCanadian Association for Medical EducationIan Hart Award for Distinguished Contribution to Medical Education2019HazlewoodGlenCumming School of MedicineCanadian Rheumatology AssociationEmerging Investigator Award2019CarlsonLinda EllenCumming School of MedicineInternational Psycho-Oncology SocietyBernard Fox Memorial Award2019McGirrAlexanderCumming School of MedicineCanadian Psychiatric AssociationEarly Career Achievement in Psychiatry Award2019ZaverFareenCumming School of MedicineRoyal College of Physicians and Surgeons of CanadaRobert Maudsley Fellowship in Medical Education2019VothDanielArtsKillam Visiting Scholar2019BankesNigel DavidLawKillam Annual Professor2019BarkemaHermanVeterinary MedicineKillam Annual Professor2019PiersWarren EdwardScienceKillam Annual Professor2019QuanHudeCumming School of MedicineKillam Annual Professor2019YeatesKeithArtsKillam Annual Professor2019HirstSandra PatriciaNursingCanadian Association on GerontologyContribution to Gerontology Award2019SmithEldon RaymondCumming School of MedicinePekarsky & CoCalgary's Top 7 Over 702019SpanswickEmmaScienceNASAGoddard Group Honor Award for Exceptional Achievement in Science2019KaplanBonnieCumming School of MedicineDr. Rogers PrizeDr. Rogers Prize for Excellence in Complementary and Alternative Medicine2019Culos-ReedNicoleKinesiologyCanadian Association of Psychosocial OncologyResearch Excellence Award2019LetourneauNicoleNursingCan. Assoc. of Perinatal and Women's Health NursesExcellence in Leadership Award2019TayJoo-HwaSchulich School of EngineeringASTech FoundationOutstanding Achievement in Technology2019MahinpeyNaderSchulich School of EngineeringASTech FoundationOutstanding Achievement in Energy & Environmental Innovation2019MaurerFrankScienceASTech FoundationOutstanding Achievement in Applied Technology2019LiangHung-Ling (Steve)Schulich School of EngineeringASTech FoundationOutstanding Science & Technology Start Up2019WhiteJamesCumming School of MedicineASTech FoundationOutstanding Achievement in Health Innovation2019LaflammeClaudeScienceASTech FoundationOutstanding Achievement in Information & Communications Technology2019GhannouchiFadhelSchulich School of EngineeringASTech FoundationOutstanding Contribution to Wireless Technology2019Exner-CortensDeineraSocial WorkAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2019PremjiShafeenaCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2019GalloMarcoCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2019RossMarshallCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2019SaherFaridaCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2019WalkerLaurenCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2019ToddRyanCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2019ZaverFareenCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2019KislowiczHowardCanadian Association of Law TeachersScholarly Paper Award2019SteinbergShirleyWerklund School of EducationCanadian Education Association / EdCan NetworkWhitworth Award2019SchneiderKathrynKinesiologyJournal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical TherapyExcellence in Research Award2019McDonoughMeghanKinesiologyInternational Journal of Health Promotion and EducPittu Laungani Best Paper Award2019BrennerDarrenCumming School of MedicineCanadian Cancer SocietyWilliam E. Rawls Prize2019ProudDavidCumming School of MedicineAllerGen NetworkMichelle Harkness Lifetime Mentorship Award2019LandyCynthiaCumming School of MedicineFoundation for Advancing Family MedicineFamily Physician of the Year2019KothandaramanMaitreyiCumming School of MedicineAmerican Gastroenterology AssociationFellowship2019BridgesRonald JohnCumming School of MedicineAmerican Gastroenterology AssociationFellowship2019TrewMichael ErnestCumming School of MedicineRoyal College of Physicians and Surgeons of CanadaMentor of the Year Award2019ToppsMaureenCumming School of MedicineRoyal College of Physicians and Surgeons of CanadaHonorary Fellowship2019HazlewoodGlenCumming School of MedicineCanadian Rheumatology AssociationEmerging Investigator Award2019BrennerDarrenCumming School of MedicineAlberta Cancer FoundationResearch Rockstar2019StorekJanCumming School of MedicineAlberta Cancer FoundationResearch Rockstar2019GoodarziAaronCumming School of MedicineAlberta Cancer FoundationResearch Rockstar2019DollCorinneCumming School of MedicineAlberta Cancer FoundationResearch Rockstar2019NixonNancyCumming School of MedicineAlberta Cancer FoundationResearch Rockstar2019SmithWendy LaniCumming School of MedicineAlberta Cancer FoundationResearch Rockstar2019RosenalTomCumming School of MedicineCanadian Association for Medical EducationCertificate of Merit Awards2019BaileyMichelleCumming School of MedicineRoyal College of Physicians and Surgeons of CanadaSpecialist of the Year2019HollaarGwendolyn LaraeCumming School of MedicineRoyal College of Physicians and Surgeons of CanadaInternational Collaboration Award2019LemaireJane BerthaCumming School of MedicineRoyal College of Physicians and Surgeons of CanadaInternational Collaboration Award2019BerlinRandallCumming School of MedicineAlberta College of Family PhysiciansRecognition of Excellence Award2019ConlyJohn MaynardCumming School of MedicineAssoc of Medical Microbiology & Infectious DiseaseFellowship2019ThompsonGrahamCumming School of MedicineInternational Assoc of Business CommunicatorsGold Quill Award2019MonumentMichaelCumming School of MedicineAlberta Cancer FoundationResearch Rockstar2019MonumentMichaelCumming School of MedicineCanadian Orthopaedic FoundationCanadian Orthopaedic Research Legacy Award2019ZamponiGeraldCumming School of MedicineAssoc for the Study of Neurons and DiseasesMolecular Pain Award2019BannisterSusanCumming School of MedicineCanadian Association for Medical EducationCertificate of Merit Awards2019MonumentMichaelCumming School of MedicineCanadian Orthopaedic FoundationRobert Salter Award for Basic Science Musculoskeletal Research2019ClarkMarciaCumming School of MedicineCanadian Rockies Ski Racing Medical Support TeamHall of Fame2019SyedNaweed ImamCumming School of MedicineCanadians of Pakistani OriginAward of Excellence2019SyedNaweed ImamCumming School of MedicineWorld Marketing SummitKolter Award for Innovation of the Year2019LeakerMichaelCumming School of MedicineAlberta Health 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Award2019LebelCatherineCumming School of MedicineKillam Research and Teaching AwardsEmerging Research Leader Award2019YongVoon WeeCumming School of MedicineKillam Research and Teaching AwardsResearch Excellence Award2019SlaterDonna MichelleCumming School of MedicineKillam Research and Teaching AwardsKillam Undergraduate Mentorship2019KurzEbbaCumming School of MedicineKillam Research and Teaching AwardsMcCaig-Killam Teaching Award2019YeamanSamuelScienceKillam Research and Teaching AwardsEmerging Research Leader Award2019MuehlenbachsLucijaArtsKillam Research and Teaching AwardsEmerging Research Leader Award2019WrightLorraine MaeNursingCollege and Association of Registered Nurses of AlLifetime Achievement2019EnacheLuminitaHaskayne School of BusinessEuropean Institute for Advanced Studies in MgmtBest Paper Award2019EnacheLuminitaHaskayne School of BusinessAmerican Accounting AssociationExcellence in Reviewing Award2019KeyhaniMohammadHaskayne School of BusinessGlobal Strategy JournalBest 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Chinn Multicultural Book Award2019DomeneJoseWerklund School of EducationCanadian Psychological AssociationDistinguished Member Award2019JohnsonDavid WyattCumming School of MedicineCanadian Paediatric SocietyCareer Research Award2018ConlyJohn MaynardCumming School of MedicineOrder of CanadaMember2018HerzogWalterKinesiologyCanada Council for the ArtsKillam Prize2018MacQueenGlendaCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2018AminHarish JayantCumming School of MedicineRoyal College of Physicians and Surgeons of CanadaInternational Collaboration Award2018FearElise CarolynSchulich School of EngineeringKillam Annual Professor2018GatesIan DonaldSchulich School of EngineeringKillam Annual Professor2018HillMichaelCumming School of MedicineKillam Annual Professor2018KatzenbergMary AnneArtsKillam Annual Professor2018KubesPaulCumming School of MedicineKillam Annual Professor2018PiersWarren EdwardScienceKillam Visiting Scholar2018Barrette-NgIsabelleScience3M Canada Inc.Teaching Award2018BarnabeCherylCumming School of MedicineRoyal Society of CanadaCollege of New Scholars2018KirtonChristopherCumming School of MedicineRoyal Society of CanadaCollege of New Scholars2018KastelicJohn PatrickVeterinary MedicineAlberta Veterinary Medical AssociationVeterinarian of the Year2018GoyalMayankCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2018MahinpeyNaderSchulich School of EngineeringChemical Institute of CanadaFellowship2018SundararajUttandaramanSchulich School of EngineeringChemical Institute of CanadaFellowship2018ValentichMary ElizabethSocial WorkCanadian Association of Social WorkersGlenn Drover Award for Outstanding Service2018PiersWarren EdwardScienceRoyal Society of Chemistry, U.K.Ludwig Mond Award2018LorenzettiLizaSocial WorkAlberta College of Social Workers (ACSW)John Graham Hutton Memorial Award for Social Action/Policy2018RuwanpuraJanaka YasanthaSchulich School of EngineeringASTech FoundationOutstanding Achievement in Applied Technology and Innovation2018KnudsenDavidScienceASTech FoundationOutstanding Leadership in Alberta Science2018Yadid-PechtOrlySchulich School of EngineeringASTech FoundationOutstanding Leadership in Alberta Technology2018HemmelgarnBrendaCumming School of MedicineASTech FoundationOutstanding Achievement in Health Innovation2018BarkemaHermanVeterinary MedicineAmerican Dairy Science AssociationElanco Excellence in Dairy Science2018Cowe FallsLynneSchulich School of EngineeringAssoc of Prof Engineers & Geosci of AB (APEGA)Women in Engineering and Geoscience Champion Award2018BoutinMarc JosephSchool of Architecture, Planning and LandscapeAlberta Association of ArchitectureAward of Merit: Landscape Architecture2018GaoYangSchulich School of EngineeringAssoc of Prof Engineers & Geosci of AB (APEGA)Research Excellence Award2018Van HerkArithaArtsOrder of CanadaMember2018GagnonLisaCumming School of MedicineCanadian Psychiatric AssociationC.A. Roberts Awards2018KazemipurAbdieArtsNational Metropolis AssociationResearch Award (Academic)2018PremjiShahiroseNursingCollege and Association of Registered Nurses of AlAward for Excellence in Nursing Research2018SinghBaljitVeterinary MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2018SinclairShaneNursingHospice Palliative Care OntarioThe Carmelita Lawlor Lectureship in Palliative Care2018LarsonBonnieCumming School of MedicineAlberta Medical AssociationAward for Compassionate Service2018KortbeekJohn BarryCumming School of MedicineAlberta Medical AssociationMedal for Distinguished Service2018FriesenBrent ThomasCumming School of MedicineAlberta Medical AssociationMember Emeritus Award2018ChuaJess HuanHaskayne School of BusinessGreif Center for Entrepreneurial StudiesGreif Research Impact Award2018LeharAlfredHaskayne School of BusinessCSI Research FoundationLimited-Term Professorship2018TrifkovicMilanaSchulich School of EngineeringKillam Research and Teaching AwardsKillam Undergraduate Mentorship2018BarnabeCherylCumming School of MedicineKillam Research and Teaching AwardsEmerging Research Leader Award2018JohansenCraigSchulich School of EngineeringKillam Research and Teaching AwardsEmerging Research Leader Award2018MadiganSheriArtsKillam Research and Teaching AwardsEmerging Research Leader Award2018HansenDavid DonaldScienceKillam Research and Teaching AwardsGraduate Supervision & Mentoring Award2018YongVoon WeeCumming School of MedicineKillam Research and Teaching AwardsGraduate Supervision & Mentoring Award2018BirssViola IngridScienceKillam Research and Teaching AwardsResearch Excellence Award2018Barrette-NgIsabelleScienceKillam Research and Teaching AwardsMcCaig-Killam Teaching Award2018KwonSeok-WooHaskayne School of BusinessInstitute for Analytical Sociology (IAS)Robert K Merton Visiting Research Fellow2018ChuaJess HuanHaskayne School of BusinessFamily Enterprise Research ConferenceLifetime Influence and Impact Award2018FruetelKarenCumming School of MedicineAlberta Health ServicesPresident's Excellence Award for Outstanding Research2018JosephsonColinCumming School of MedicineCanadian League Against EpilepsyJunior Investigator Award2018HoganDavid BryanCumming School of MedicineAlberta Health ServicesPresident's Excellence Award for Outstanding Research2018CairncrossJohn (Gregory)Cumming School of MedicineCanadian Cancer SocietyO. Harold Warwick Prize2018GoyalMayankCumming School of MedicineCanadian Association of RadiologistsDistinguished Career Achievement Award2018BorglandStephanieCumming School of MedicineCanadian College for NeuropsychopharmacologyYoung Investigator Award2018McRaeAndrewCumming School of MedicineCanadian Association of Emergency PhysiciansIan Stiell Researcher of the Year2018FongChenCumming School of MedicineAlberta Business Hall of FameInductee2018ChenZhangxingSchulich School of EngineeringEngineering Institute of CanadaFellow2018HalekMartinHaskayne School of BusinessJournal of Insurance IssuesDonald W. Hardigree Memorial Award2018MetcalfeAmyCumming School of MedicineAvenue MagazineTop 40 Under 40 in Calgary2018El-SheimyNaserSchulich School of EngineeringCanadian Academy of EngineeringFellow2018HillJosephine MarySchulich School of EngineeringCanadian Academy of EngineeringFellow2018KraayHendrikArtsCanadian Association for LA and Caribb. StudiesDistinguished Fellow2018NassarNashaatSchulich School of EngineeringAssoc of Prof Engineers & Geosci of AB (APEGA)Early Accomplishment Award2018BenziesKarenNursingCalgary Urban Project Society (CUPS)Lifetime Achievement Award2018ReillySandraNursingGovernor General of CanadaMeritorious Service Cross2018LaingCatherineNursingAssoc. of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology NursesWriting Award2018SinclairShaneNursingCanadian Association for Spiritual CarePaper of the Year2018WasylakTracyNursingCanadian Nurses AssociationOrder of Merit for Nursing Policy2018GoldsworthySandraNursingCanadian Nurses AssociationOrder of Merit for Nursing Education2018VashchilkoTatianaHaskayne School of BusinessJournal of World BusinessBest Paper Award2018DuffyMaureenLawSocio-Legal Studies AssociationHart-Socio-Legal Studies Association Prize for Early Career Academics2018GhaliWilliam AminCumming School of MedicineRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2017FerrisJohn RobertArtsRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2017SandersBarry CyrilScienceRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2017BennettSusanArtsKillam Annual Professor2017HodginsDavid CarsonArtsKillam Annual Professor2017KallosMichaelSchulich School of EngineeringKillam Annual Professor2017MayerBernhardScienceKillam Annual Professor2017DolataPetraArtsKillam Visiting Scholar2017ChenZhangxingSchulich School of EngineeringNatural Sciences and Engineering Research CouncilSynergy Award2017HillMatthewCumming School of MedicineRoyal Society of CanadaCollege of New Scholars2017BergersonJouleSchulich School of EngineeringRoyal Society of CanadaCollege of New Scholars2017BorglandStephanieCumming School of MedicineRoyal Society of CanadaCollege of New Scholars2017RhoJongCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2017HillJosephine MarySchulich School of EngineeringKillam Annual Professor2017HerzogWalterKinesiologyInternational Society of Sport BiomechanicsGeoffrey Dyson Award2017ToughSuzanneCumming School of MedicineCanadian Paediatric SocietyGeoffrey C. Robinson Award2017ChenZhangxingSchulich School of EngineeringCAIMSCAIMS-Fields Industrial Mathematics Prize2017HillJosephine MarySchulich School of EngineeringAssoc of Prof Engineers & Geosci of AB (APEGA)Research Excellence Award2017Yadid-PechtOrlySchulich School of EngineeringAmerican Institute for Med and Bio Eng (AIMBE)Fellow2017ClarksonChristopherScienceASTech FoundationOutstanding Achievement in Applied Technology and Innovation2017BehjatLalehSchulich School of EngineeringASTech FoundationExcellence in Science and Technology Public Awareness2017TrangTuanVeterinary MedicineCanadian Association of NeuroscienceYoung Investigator Award2017SantamariaPedroCumming School of MedicineRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2017NoseworthyThomasCumming School of MedicineCanadian Academy of Health SciencesFellowship2017HemmelgarnBrendaCumming School of MedicineKidney Foundation of CanadaDr. John B. Dossetor Research Award2017BultzBarry D.Cumming School of MedicineAmerican Psychosocial Oncology SocietyFellowship2017LockyerJocelyn MargotCumming School of MedicineRoyal College of Physicians and Surgeons of CanadaHonorary Fellowship2017YongVoon WeeCumming School of MedicineRobarts Research InstituteJ. Allyn Taylor International Prize in Medicine2017QuanHudeCumming School of MedicineHypertension CanadaSenior Investigator Award2017QuanHudeCumming School of MedicineCanadian Cardiovascular SocietyDr. Harold N. 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Richard Scott Award for Distinguished Scholarship2014KraayHendrikArtsConference of Latin American HistoryWarren Dean Prize2014StysPeterCumming School of MedicineRoyal Society of CanadaFellowship2013FriedenrelchChristineCumming School of MedicineCanadian Cancer SocietyO. 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TV5MONDE Program Highlights – May 2024
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2024-05-07T15:20:32+00:00
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Throughout May, the international French-language network TV5 Monde offers a rich lineup of entertaining films, series, and variety shows. Discover our round-up of the must-see programs this month below. TV5 Monde Special L'invité – May 14-25 TBA Cannes Film Festival Red Carpet Special Host Patrick Simonin will be on the red carpet interviewing the stars...
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Villa Albertine
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https://villa-albertine.org/events/tv5monde-program-highlights-may-2024/
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Throughout May, the international French-language network TV5 Monde offers a rich lineup of entertaining films, series, and variety shows.
Discover our round-up of the must-see programs this month below.
TV5 Monde
Special
L’invité – May 14-25 TBA
Cannes Film Festival Red Carpet Special
Host Patrick Simonin will be on the red carpet interviewing the stars at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Host: Patrick Simonin (France 2024)
Genre: News
Films
En ville – May 7 at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT
In celebration of the Cannes Film Festival
(English ST)
Iris is sixteen and finishing up her teenage years in a small town when she meets Jean, a forty-year-old photographer from Paris. As they get to know each other, their relationship evolves into an amorous friendship that will turn their lives upside down.
Director: Valérie Mréjen, Bertrand Schefer (France, 2011)
Cast: Lola Créton, Stanislas Merhar, Adèle Haenel, Valérie Donzelli
Genre: Dramedy
Awards: The Directors’ Fortnight Selection (Cannes, 2011)
L’angle mort – May 9 at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT
In celebration of the Cannes Film Festival
(English ST)
Since childhood, Dominick has been able to make himself invisible, a gift he’s never really made the most of. Now an adult, he finds it more difficult to use this ability, seeing it as a guilty secret, hidden even from his fiancée. Until the day his power becomes uncontrollable…
Director: Patrick Mario Bernard, Pierre Trividic (France, 2018)
Cast: Jean-Christophe Folly, Isabelle Carré, Golshifteh Farahani, Sami Ameziane
Genre: Drama
Awards: Selected by ACID (Cannes 2019)
Mon légionnaire – May 12 at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT
In celebration of the Cannes Film Festival
Also streaming on TV5MONDEplus beginning May 8
(English ST)
A young woman leaves Ukraine to follow her boyfriend, a young soldier based in Corsica.
Director: Rachel Lang (France, 2021)
Cast: Camille Cottin, Louis Garrel, Ina Marija Bartaité
Genre: Drama
Awards: The Directors’ Fortnight Selection (Cannes 2021)
Dans Paris – May 16 at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT
In celebration of the Cannes Film Festival
Also streaming on TV5MONDEplus
(English ST)
Paul is unable to accept his break-up with Anna. On the verge of depression he returns to live with his father in Paris and buries himself in his bedroom. All those around him, each in their own way, try to help him to get over his broken heart…Oh yeah
Director: Christophe Honoré (France, 2006)
Cast: Romain Duris, Louis Garrel, Guy Marchand, Marie-France Pisier
Genre: Drama
Awards: The Directors’ Fortnight Selection (2006 Cannes), nomination (2007 César Awards)
Freda – May 19 at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT
In celebration of the Cannes Film Festival
(English ST)
In a working-class district of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Freda and her family survive thanks to their little grocery store. Confronting the precarity and increasing levels of violence in Haiti, each begins to wonder whether to stay or leave. But Freda still wants to believe her country has a future.
Director: Gessica Généus (France, 2020)
Cast: Néhémie Bastien, Djanaïna François, Fabiola Rémy
Genre: Drama
Awards: ”Un Certain Regard” Nominee, François Chalais Award- Special Mention Winner (Cannes 2021)
Je veux voir – May 21 at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT
In celebration of the Cannes Film Festival
Also streaming on TV5MONDEplus beginning May 8
(English ST)
Lebanon, 2008. Two documentary filmmakers invite the French star Catherine Deneuve and their favorite actor Rabih Mroué to travel together through the regions affected by the 2006 war. Through their presence, they hope to once again capture the beauty their own eyes are no longer able to discern…
Director: Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige (France, Lebanon, 2008)
Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Rabih Mroué
Genre: Drama
Awards: ”Un Certain Regard” Nominee (Cannes 2008)
Les bureaux de dieu – May 23 at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT
In celebration of the Cannes Film Festival
(English ST)
Within the walls of the Family Planning offices, women listen to other women grapple with the freedom to love. Women of all ages and all backgrounds, who can finally confide without fear. To at last be able to talk freely, see their desires more clearly, and make the right choices.
Director: Claire Simon (France, Belgium, 2007)
Cast: Anne Alvaro, Nathalie Baye, Michel Boujenah, Rachida Brakni
Genre: Dramedy
Awards: The Directors’ Fortnight Selection (Cannes 2008)
Slalom – May 26 at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT
In celebration of the Cannes Film Festival
Also streaming on TV5MONDEplus beginning May 8
At 15, Lyz has just joined the prestigious ski-study section of the Bourg-Saint-Maurice High School. Fred, former champion turned coach, decides to stake everything on this new recruit. Galvanized by his support, Lyz puts everything into her sport, physically and emotionally. But the teenager soon falls completely under Fred’s sway…
Director: Charlène Favier (France, Belgium, 2020)
Cast: Noée Abita, Jérémie Renier, Marie Denarnaud
Genre: Drama
Awards: Official Selection (Cannes 2020), Most Promising Actress and Best First Film nominations (2022 César Awards)
Une aussi longue absence – May 28 at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT
In celebration of the Cannes Film Festival
Also streaming on TV5MONDEplus
(English ST)
Thérèse Langlois is intrigued by a tramp who looks just like her husband, deported by the Germans fifteen years earlier. She decides to follow him, to be certain that it is indeed him. But he’s suffering from amnesia. Patiently, Thérèse tries to find a way to reawaken his memories…
Director: Henri Colpi (France, Italy 1960)
Cast: Alida Valli, Georges Wilson, Charles Blavette, Amédée
Genre: Drama
Awards: Palme d’Or Winner (Cannes 1961), Louis Delluc Prize Winner (1960)
Tom Medina – May 30 at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT
In celebration of the Cannes Film Festival
(English ST)
In the mystical French region of Camargue, Tom Medina turns up, on probation, on the doorstep of big-hearted Ulysses. Tom dreams of becoming a good person. But he’s thwarted by the hostility flung in his general direction, which shows no sign of abating.
Director: Tony Gatlif (France, 2021)
Cast: David Murgia, Slimane Dazi, Karoline Rose Sun
Genre: Drama
Awards: Official Selection (Cannes 2021)
Series
Jeux d’influence, les combattantes – Sundays, starting May 5 at 11:30pm ET/8:30pm PT
Season 2 premiere
(English ST)
A year after the victory of the decree prohibiting certain toxic pesticides in agriculture, the situation has worsened despite the law. During a school trip to the Vitalia cooperative, some pupils faint. The journalist Claire Lansel is informed of Vitalia’s practices by Chloé Forrest. Minister Delpierre’s cabinet discovers suspicious collusions of interest between Vitalia and the agricultural syndicate Synea. An employee suffers from red rashes on his arms, nocturnal sweating and itching. Claire rapidly receives threats on the subject of her investigation.
Director: Jean-Xavier de Lestrade (France, 2022)
Cast: Alix Poisson, Laurent Stocker, Pierre Perrier, Marilou Aussilloux, Jean-François Sivadier
Genre: Thriller
Garde partagée – Wednesdays, starting May 8 at 11:30pm ET/8:30pm PT
Season 1 premiere
Also streaming on TV5MONDEplus
(English ST)
Behind our often fanciful or preconceived ideas, what’s the reality of shared custody and single parenthood? Each episode puts one family and one crazy situation in the spotlight, exploring the lives of single parents and blended families with all their joys, unexpected challenges, and regrets.
Director: Christian Essiambre (Canada, 2020)
Cast: Ludger Beaulieu, Caroline Bélisle, Tanya Brideau, Florence Brunet, Christian Essiambre
Genre: Comedy, sketch series
Détectives… ou presque – Tuesdays, starting May 28 at 11:30pm ET/8:30pm PT
Season 1 premiere
Also streaming on TV5MONDEplus
(English ST)
In financial straits, former policeman Leo Brand sets up a detective school in Basel. To help them get the best out of the course, his amateur detectives learn on the job by solving real cases. Each has their own unique character… But none really correspond to the task in hand.
Director: Michael Steiner (Switzerland, 2022)
Cast: Roeland Wiesnekker, Meryl Marti, Dardan Sadik, Martin Rapold, Esther Gemsch
Genre: Thriller, crime comedy
Documentaries
Dans un cinéma près de chez vous – May 10 at 3:00pm ET/12:00pm PT
In celebration of the Cannes Film Festival
Also streaming on TV5MONDEplus
(English ST)
An immersive visit behind the scenes of the Quebec film industry in the company of French-Canadian actress Karine Vanasse. From studio to editing room, from screenplay to post-production or public screening, she meets the creatives behind the films, whether fiction, documentary, animated…
Director: Frédéric Nassif (Canada, 2023)
Genre: Documentary
Claire Denis, les chemins de traverse – May 13 at 3:00pm ET/12:00pm PT
In celebration of the Cannes Film Festival
(English ST)
A look on French film director and screenwriter Claire Denis’ life and work throughout the years. She is arguably most known for Beau Travail, a war drama loosely based on Herman Melville’s novella Billy Budd.“ Denis’s films are filled with lush scenes of the natural world—African deserts, snowy Alpine fields, and the mineral-green waters of the South Pacific—and characters who tend to reveal themselves not through dialogue but through how they move and look.” (The New Yorker)
Director: Vincent Soulié (France, 2021)
Genre: Documentary
Jean-Louis Trintignant, mystérieux et insaisissable – May 14 at 3:00pm ET/12:00pm PT
In celebration of the Cannes Film Festival
Also streaming on TV5MONDEplus
(English ST)
From ”And God Created Woman”, ”Il Sorpasso”, ”A Man and a Woman”, ”The Conformist”, ”Amour”… the list of successes by Jean-Louis Trintignant (1930-2022) may be impressive but his films say little about the man himself. A look back over the life of a discrete and deliberately enigmatic actor.
Director: Marc Clouet d’Orval (France, 2022)
Genre: Documentary
Viva Varda! – May 22 at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT
In celebration of the Cannes Film Festival
Also streaming on TV5MONDEplus
(English ST)
A leading post-war film director, and initiator of the Nouvelle Vague, acknowledged by Hollywood during her lifetime, Agnès Varda’s work (1928-2019) was quirky, open to the world, and sensitive to society’s most vulnerable. She frequently recounted her life, her work, building her legend. But was the reality even more extraordinary? A free-ranging portrait.
Director: Pierre-Henri Gibert (France, 2023)
Genre: Documentary
Alain Delon, la beauté du diable et les femmes – May 21 at 3:00pm ET/12:00pm PT
In celebration of the Cannes Film Festival
Also streaming on TV5MONDEplus
(English ST)
Claudia Cardinale, Monica Vitti, Brigitte Bardot… throughout his career Alain Delon has starred opposite the most beautiful actresses. Some even shared his life: Romy Schneider, Mireille Darc, and Anne Parillaud. Women have always played a major role in the life of this icon of French cinema.
Director: Antoine Lassaigne (France, 2018)
Genre: Documentary
Refuges de montagne – Thursdays, starting May 16 at 3:00pm ET/12:00pm PT
Season 8 premiere
Previous episodes also streaming on TV5MONDEplus
(English ST)
A summertime visit to the Swiss Alps to discover mountain refugees and the people who look after them. Susanne Brand manages the Gauli mountain hut, made famous by the emergency landing of an American Dakota on the glacier of the same name in 1946. In Engadin, we discover the Cluozza mountain cabin. Finally, in the canton of Appenzell, Ruth and Paul Graf welcome us to the Hundstein.
Director: Danielle Giuliani (Switzerland, 2020)
Genre: Documentary series
TV5 Monde Plus
Films
Entre les vagues – Now streaming
In celebration of the Cannes Film Festival
(English ST)
Two best friends with dreams of becoming successful actresses get cast in a high-profile play in Paris, but one of them has a secret that could jeopardize everything.
Director: Anaïs Volpé (France, 2022)
Cast: Souheila Yacoub, Déborah Lukumuena, Matthieu Longatte, Angélique Kidjo
Genre: Drama
Awards: The Directors’ Fortnight Selection (Cannes, 2021), 2022 Riviera International Film Festival Student Jury Award Best Film Winner, Champs-Élysées Film Festival 2021 Prix du Jury Best Female French Director Winner
Gueule d’ange – Now streaming
In celebration of the Cannes Film Festival
(English ST)
One day, Marlene suddenly chooses to abandon her daughter for a man she has just met during yet another night of excess. Elli must confront her mother’s demons to get her back.
Director: Vanessa Filho (France, 2018)
Cast: Marion Cotillard, Ayline Aksoy-Etaix, Alban Lenoir
Genre: Drama
Awards: Cannes Film Festival 2018 Un Certain Regard Award Nominee
Un beau voyou – Now streaming
(English ST)
Beffrois, a disillusioned police captain nearing retirement, has his curiosity aroused by a new art theft. Seemingly an art specialist, the burglar prefers works of average value. No doubt to avoid attracting attention. Another distinctive sign: he always passes by the roof. For Beffrois the investigation looks to be athletic.
Director: Lucas Bernard (France, 2018)
Cast: Swann Arlaud, Charles Berling, Jennifer Decker
Genre: Dramedy
Series
Les grandes Grandes Vacances – Streaming beginning May 8
(English ST)
2 siblings visit their grandparents in Normandy, just as France enters World War II.
Creators: Delphine Maury, Olivier Vinuesa (France, 2015)
Cast: Julie-Ann Dean, Benjamin Bollen, Janet James
Genre: Animation history series
Documentaries
Cheveux afro – L’histoire d’une couronne innée – Streaming beginning May 8
(English ST)
Season premiere, TV5MONDE coproduction with BKE
Written and directed by journalist Rachel Kwarteng, this series features 19 inspiring black women, who narrate their personal experiences. With them, the world of kinky hair is explored in depth, from pre-colonial times to today.
Director: Rachel Kwarteng (France, 2024)
Genre: Documentary series
TV5 Monde Cinema
Theme: French films at major film festivals
La dérive des continents (au sud) – Available beginning May 3
(English ST)
A woman, on a mission for the European Union in Sicily, is responsible for organizing French President Macron and German Chancellor Merkel’s next visit to a migrant camp.
Director: Lionel Baier (2022)
Cast: Isabelle Carré, Théodore Pellerin, Ursina Lardi
Genre: Dramedy
Awards: 2022 Cannes Film Festival Directors’ Fortnight Official Selection
L’établi – Available beginning May 3
(English ST)
A few months after May 68, an academic and far-left activist decides to get a job at a car factory as a line worker.
Director: Mathias Gokalp (2023)
Cast: Swann Arlaud, Mélanie Thierry, Denis Podalydès
Genre: Drama
Awards: 2023 Francophone Film Festival of Greece Official Selection
Le destin de Juliette – Available beginning May 10
(English ST)
After a farmer’s daughter marries a railway worker for the welfare of her family, she realizes her happiness is more important.
Director: Aline Issermann (1983)
Cast: Laure Duthilleul, Richard Bohringer, Véronique Silver
Genre: Drama
Awards: 1984 César Awards Best First Work nomination
Les bienheureux – Available beginning May 10
(English ST)
A few years after the Algerian Civil War, a couple celebrates their twentieth wedding anniversary at a restaurant.
Director: Sofia Djama (2017)
Cast: Sami Bouajila, Nadia Kaci, Faouzi Bensaïdi, Lyna Khoudri
Genre: Drama
Awards: 2017 Venice Film Festival Best Actress Winner (Lyna Khoudri)
Bruno Reidal– Available beginning May 17
(English ST)
Based on the true story of Bruno Reidal, a young peasant from Cantal who was found guilty of murdering a child in 1905.
Director: Vincent Le Port (2021)
Cast: Dimitri Doré, Jean-Luc Vincent, Roman Villedieu
Genre: Drama
Awards: 2023 César Awards Best First Film Nominee
Les particules – Available beginning May 17
(English ST)
As winter sets in, and young man starts to observe strange phenomena in the environment. The changes are imperceptible at first, but gradually his whole world seems to be on the brink.
Director: Blaise Harrison (2019)
Cast: Thomas Daloz, Néa Lüders, Salvatore Ferro
Genre: Drama
Awards: 2019 Cannes Film Festival Golden Camera Nominee
Les héroïques – Available beginning May 24
(English ST)
A former junkie becomes a dad again at age 50 and fights not to repeat the same mistakes he did with his first son.
Director: Maxime Roy (2021)
Cast: François Créton, Richard Bohringer, Ariane Ascaride
Genre: Dramedy
Awards: 2021 Cannes Film Festival Golden Camera Nominee
Tant que le soleil frappe – Available beginning May 24
(English ST)
A tenacious landscaper fights to create a wild garden open to all in the city center of Marseille.
Director: Philippe Petit (2022)
Cast: Swann Arlaud, Sarah Adler, Grégoire Oestermann
Genre: Drama
Awards: 2022 Venice Film Festival Best Film Nominee
Lola vers la mer – Available beginning May 31
(English ST)
An 18-year-old transgender woman is finally able to have an operation. However, her mother who was going to support her financially, unexpectedly dies.
Director: Laurent Micheli (2019)
Cast: Benoît Magimel, Mya Bollaers, Els Deceukelier
Genre: Dramedy
Awards: 2020 César Awards Best Foreign Film Nominee
Trois nuits par semaine– Available beginning May 31
(English ST)
A man becomes mesmerized by a young drag queen in Paris and immerses himself in a new world.
Director: Florent Gouëlou (2022)
Cast: Pablo Pauly, Romain Eck, Hafsia Herzi
Genre: Dramedy
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Murder in the seedy world of transsexual prostitution
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] |
[] |
[] |
[
""
] | null |
[
"Kevin Thomas"
] |
2004-10-08T00:00:00
|
Francis Girod's 'Transfixed' puts its complex characters on a course of self-discovery while a serial killer is on the loose in Brussels.
|
en
|
/apple-touch-icon.png
|
Los Angeles Times
|
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-oct-08-et-transfixed8-story.html
|
“Transfixed” is an absorbing mystery thriller set in the high-risk world of Brussels’ transsexual prostitutes and entertainers, which is an ideal milieu for veteran director Francis Girod’s outre tastes and wide-ranging sympathies. Based on a novel by Brigitte Aubert, it has a classically convoluted plot in which no one is quite what he or she seems and which packs plenty of surprises at the finish.
Robinson Stevenin’s Bo is a transvestite nightclub entertainer who apparently has yet to succumb to prostitution as a means of survival, and is undecided about whether to undergo a sex change operation. Willowy, angular Bo projects vulnerability, and as the film opens is swiftly under siege.
On the one hand, tough veteran police detective Huysmans (Richard Borhringer) is pressuring Bo to testify against his father (Marcel Dossogne), a well-known clinician, for child molestation. At 13, Bo had claimed his father had molested him, but no one believed him. On the other, Bo is instantly attracted to a new neighbor, Johnny (Stephane Metzger), a good-looking but shifty and aggressive young man engaged in shady deals with his husky older pal Alex (Frederic Pellegeay), who is even more hostile. As if all this were not enough, a serial killer starts terrorizing Brussels’ transsexual prostitutes.
Aubert is an endlessly imaginative plotter constantly pushing the envelope when it comes to credibility, but “Transfixed” actually operates on considerable psychological validity. Much more important is that all the film’s dizzying developments serve the larger purpose of propelling Bo on a course of self-discovery and self-assertion. But what a risky course it is. Despite repeated rough treatment from Johnny, Bo persists in his pursuit, convinced that the attraction between the two is mutual, even if Johnny is in deep denial. And when Bo’s friends start dying off he becomes determined to play detective and hunt down the killer himself.
“Transfixed” takes place in a shadowy world of streetwalkers, brothels and an especially dark section of a park, a secluded meeting place for transsexual prostitutes and their johns. There is a strong camaraderie among the transsexuals, but as the film unfolds it lays bare a wide array of damaged lives that extends to most everyone encountered in the film. Girod, as always, is intrigued by the bizarre, but his view is compassionate
The film has a sense of commitment on the part of Girod to these people and their stories, and he shapes his cast, which includes the ever-elegant Micheline Presle as Bo’s grandmother, into a splendid ensemble. Stevenin is especially notable for his ability at expressing Bo’s ambiguity and his subtle transformation and growth in the course of the film. “Transfixed” is a solid, engaging example of how a genre plot can illuminate a marginalized world.
*
‘Transfixed’
MPAA rating: Unrated
Times guidelines: Some violence, brief nudity, drug-taking, adult themes
Robinson Stevenin...Bo Ancelin
Richard Bohringer...Detective Huysmans
Stephane Metzger...Johnny
William Nadylam...Maeva
Frederic Pellegeay...Alex
A Picture This! release of a Franco-
Belgian co-production: Ognon Pictures/France 3 Cinema/K2/RTL-TV in association with France Television Images, with the participation of Canal Plus. Director Francis Girod. Producer Humbert Balsan. Executive producer Marie-Astrid Lamboray. Screenplay Girod, Philippe Cougrand; based on the novel “Transfixions” by Brigitte Aubert. Cinematographer Thierry Jault. Editor Isabelle Dedieu. Music Alexandre Desplat. Art director Perrine Rulens. In French with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 49 minutes.
Exclusively at the Fairfax Cinemas, 7907 Beverly Blvd. (at Fairfax Ave.), (323) 655-4010.
|
||
1028
|
dbpedia
|
3
| 78
|
https://wff.pl/en/film/rafiki-34
|
en
|
WARSAW FILM FESTIWAL
|
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] |
[] |
[] |
[
"Warsaw Film Festival",
"WFF",
"Warsaw Festival",
"Festival October",
"CentEast"
] | null |
[] | null |
Warsaw Film Festival was established in 1985; it’s one of the key film events in Eastern Europe;
it presents new premiere features, documenataries, and shorts; WFF is recognised by FIAPF as competitive international film festival
|
en
|
wff.pl
|
https://wff.pl/pl/film/rafiki-34
|
Watch trailer
add to favourites Screening schedule
Screenings:
Festival edition: 2018
Section: Discoveries
Dialogue language: Swahili / English
Genre: drama / coming of age
Description:
“Growing up, we watched many Europeans and Americans fall in love on our screens over and over: but never us. That kind of affection was reserved for foreigners”, says director Wanuri Kahiu, and tells a story that has nothing to do with the belief that “good Kenyan girls become good Kenyan wives”. Kena and Ziki long for something more. Their fathers are political rivals in the local elections, but the girls remain close friends, supporting each other to pursue their dreams in a conservative society. When love blossoms between them, things get much more complicated. In their traditional society, their relationship is unacceptable and strictly forbidden by law. They will thus have to choose between happiness and safety. The first Kenyan film to be chosen for Cannes’ official selection.
|
|||||
1028
|
dbpedia
|
3
| 81
|
https://www.komparify.com/entertainment/movie/wah-wah
|
en
|
Wah Reviews, Ratings, Box Office, Trailers, Runtime
|
https://movieassetsdigital.sgp1.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/thumb/03555ab9b629fb822438d497ec5fdd3a06873b27
|
https://movieassetsdigital.sgp1.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/thumb/03555ab9b629fb822438d497ec5fdd3a06873b27
|
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[] |
[] |
[
""
] | null |
[
"Komparify.com"
] | null |
Wah-Wah / Wah-wah (film),Wah wah Get aggregated reviews, box office, runtime, trailers, ratings, cast and crew, photos, posters, songs, tracklist, and videos.
|
komparify.com
|
https://www.komparify.com/entertainment/movie/wah-wah
|
Wah-Wah is a 2005 English-language Comedy Drama movie written and directed by Richard E. Grant and produced by Marie-castille Mention-schaar, Jeff Abberley and Pierre Kubel under the banner of Scion Films in collaboration with IMG Productions, Lorna Nasha and Reeleyes Film. Set at the end of the '60s, as Swaziland is about to receive independence from Great Britain, the film follows the young Ralph Compton, at 12, through his parents' traumatic separation, till he's 14. It is written and directed by Richard E Grant, and based on true events from Richard E Grant's childhood. Written by Anonymous. Wah-wah features Nicholas Hoult, Gabriel Byrne, Emily Watson, Miranda Richardson, Julie Walters, Zac Fox and Angus Imrie. The music was composed by Patrick Doyle. Cinematography was done by Pierre Aim and editing by Isabelle Dedieu. The film has a running time of 97 minutes. It was released on 2nd June 2006. Wah-Wah was made on a budget of $7 million and at the box office it grossed only $2 million. Distribution rights for the movie were acquired by Roadside Attractions.
|
||||
1028
|
dbpedia
|
3
| 39
|
https://www.ask-oracle.com/birth-chart/isabelle-dedieu/
|
en
|
Isabelle Dedieu Age, Birthday, Zodiac Sign and Birth Chart
|
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] |
[] |
[] |
[
""
] | null |
[] |
2010-06-25T09:37:49+00:00
|
Astrology details of Isabelle Dedieu such as age, birthday, zodiac sign, and natal chart. Analyze their birth chart and kundli to understand their personality and cause of death through astrology.
|
en
|
Ask Oracle
|
https://www.ask-oracle.com/birth-chart/isabelle-dedieu/
|
Zodiac Sign (Western)
Taurus
Sunsign, Tropical Zodiac
Zodiac Sign (Vedic)
Leo
Moonsign, Sidereal Zodiac
Age (Today)
68 years, 4 months, 6 days
Your next birthday is 236 days away.
Birthday
Friday, April 20, 1956
Place of Birth
Paris
Time Zone -
Chinese Zodiac Sign
Monkey (猴)
Birth Number
2
Life Path Number
9
Name Number (Chaldean)
48 => 3
Name Number (Pythagorean)
5
Meaning of the name - Isabelle
God is my oath, pledged to God
Read Full Isabelle Name Analysis
April 20, 1956 Facts
Generation Group
Isabelle Dedieu belongs to the Baby Boomers group.
Place of Birth: Paris
Place of Death:
Cause of Death:
Educated At:
Occupation: film editor
Spouses:
Children:
Employers:
Awards Received:
Astrology Analysis
Western Astrology Chart
North Indian Kundli
Ephemeris for April 20, 1956
Note: Moon position is location and time sensitive.
Planet Position (Tropical, Western) Transits on April 20, 2024 Secondary Progressions for April 20, 2024 Sun 0 Taurus 34 1 Taurus 6 5 Cancer 59 Moon 6 Virgo 17 24 Virgo 59 24 Aquarius 28 Mercury 15 Taurus 51 16 Aries 57 15 Gemini 2 Venus 16 Gemini 0 19 Aries 11 27 Gemini 28 Mars 3 Aquarius 39 22 Pisces 19 12 Pisces 25 Jupiter 21 Leo 18 21 Taurus 43 28 Leo 4 Saturn 2 Sagittarius 4 15 Pisces 37 27 Scorpio 30 Uranus 28 Cancer 20 21 Taurus 50 0 Leo 58 Neptune 29 Libra 0 28 Pisces 36 27 Libra 40 Pluto 26 Leo 9 2 Aquarius 3 26 Leo 41 Rahu 10 Sagittarius 13 15 Aries 0 6 Sagittarius 37 Ketu 10 Gemini 13 15 Libra 0 6 Gemini 37
More For Taurus
Free Horoscopes
Love Compatibility
Personality Traits
Taurus Man
Taurus Woman
Chandra Kundali (Equal House, North Indian Diamond Chart)
Astrology Transits Analysis for Year 2024
Note: Multiple transits occurring in close proximity often signify a major event in a person's life.
Isabelle Dedieu's 2024 Transits to Natal Planets
Saturn square Saturn
Exact: 01 January, 2024
Jupiter trine Moon
Exact: 31 January, 2024
Saturn opposition Moon
Exact: 31 January, 2024
Mars aspects Moon
Exact: 20 February, 2024
Saturn square Rahu
Exact: 11 March, 2024
Mars opposition Jupiter
Exact: 11 March, 2024
Mars opposition Moon
Exact: 31 March, 2024
Jupiter conjunction Mercury
Exact: 31 March, 2024
Saturn sextile Mercury
Exact: 30 April, 2024
Mars conjunction Sun
Exact: 09 June, 2024
Jupiter opposition Saturn
Exact: 09 June, 2024
Jupiter trine Mars
Exact: 09 June, 2024
Mars square Jupiter
Exact: 09 July, 2024
Jupiter conjunction Ketu
Exact: 09 July, 2024
Jupiter opposition Rahu
Exact: 09 July, 2024
Mars square Moon
Exact: 29 July, 2024
Jupiter conjunction Venus
Exact: 18 August, 2024
Saturn sextile Mercury
Exact: 28 August, 2024
Mars opposition Mars
Exact: 16 November, 2024
Jupiter conjunction Venus
Exact: 06 December, 2024
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FactBench
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https://billiongraves.com/grave/Chester-Burton-Chet-Atkins/86554078
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en
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Chester Burton "Chet" Atkins
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https://billiongraves.com/static/img/favicon.ico
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Grave site information of Chester Burton 'Chet' Atkins (20 Jun 1924 - 30 Jun 2001) at Harpeth Hills Memory Gardens Funeral Home & Cremation Center in Nashville, Davidson, Tennessee, United States from BillionGraves | BillionGraves
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en
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/static/img/favicon.ico
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https://billiongraves.com/grave/Chester-Burton-Chet-Atkins/86554078
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Additional data from member contributors
BillionGraves.com record for Chester Burton "Chet" Atkins (20 June 1924 - 30 June 2001), BillionGraves Record Harpeth Hills Memory Gardens Funeral Home & Cremation Center, Nashville, Davidson, Tennessee, United States, North America
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FactBench
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https://christiansmusicmusings.wordpress.com/tag/chet-atkins/
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Chet Atkins – Christian's Music Musings
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2024-01-05T08:00:00-05:00
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Posts about Chet Atkins written by christiansmusicmusings
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en
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Christian's Music Musings
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https://christiansmusicmusings.wordpress.com/tag/chet-atkins/
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“Any musician with a set of ears was influenced by The Everly Brothers” – Graham Nash
This post was inspired by a documentary, The Everly Brothers: Harmonies From Heaven, which I coincidentally caught on PBS on New Year’s Eve. From the PBS description: Explore the story of Phil and Don Everly, two of the most important and influential early rock ’n’ roll stars of the 1950s and ’60s. Featuring new interview footage with surviving brother Don and archival interviews with Phil, the film delves into their relationship with Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, the songwriting team who wrote many of their early hits. It also includes commentary from Art Garfunkel, Graham Nash, Waddy Wachtel, Keith Richards and other music artists. Here’s a link to the trailer.
I started listening to The Everly Brothers in my early teens back in Germany, after my brother-in-law had given me a compilation as a present. I still own that copy and was able to find it in my current mess of vinyl albums (see photo below). At the time, Elvis Presley still was my favorite rock & rock artist. As such, initially, I was mostly drawn to songs like Wake Up Little Susie, Rip It Up and Keep a Knockin’. I immediately loved the Everlys’ great harmony vocals. I think calling them “harmonies from heaven” is no exaggeration!
Isaac Donald “Don” Everly and his younger brother Phillip “Phil” Everly grew up in a musical family and began singing with their parents Ike Everly and Margaret Everly in the 1940s when they were still children. In the mid-’40s, Ike who was a coalmine worker had a show on Shenandoah, Iowa radio stations KMA and KFNF. First, he performed there with his wife, then with their sons who were billed as “Little Donnie and Baby Boy Phil”, who at the time were about 8 and 6 years, respectively. Together, they were known as “The Everly Family”.
In 1953, the family relocated to Tennessee, first to Knoxville, then to Madison. Following high school graduation in 1955, Don moved to Nashville, together with Phil who finished high school there in 1957. The brothers decided they wanted to continue focusing on making music together. Eventually, they came to the attention of family friend Chet Atkins, manager of RCA Studios in Nashville. Atkins helped the brothers get a deal with Columbia Records, but after their first single Keep a-Lovin’ Me flopped, the label dropped them.
Atkins subsequently introduced Phil and Don to Wesley Rose who told them he could get a record deal if they would sign with his music publishing firm Acuff-Rose. The brothers obliged and Rose introduced them to Archie Bleyer, founder of Cadence Records. Phil and Don got signed and recorded their first single for the label, Bye Bye Love, penned by husband-and-wife country and pop songwriting duo Felice Bryant and Diadorius Boudleaux Bryant.
Released in March 1957, Bye Bye Love became the first of many major hits for The Everly Brothers. In addition to topping the county charts in the U.S., it climbed to no. 2 and no. 5 on the pop and R&B charts, respectively, indicating the duo’s appeal across different music genres. By 1973, tension had built up between the brothers, and they decided to split to pursue solo careers. While Don found some chart success, Phil did not, even though he recorded more frequently.
In September 1983, Phil and Don reunited as The Everly Brothers at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The concert was recorded and released as The Everly Brothers Reunion Concert later that year. While the live album reached a respectable no. 47 in the UK, it stalled at no. 162 in the U.S. on the Billboard 200. The Everly Brothers subsequently released three additional studio albums in the ’80s. They continued to tour on and off until 2003-2004 when they were guests on Simon & Garfunkel’s Old Friends reunion tour.
Phil Everly passed away from COPD on January 3, 2014 at the age of 75. Don Everly died at his home in Nashville on August 2021. He was 84. Let’s take a closer look at some of The Everly Brothers’ music and those “harmonies from heaven.” I’m going to highlight six of their songs, followed by a larger career-spanning Spotify playlist.
Bye Bye Love (March 1957)
Notably, this classic had been rejected by 30 other artists before it was given to The Everly Brothers. “I wrote ‘Bye Bye Love’ while traveling home one night,” noted Boudleaux Bryant. “Felice was driving down the highway and I got the first verse and chorus right down there. I always make sure I have a pen and paper in the car for these occasions.” He went on, “We really believed in the song and were disappointed when so many people turned it down. They said it was unsuitable, some even asked if we has anything better!”
Wake Up Little Susie (September 1957)
Wake Up Little Susie, another song by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, became the first no. 1 for the Everlys on the U.S. pop chart. It also topped the country and R&B charts, as well as the charts in Canada. In addition to outstanding harmony vocals, the song has a really cool rhythm, which Don Everly said was inspired by Bo Diddley’s signature beat. “And I guess it rubbed off on me,” Keith Richards said in the above documentary. “Don’s acoustic guitar – rockin’, man!”
All I Have to Do Is Dream (April 1958)
Written by Boudleaux Bryant alone for a change, All I Have to Do Is Dream became another major hit for The Everly Brothers, toping the pop, country and R&B charts in the U.S. Once again, it reached no. 1 in Canada and became the duo’s first song to top the charts in the UK as well. “I remember hearing ‘All I Have To Do Is Dream’ on an acetate with Boudleaux’s version on it, and I said, at the time, they could have put Boudleaux’s out and it would have been a hit,” Don Everly stated. “It’s just a great, great song. It’s beautiful.” Indeed! BTW, these neat tremolo-style guitar chords were played by Chet Atkins.
Cathy’s Clown (April 1960)
While Felice and Boudleaux Bryant wrote many hits for the Everlys, the duo also had original songs. One of the most beautiful examples I know is Cathy’s Clown, which Don Everly wrote. Initially, both brothers had been credited until 1980, seven years after Don and Phil had split and I guess still weren’t on great terms. The song, which has been inspired by one of Don’s ex-girlfriends, became the last no. 1 for The Everly Brothers in the U.S., topping both the pop and the R&B charts. Cathy’s Clown was their first single on Warner Bros. after Cadence Records no longer could afford resigning them. They were still on top of the world.
Crying In the Rain (January 1962)
By the time Crying in the Rain came out, The Everly Brothers had not had a big hit in nearly a year. It already foreshadowed their declining popularity. The ballad was penned by Brill Building songwriters Howard Greenfield and Carole King, who worked for Don Kirshner’s Aldon Music at the time. Kirshner had been eager to produce a hit for The Everly Brothers. He didn’t need to cry in the rain. The song, one of the few King didn’t write with her usual lyricist Gerry Goffin, became the second-to-last top 10 hit for the Everlys on the U.S. pop chart (no. 6) and also reached that same spot in the UK.
On the Wings of a Nightingale (August 1984)
For my final pick, I’m jumping 22 years forward to what became the last charting single for the Everlys, reaching no. 50 and no. 41 on the U.S. and U.K. pop charts, respectively. Following their reunion concert in London the previous year, Phil and Don recorded EB 84, their first studio album of original material in 11 years. On the Wings of a Nightingale, which Paul McCartney specifically had written for them, became the lead single. After Phil Everly’s death in 2014, Macca wrote the following on his website, as reported by the Los Angeles Times: “Phil Everly was one of my great heroes. With his brother Don, they were one of the major influences on the Beatles. When John and I first started to write songs, I was Phil and he was Don.”
Altogether, The Everly Brothers scored 35 Billboard Top 100 singles, of which 26 reached the top 40. They hold the record for the most Top 100 singles by any duo, second only to Hall & Oates for the most Top 40 singles by a duo. In the UK, the Everlys had 30 chart singles between 1957 and 1984. In 1986, they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by Neil Young, who said every musical group he had ever belonged to had tried, and failed, to copy the Everly Brothers’ harmonies. Here’s the above-mentioned Spotify playlist.
Sources: Wikipedia; Songfacts; Los Angeles Times; YouTube; Spotify
I can’t believe it’s Sunday again – boy, this first week of 2022 flew by really quickly! Well, this means it’s time for another installment of my favorite weekly feature where I time-travel to celebrate music of the past and sometimes the present, six tunes at a time. Off we go!
Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble/Chitlins con Carne
Let’s kick it off with a great jazzy instrumental by Stevie Ray Vaughan, one of my favorite electric blues guitarists. Chitlins con Carne is from the fifth and final album of Vaughan and his backing band Double Trouble, appropriately titled The Sky Is Crying. This record appeared in November 1991, 14 months after Vaughan’s tragic and untimely death in a helicopter crash. He was only 35 years old – what a huge loss! Chitlins con Carne, composed by jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell, was first released on his 1963 album Midnight Blue. In case you’re curious you can check out the original here. Following is Vaughan’s excellent rendition!
Christine McVie/Got a Hold on Me
Christine McVie is best known as keyboarder, vocalist and songwriter of Fleetwood Mac, which she joined in 1970, coming from British blues band Chicken Shack. At the time she became a member of the Mac, she was the wife of bassist John McVie whom she had married in 1968. Their union fell apart after Christine had an affair with the band’s lighting engineer Curry Grant during the production of the Rumours album in 1976. Let’s just say there were many on and off relationships within Fleetwood Mac! Christine McVie wrote some of the band’s best-known songs, such as Don’t Stop, You Make Loving Fun (about her affair with Grant, though at the time she claimed it was about a dog!) and Say You Love Me. To date, she has also recorded three solo albums. Got a Hold on Me, co-written by her and Todd Sharp, is from her second solo effort Christine McVie, which came out in January 1984. I’ve always loved this pop-rock tune – simple and a bit repetitive, but quite catchy!
James Taylor/Fire and Rain
Last Sunday, I caught a great CNN documentary, Carole King & James Taylor: Just Call Out My Name, focused on their 2010 Troubadour Reunion Tour – I could still kill myself that I completely missed that tour! Anyway, one of the tunes they played was Fire and Rain, my favorite James Taylor original song. I also love his rendition of King’s You’ve Got a Friend. Fire and Rain is off Taylor’s sophomore album Sweet Baby James from February 1970. The tune also appeared separately as a single in August that year. It became his first hit, reaching no. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, no. 2 in Canada and no. 6 in Australia. It also charted in the UK (no. 48) and The Netherlands (no. 18). Here’s a beautiful live performance captured from the BBC’s In Concert series in November 1970. James Taylor, his smooth voice and his great guitar-playing – that’s really all you need!
Them/Gloria
Next, let’s jump back further to December 1964 and some dynamite British garage rock: Gloria by Them, a band formed in April 1964 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Fronted by Van Morrison (lead vocals, saxophone, harmonica), the group’s original line-up also included Billy Harrison (guitar, vocals), Eric Wrixon (keyboards), Alan Henderson (bass) and Ronnie Milling (drums). Gloria, penned by Morrison, was first released in November 1964 as the B-side to Baby, Please Don’t Go, Them’s second single. The tune was also included on the group’s debut album The Angry Young Them from June 1965, which in the U.S. was simply titled Them. This song’s just a classic. I wish I could say the same about Van Morrison these days!
Elvis Presley/Heartbreak Hotel
As frequent visitors of the blog may recall, my childhood idol was Elvis Presley who, btw, would have turned 87 yesterday (January 8). While I no longer idolize him or anyone else for that matter, I still dig Elvis, especially his early period. One of the coolest songs I can think of in this context is Heartbreak Hotel. Credited to Tommy Durden, Mae Boren Axton and Presley, the slow jazzy blues tune first appeared as a single in January 1956 and became Elvis’ first big hit. Among others, it topped the charts in the U.S., Canada and The Netherlands, and reached no. 2 in the UK. Heartbreak Hotel was also included on the compilation Elvis’ Golden Records from March 1958. In addition to Presley’s regular backing musicians Scotty Moore (electric guitar) and Bill Black (double bass), the recording featured Chet Atkins (acoustic guitar), Floyd Cramer (piano) and D.J. Fontana (drums). Feel free to snip along!
Mark Knopfler/Prairie Wedding
And once again, this brings me to the sixth and final track in this installment. It’s yet another tune my streaming music provider recently served up as a listening suggestion: Prairie Wedding by Mark Knopfler. The song is from the former Dire Straits frontman’s second solo album Sailing to Philadelphia that came out in September 2000. Written by Knopfler like all other tunes on the album, the track features Gillian Welch and her musical partner David Rawlings on backing vocals, as well as Guy Fletcher on keyboards. Fletcher also served in that role in Dire Straits from 1984 until the band’s final dissolution in 1995. Great tune with a nice cinematic feel!
Here’s a playlist of the above tunes:
Sources: Wikipedia; YouTube; Spotify
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https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/chet-atkins-dies-243017/
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Chet Atkins Dies
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2001-07-02T04:00:00+00:00
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Master guitarist was one of Nashville Sound creators
|
en
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Rolling Stone
|
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/chet-atkins-dies-243017/
|
Chet Atkins, known as Mr. Guitar, died on Saturday morning (June 30th) at his home in Nashville at age seventy-seven, after battling cancer for several years. Like Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Willie, Waylon and the boys, Atkins altered the physical characteristics of country music, creating one of its most definable eras. One of the finest guitarists of the past 100 years and a producer with a distinctive vision, Atkins, for better or worse, fused country and pop together in a manner which spread the former into the reaches of America it had previously been unable to break.
Born Chester Burton Atkins on June 20, 1924 in Luttrell, a small town in East Tennessee, Atkins was raised in a musical family and was initially directed towards the fiddle. But upon hearing guitar genius Merle Travis, Atkins gave up the fiddle for the six-string, trying to learn Travis’ inimitable finger-picking style, and ultimately developing his own three-finger style.
He found sporadic work, both on guitar and fiddle through the mid-Forties, before landing a gig with Red Foley, who gave him his first chance to play the Grand Ole Opry, where he would later become a mainstay. By 1946, Atkins made his first recordings (for Bullet Records) and a year later he signed a contract with RCA. By the early Fifties, he was one of the most prolific session men in Nashville, playing with Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, Faron Young, the Louvin Brothers, Webb Pierce, Kitty Wells and numerous others.
Atkins also began to oversee album production in Music City, and became a studio manager for RCA in 1957. As country music began to display a broader national sales muscle, Atkins became a primary catalyst in the creation of the Nashville Sound, excising some of the genre’s rural attributes and adding strings and background vocal ensembles. The result was a fork in the road for country music listeners; purists found the lush, pop sensibility tainted, but the genre found more stars for a bigger, broader audience.
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His relationship with RCA ran through the Seventies and included work with a number of artists who helped define mainstream country through those years, including Don Gibson and Charlie Pride. Atkins’ production work was so influential that it provided the basic sketch the sounds developed by other producers, most notably Billy Sherrill, who recorded George Jones and Tammy Wynette during the height of their popularity. Atkins jumped ship in the early Eighties when RCA balked at his desire to record a jazz-tinged album. Subsequently Work It Out With Chet Atkins was released in 1983 on Columbia. Atkins also recorded vibrant collaborations with Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler (1990’s Neck and Neck) and former disciple Jerry Reed (1991’s Sneakin’ Around). His last release was The Day the Finger Pickers Took Over the World, an inspired collaboration with Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel in 1997, one year before he took a leave from live performing due to his illness.
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Music is a universal language. It brings people together and breaks down barriers.
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2023-09-22T09:07:20+08:00
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Chet Atkins once wisely said, "Music is a universal language. It brings people together and breaks down barriers." This quote beautifully captures the power of music to transcend cultural, linguistic, and social boundaries. Regardless of our differences, we all possess a natural inclination towards music, and it has the incredible ability to unite people from all walks of life. In moments of shared musical experience, we find a common ground where understanding, harmony, and connection emerge effortlessly. Music truly holds the capacity to bridge gaps, foster empathy, and create an atmosphere of understanding that can lead to a more inclusive and tolerant society.
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Chet Atkins once wisely said, "Music is a universal language. It brings people together and breaks down barriers." This quote beautifully captures the power of music to transcend cultural, linguistic, and social boundaries. Regardless of our differences, we all possess a natural inclination towards music, and it has the incredible ability to unite people from all walks of life. In moments of shared musical experience, we find a common ground where understanding, harmony, and connection emerge effortlessly. Music truly holds the capacity to bridge gaps, foster empathy, and create an atmosphere of understanding that can lead to a more inclusive and tolerant society.
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wrong_mix_range_death_00074
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FactBench
|
0
| 9
|
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/jul/02/guardianobituaries2
|
en
|
The Guardian
|
[
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[
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[
"Tony Russell",
"www.theguardian.com",
"tony-russell"
] |
2001-07-02T00:00:00
|
<p>Virtuoso guitarist and producer who took the twang out of country music and invented the Nashville Sound.</p>
|
en
|
the Guardian
|
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/jul/02/guardianobituaries2
|
Chet Atkins, who has died of cancer aged 77, was the first virtuoso guitarist in country music and a record producer largely responsible for devising the Nashville Sound, which put a new polish on country music in the 60s and 70s.
The sounds he discovered on his guitar, refined during hours of solitary tinkering in his home studio, adorned records by Elvis Presley, Hank Williams and thousands of other artists, both country and pop. Many of them, such as Waylon Jennings or Don Gibson, he himself took to RCA, the label he served for more than 30 years.
Others, such as Jim Reeves and Charley Pride, he groomed in the studio until they emerged as hitmakers. Between sessions he would retire to his workshop and devise guitar arrangements of pop and jazz standards or of other people's hits, from Anne Murray's Snowbird to Boots Randolph's Yakety Sax.
The combined legacy of his session work and his dozens of albums influenced a generation of guitarists as diverse as the American Duane Eddy, the French Marcel Dadi and the English rock musicians George Harrison and Mark Knopfler.
Born into a poor farming family in east Tennessee, Atkins grew up there and in rural Georgia. His father was a music teacher and his older brother, Jimmy, was a guitarist who worked with Les Paul.
Both left home while Chet was a boy, and he learned guitar by hunching over a crystal set, listening to country radio shows that might feature hot players. One such was Merle Travis, whose blunt, yet bluesy, thumb-and-finger picking made a lasting impression.
After high school he went to work on radio himself, at WNOX in Knoxville, Tennessee. "I could play only three tunes: Seein' Nellie Home, Bye Bye Blues, and When You And I Were Young, Maggie," he recalled to Nicholas Dawidoff, author of In the Country of Country. "So I gradually learned to play while I was making a living at it. I was original - my style sounded like two bad guitar players."
He spent several lean years on a succession of stations, made his first recording, Guitar Blues, for the Nashville indepen dent label Bullet in 1946, and ended the decade playing with Mother Maybelle Carter & The Carter Sisters. Settling in Nashville, he was hired by RCA as a session guitarist, a role upgraded to consultant and, in 1957, producer.
Over the next couple of decades, Atkins at RCA and his fellow producer Owen Bradley at Decca showed that they were prepared to think the unthinkable, casting out the backwoodsy banjos and fiddles and bringing in brass and string sections and vocal choruses. They took the homely niche-market product of country music, sanded off its rough edges, sprayed it with studio gloss, and gave it the commercial sheen of mainstream pop.
"We took the twang out of it," Atkins explained. "We tried to make hit records."
"What I do is listen a lot during a session and try to pick up some little something from the musicians that might make the record more commercial" - a guitar lick by Hank Garland, perhaps, or a clipped piano figure from Floyd Cramer, whose Last Date (1960) was one of Atkins' early successes, along with Jim Reeves' He'll Have To Go (1959) and Skeeter Davis's The End of the World (1963).
Years later, when Atkins' "Countrypolitan" touch was no longer fashionable, he was often asked by journalists and documentary-makers whether he and his fellow Svengalis had gone too far. There were no breast-beating recantations but, according to Dawidoff, "he still [had] reservations about how far afield he took country music from the relatively unadorned prewar downhome sound."
"We almost do lose our identity sometimes," Atkins admitted. "But somebody'll come along and get us back where we need to be."
He gave up his vice-presidential job at RCA in 1982 and thereafter recorded for Columbia, but for much of the 80s and 90s he devoted himself to playing golf and working only on projects that attracted or intrigued him: alliances with Ravi Shankar or the Boston Pops orchestra, and occasional spots on Garrison Keillor's nostalgic radio show A Prairie Home Companion.
Ever since 1970, when he won a Grammy for his album Me and Jerry, with Jerry Reed, Atkins had enjoyed duet sessions with guitar-picking friends, and he added to his Grammy collection with awards for albums with Merle Travis (The Atkins-Travis Traveling Show, 1974); Les Paul (Chester And Lester, 1976); and Reed again (Sneakin' Around, 1992); as well as for singles with Mark Knopfler and, on his own, his most recent Jam Man (1996).
Atkins received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 1973, the year that he was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame. He also won a Pioneer Award from the Academy of Country Music in 1982, nine Instrumentalist of the Year honours from the Country Music Association and innumerable Best Guitarist awards in magazines from Cash Box to Playboy.
Never a man for black-tie ceremonies, Atkins probably derived more satisfaction from the fact that generations of guitarists aspire to playing and owning the guitars that the Gibson and Gretsch companies named after him.
He is survived by his wife of more than 50 years, Leona, a former country singer whom he met in his radio days; and a daughter Merle, named after his idol Merle Travis.
&~149; Chester 'Chet' Burton Atkins, country music guitarist and producer, born June 20 1924; died June 30 2001.
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wrong_mix_range_death_00074
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FactBench
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0
| 75
|
https://www.facebook.com/OfficialSteveWariner/videos/steve-wariner-salutes-chet-atkins-100th-birthday/998000721985601/
|
en
|
Steve Wariner salutes Chet Atkins’ 100th birthday
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de
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https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/yT/r/aGT3gskzWBf.ico
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https://www.facebook.com/OfficialSteveWariner/videos/steve-wariner-salutes-chet-atkins-100th-birthday/998000721985601/
| |||||||
wrong_mix_range_death_00074
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FactBench
|
3
| 20
|
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/service_bbc_two_england/1993-06-25
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en
|
BBC Programme Index
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https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/favicon.ico
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https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/favicon.ico
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1993-06-25T00:00:00
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/favicon.ico
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Melodrama starring Joan Crawford
When a beautiful crook has an operation to save her sight she falls in love with her doctor. But their happiness is threatened by her jealous boyfriend and the FBI who are hot on her trail.
Director Felix Feist (1952)
SEE FILMS pages 67-72
Coverage of day five of the Lawn Tennis Championships live from the All England Club. Presented by Desmond Lynam and Barry Davies with commentary from John Barrett , Mark Cox ,
Bill Threlfall , David Mercer , Paul Hutchins , John Alexander and Julian Tutt.
Executive producer Martin Hopkins EditorJohnRowlinson
Including
2.00pm and 3.00pm News and Weather
Subtitled (news) and at
3.50pm News and Weather Subtitled (news)
Regional News: Weather
For details see previous page.
As coverage of Wimbledon is live, subsequent programmes may run late.
Geoff Hamilton and Liz Rigbey report on the beauty and diversity of bamboos cultivated in Norfolk, an Olympic-size floral bedding scheme in Manchester and a wealth of design ideas in Surrey.
Series producer Laurence Vulliamy Executive producer Tony Laryea
A Catalyst TV production for BBCtv
BBC BOOK: Gardeners' World Practical Gardening Course. £25 from booksellers.
GEOFF HAMILTON page 24
Another chance to see the first series (from 1984) of the show that launched Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones in their post-Not the Nine O 'Clock News careers. The "right to know" team look into orange-juice cartons and discover divorce, pornography, bran and two donkeys.
With Annabel Leventon , Annette Lynton , Vanessa Knox-Mawer ,
Raymond Mason , Ken Morley , Hugh Thomas and Geoff Capes. Producer/Director Martin Shardlow
Kirsty Wark spotlights people and places at the heart of Britain's heritage.
This week: Number 7 Blythe Grove - the suburban semi that time forgot, now rescued by the National Trust; how history has buried Britain's unsavoury role in the slave trade; and the fashions and fascinations of the nation's ruins.
Series producer Sally Angel
Executive producer Roland Keating
The comic antidote to Question Time returns to answer all the questions you've ever asked plus some you'd never thought of. Jimmy Mulville presides. Each week regular panel member Tony Hawks is joined by three guests to answer questions hurled at them by the studio audience, viewers at home and strategically planted celebrity guests. This week,
Neil Kinnock has a challenge for the panel.
Director John F D Northover Producer Dan Patterson
A Hat Tnck production for BBCtv QUESTIONS: If you would like to put a question. write to [address removed]
SEE PREVIEW page 5
Cathy's Clown, Bye Bye Love, Wake Up Little Susie - the Everlys' hits are an instant evocation of youth for a whole generation. This series of classic rock documentaries continues with a 1984 Arena profile in which the brothers, reunited after many years of bitter estrangement, retrace their journey from guitar picking in Kentucky with Mose Regur to Tennessee, where their early hits were penned by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. The film also meets their producer, Chet Atkins, who was the architect of the Nashville sound, and follows their career from its heyday in the 50s to the present day.
|
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wrong_mix_range_death_00074
|
FactBench
|
1
| 39
|
https://apnews.com/hub/chet-atkins
|
en
|
Chet Atkins
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[
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[] | null |
en
|
/apple-touch-icon.png
|
AP News
|
https://apnews.com/hub/chet-atkins
|
The Associated Press is an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting. Founded in 1846, AP today remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiased news in all formats and the essential provider of the technology and services vital to the news business. More than half the world’s population sees AP journalism every day.
|
|||
wrong_mix_range_death_00074
|
FactBench
|
1
| 81
|
https://www.billboard.com/artist/chet-atkins/
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en
|
Biography, Music & News
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Explore Chet Atkins' music on Billboard. Get the latest news, biography, and updates on the artist.
|
en
|
Billboard
|
https://www.billboard.com/artist/chet-atkins/
|
Billboard is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Billboard Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by WordPress.com VIP
|
|||||
wrong_mix_range_death_00074
|
FactBench
|
2
| 94
|
https://geezermusicclub.com/2007/07/28/review-chet-atkins-the-essential-chet-atkins/
|
en
|
REVIEW: Chet Atkins – The Essential Chet Atkins
|
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[] |
[
""
] | null |
[] |
2007-07-28T00:00:00
|
Here's an interesting bit of information -- if you put "the essential" into Amazon music's search field, you'll get back over 4,000 hits. Even allowing for duplicates and different editions, it's obviously a popular term in the naming of music albums. But although the term might be overused, it's also meant as a signal that…
|
en
|
Geezer Music Club
|
https://geezermusicclub.com/2007/07/28/review-chet-atkins-the-essential-chet-atkins/
|
Here’s an interesting bit of information — if you put “the essential” into Amazon music’s search field, you’ll get back over 4,000 hits. Even allowing for duplicates and different editions, it’s obviously a popular term in the naming of music albums. But although the term might be overused, it’s also meant as a signal that most music lovers recognize — that it’s a comprehensive album of an artist’s work. And while that might not always be reliable, it is certainly the case with The Essential Chet Atkins, newly released on RCA/Legacy via Sony/BMG.
In fact, I’d go a little further out on this proverbial limb and state that not only is this album an all-embracing collection of the legendary artist’s work, it’s also a perfect illustration of another meaning of “essential” — it’s a “must-have”. Of course, you might already have one of the other Chet Atkins Essential albums, and I probably should elaborate on that odd statement.
In 1996, a similar album with the same title was produced, but it was much more limited — both in scope and number of tracks. This new release has dropped a few of those tunes while keeping most, but has added a couple of dozen more, creating a more comprehensive 2-CD collection. (There was also a 2001 album titled The Essential Chet Atkins – The Columbia Years, which is something else entirely.)
Until his death in 2001, Chet Atkins pretty much owned Nashville, with a peerless run as performer, composer, and producer. Even if you’re into numbers, you’d soon tire of adding up all his best-selling albums, Grammys, and other awards, and there’s little doubt that he was a major component in the evolution of country music.
The collection of tunes provided here is about as perfect a set of an artist’s work as you’ll ever see. Not only does it span his entire career as a performer, but it also presents the tracks to us in chronological order. Starting with his original 1946 recording of “Guitar Blues (Pickin’ the Blues)”, and continuing through the decades to finish with 1995’s “Big Foot”, it’s an impressive list that allows the listener to hear Chet’s progression through the years.
Some delights from the early years include “Centipede Boogie”, a tune I’ve always liked, and “Mainstreet Breakdown”, with Chet sounding something like a countrified Django, but it was a recording from 1949 that really made me smile — Chet accompanying the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle on the country classic, “Root Hog, Or Die”.
One of the strengths of this collection is that although most of the cuts feature Chet front and center, sprinkled throughout are occasional selections starring other performers, strongly backed by Chet. In addition to the Carters, we hear in those early years from the likes of The Everly Brothers, and Don Gibson with his immortal country classic, “Oh Lonesome Me”.
Some of the cuts from later years also feature Chet in duets with talented performers ranging from Merle Travis to Mark Knopfler, and some that would probably have been extra special to Chet. His longtime friend, the talented Jerry Reed, shows up for a fun time on “Sneakin’ Around”, and on “It’s Been A Long Long Time”, a guitarist whose legacy rivals Chet’s, Les Paul.
Mostly though, this album features the unforgettable sound of Chet Atkins, and that covered a lot of ground, including some things you might not expect. Never afraid to experiment, his versions of songs from other sources, such as “The Third Man Theme” with Chet’s guitar replacing the original zither, continually showed his versatility. Another good example was his take on Brubeck’s jazz classic, “Take Five”, which is nothing short of amazing. And finally, he even tackled his good friend Boots Randolph’s hit, “Yakety Sax”, turning it into “Yakety Axe” — and although I hate to say this since Boots just died, I like Chet’s better.
Great stuff and highly recommended. The Essential Chet Atkins.
|
|||||
wrong_mix_range_death_00074
|
FactBench
|
1
| 79
|
https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/chet-atkins
|
en
|
Life Since the Baby Boom
|
https://substackcdn.com/image/youtube/w_728,c_limit/n-c66SJPuUI
|
https://substackcdn.com/image/youtube/w_728,c_limit/n-c66SJPuUI
|
[
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[] |
[] |
[
""
] | null |
[
"Albert Cory"
] |
2023-12-26T17:15:24+00:00
|
Making Art vs. Nurturing Artists
|
en
|
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8644d5dc-7a69-4347-ace3-5c195266f025%2Ffavicon.ico
|
https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/chet-atkins
|
Who says recommendation algorithms are bad? YouTube’s, in its wisdom, showed me this on my TV. I started watching, and I ended up watching it all the way to the end:
|
|||
wrong_mix_range_death_00074
|
FactBench
|
1
| 80
|
https://musicbrainz.org/artist/5810667a-9db6-4fd0-abac-667cdac5d415
|
en
|
Chet Atkins
|
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[
""
] | null |
[] | null |
Type: Person, Gender: Male, Born: 1924-06-20 in Luttrell, Died: 2001-06-30 in Nashville, Area: United States
|
en
|
/static/images/favicons/apple-touch-icon-57x57.png
| null | ||||||
wrong_mix_range_death_00074
|
FactBench
|
3
| 99
|
http://www.chrisgeorgeguitars.com/fb/archive.html
|
en
|
Chris George Guitars Archive Feature Builds
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[] |
[] |
[
""
] | null |
[] | null |
en
| null |
My reader(s) may recall a while ago, a guitar that started out as a possible acoustic commission but ended in a rather nice set neck, twin HB, S type. Well coincidentally, this one started as an electric slide guitar (with a suggested shape similar to Richard Thompson's green Ferrington electric) but this morphed into a rather beautiful acoustic featuring a "Manzer" style wedge body. It is a steel strung 25", scale cedar topped guitar with a B band piezo pickup system.
Chris, my client, owns quite a few top end guitars, including a very very nice Linda Manzer nylon strung acoustic and so I was able to have a good look at the "Manzer Wedge." Although I had done something similar with a baritone acoustic, I was impressed by her styling and indeed everything about the guitar, far more radical than my previous effort.
Chris chose ziricote for the back and sides and cedar for the top and binding to body and head were koa. The neck was mahogany with a figured maple centre splice. Fingerboard and bridge were macassar ebony. Ebony bridge pins, Waverly tuners, Schaller strap locks, black tusk nut and bridge saddle and an under saddle B Band pickup system completed the spec.
Because Chris is an accomplished guitarist (don't blush!) a cutaway was considered essential as was a 14 fret to body design to access the 'dusty end' of the fingerboard. The neck profile was taken from his trusty Lowden acoustic and the body shape was my 'parlour' sized acoustic but with added cutaway. I copied Linda M's wedge body but reduced the depth overall by about 5/8" (yes, imperial measurements - you youngsters go work out the metric conversion!). This was to help reduce any on stage feedback, much as I did with Dave Burrluck's CE-N acoustic (featured build Nov 2012). I also fitted a bridge truss system that I have used many times.
The finish was nitro cellulose with the cedar top and back of neck in satin, whilst the back and sides were hand rubbed gloss.
The finished guitar looked stunning and had a rather surprising 'full sound', (again rather like Dave B's CE-N). Plugged in, the B Band delivered the goods with little piezo 'quack'.
Most importantly, Chris says there is nothing that he would change at all about it, "best acoustic ever!". So why did it come in today to have the action slightly lowered!!!!
In truth I liked this guitar so much I have just built another to very nearly the same spec. It may appear for sale or it may well be added to my own collection, I do fancy it for a few Muskett gigs!
They never are as straight forward as one first assumes. This was to be a carved top, double cutaway, set neck, three pickup electric. The body shape was a combination of a Carvin CT624 and an Ibanez JS2400. We played about with various options, particularly the two 'horns' before settling on the final shape. The top carve was to be more PRS than Carvin and was something I looked forward to, especially as it was in my favourite material, quilted maple. All hardware was to be gold plated where available, and the jewel in the crown was an Ibanez edge low profile Floyd Rose floating trem. First hurdle was to find a gold plated one. Ibanez uk importers refused to sell me one, although if I'd lied and said it was a replacement on an Ibanez guitar, I would have been able to have one! Finally I contacted Thomann, and although it didn't appear on their web site, they said they could obtain one in gold. (I've always been very impressed with Thomann - really excellent, fast service)
I was then asked to add a Tremol-No locking device and an EV D Tuna. This is where things got sticky. I knew the Tremol-No would work, although the Trem cover would have to be altered to allow access but I had no idea about the D Tuna. I did try to find out via the various "chat rooms" but without any success. Without getting on my soapbox, why is it that folk put up so much absolute drivel? If they don't know, why start giving opinions? The search was a complete waste of time. I had obtained a D-Tuna and I couldn't see it being successful on the Ibanez. The EV site was slightly more helpful, although it didn't convince me 100% one way or the other. However, when I finally did manage to contact them and sent them a few pics of the Trem, I received a definitive "No". Now this is the sort of reply one wants. Luckily I hadn't routed the top for the device but it had taken about a week of procrastination.
The actual build went very smoothly and I was very happy with the top carve, the 'bellycut' and the heel-less set neck joint. (PIC 1B) Chris (customer) had decided on a turquoise stained top with a darker edge burst that would match the colour on the mahogany back, sides and neck. The headstock facing, also in quilted maple was to be matching. The staining went well and was shown off with the ivoroid bindings. I thought that the top didn't require a darker edge burst and said so but as it turned out, Chris was right, it did look better.
Colouring the mahogany to match proved much more difficult, maple being light and mahogany dark. I also wanted to cover the neck body joint and it took quite a while of experimenting until we were satisfied. The pickups chosen were DiMarzios, which I'd always associated with high gain and shredding. Just shows what I know. With coil cuts on all three via push/pull pots, 5 way switch and single tone and volume, the versatility of the guitar amazed me. The Temol-No caused a few problems, as they are designed for guitars with the body depth around that of a Strat. With a carved top on mahogany body, we were more into Les Paul territory and access to the device took a little 'fettling' and a few mock ups with cardboard trem covers were needed.
Overall I think the guitar is superb. For me I'd not have a Floyd type trem but that's down to my 'hand on bridge' way of playing. Aesthetically I'd have opted for a black surround on the bridge pickup and probably some different pickups but that's about it. More importantly is that Chris loves it - he had a vision of what he wanted and he stuck to it, that's the way it should be. Well done Chris.
About a year ago outside a pub (a good start), I came across a superb British built acoustic guitar by a well known maker and what knocked me out about it was it's simplicity. Nothing fancy but everything beautifully done: simple bindings, simple purflings and a single abalone soundhole inlay, no neck or head bindings, no fancy fingerboard inlays, and it was simply stunning.
That, I thought, is an object lesson in taste. So ....................
I'd had a hankering to make a baritone acoustic for a while - because? - well because I'd never made one, so I thought why not make a, 'less is more', baritone acoustic. Typically I charged ahead, bent the sides and then..... thought about it. Now there seems to be no 'standard' scale length or even tunings for a baritone, although most seem to be B to B (as opposed to E to E standard tuning). Then I wondered if I should have made the sides deeper for better bass response. Also around this time I had a customer request an acoustic with the "Manzer Wedge" shape whereby the lower rim (side) of the guitar is deeper then the upper (see pic below).
Hmmmm...... so the aforementioned sides were demoted and a new, deeper, set of sides bent.So the project encompassed two guitars, materials identical, African mahogany back and sides, Western red cedar tops and triple spliced mahogany necks with macassar ebony boards and bridges. The bindings were beautiful Koa on the baritone and Tazmanian Blackwood on the regular acoustic.
Both guitars were finished in nitro cellulose but for the first time ever, the fronts as well as the backs of necks were satin (I don't really like satin finished guitars) With the cedar tops, I had to eat my words as it gave both guitars a "Lowden" look (sorry George I did say "look" not "sound" or "feel". I have enormous respect for those guitars, one of the best ever acoustics I have played was a Lowden).
Both guitars pleased me. The baritone sounds much better via the pickup system, in much the way an acoustic bass guitar does, very rich, orchestral even.
Plain Jane is just a light weight, sweet no nonsense player. At the moment it is strung with 80/20 Bronze 11's and I think it would be more suitable with phosphor bronze 12's so I shall give them a try. I did try to use "Ben" with Muskett on our recording session but it all seemed a little contrived so it will have to wait for its debut.
"Plain Jane" is offered for sale with full spec. elsewhere on my site.
There is a warning here. To all of you who approach a custom guitar builder and have one guitar built to your specification, it will probably not be your last guitar. You'll come back for more. Or so it has been in my experience.
The "Splitguard" featured here was commissioned by Colin, who previously had a 'StarMaster' built (Featured build 5/2011) The spec was very much a set neck 'T' type thinline with single 'f' hole. Quilted maple top over a hollowed out mahogany body. A flamed maple neck, capped with an ebony board and the headstock a cross between my 'StarMaster' and a regular 'T' type and with the concave chamfer. A separate quilted maple headfacing was added to match the guitar's top.
Now why the 'Splitguard' name?
Well Colin wanted three pickups and a regular Thinline pickguard wouldn't accommodate the middle pickup. So we played about with a variety of designs and settled on my 'Splitguard' shape - a sort of hybrid thinline/regular 'T' type. Of course it didn't make life easy when it came to mounting the middle pickup but that's what we custom builders do. We (try to) make things work.
The pickup choice was interesting. Colin wanted a Tele set up covering the bridge and middle and a HB in the neck position. But the tele combination had to work together as one humbucker and separately as two single coils.
So................. a mini switch between the one vol and one tone control would, in position one, give 5 'Strat' like pickup combinations. And in position two, give 3 Les Paul pickup combinations, where the 'T' pickups were in series and acted like one humbucker.
Colin had specified Bareknuckle Blackguard '52 Tele pickups and an Abraxas bridge humbucker in the neck position which, when split, would give good single coil sound. I had a chat with Tim Mills (Mr Bareknuckle) to confirm phasing issues etc. and he wished me best of luck with the wiring! To cut a very very long story short I did sort the switching via a 4 pole double throw switch and it worked.
Single coil mode; bridge, bridge and middle, middle, middle and neck coil humbucker and neck coil humbucker.
Humbucking mode; switch positions one and two, bridge and middle pickup in series. Position three 'T' pickups as one HB and neck HB in parallel, positions four and five, neck humbucker.
Magic
!!
The nitro cellulose tobacco edge burst was complimented by the tortoise pickguard and the 'f' hole followed my 'Vox meets Thinline' design. The headstock shape I feel will re-appear as I rather like it, a bit like the 'F' hole design.
So there it is the Splitguard.
Now Colin, what's next?
Long long ago in a land far away..............
In reality quite a few years ago I was approached by Terry and asked if I would restore an old steel string acoustic guitar. The guitar was itself quite ancient. It had a floating bridge and a bent steel tailpiece and all in all I didn't think it worth restoring as it would never be a thing of beauty or musicality.
Terry said it had belonged to his dad and so had a great deal of sentimental value and so of course I duly set about it. The guitar once finished was greatly appreciated by Terry, so another satisfied customer probably never to be seen or heard from again. Wrong!
Many years later I had a call asking did I make bass guitars. The honest answer was 'rarely'. I have only made about half a dozen but Terry explained who he was and that his daughter, Nina, was a bass player and was looking for something special. We arranged a meeting to discuss the possiblity and my heart sank as Nina had bought along a 'picture board' of details she'd like on the guitar.
The sinking heart was not in the detail but in the shape - it was a pretty close copy of a Gibson RD Artist bass that emerged in the early 80's only to quickly disappear, interestingly it has just appeared again in the form of an artist endorsed model. I did point out that the balance of such a design would never really work and the fact that Nina wanted 4 aside tuners meant that the design would be more neck heavy than the original two per side. However a challenge is a challenge and we agreed to the build.
It was to be a set neck design with the 'horns' of the mahogany body hollowed out to remove some weight and it was to have a quilted maple drop top. Nina wanted three pickups - yes - three. Two were to be humbuckers and one lipstick single coil. Oh, and they were to have chrome covers. Now there are not many chrome covered bass humbuckers out there that would give a Fender like string spacing at the bridge and so after much searching I contacted Aaron Armstrong of Kent Armstrong pickups to see if he could help. Indeed he could, Kent Armstrong sent Aaron some humbucking covers from the States and Aaron wound a custom set to compliment an off the shelf Kent Armstrong Jazz bass lipstick pickup. Superb service indeed.
As the humbuckers didn't fit any commercial pickup rings I did my usual trick of bringing the pickups up through the front of the guitar. Controls were one volume and one tone plus a separate lipstick volume control, more of that later.
The switching was a 5 way as per a Strat but we decided to add a push pull switch on the bridge PU volume pot to bring in the bridge lipstick PU with the two humbuckers so giving 7 combinations. For anoraks only, when the bridge pickup is 'pulled' into play via the push/pull, the tone control is fully bypassed and the amount of lipstick volume controlled by it's own pot. The thinking being why would you want to bring in an amount of twangy bridge pickup and then roll the treble off?
Bridge hardware was the wonderful Babicz bridge and Hipshot Ultralite tuners. The bass E was a bass extender that would drop the E string down as far a "C". Nina often uses drop D and C tunings. All controls go up to 11! Kids eh!
Nought and crosses fretboard inlays were requested although there was a worry that it might look as though the guitar was sponsored by OXO. The quilted maple top was stained in a red wine/magenta stain and set off with a coachlined ivoriod binding. The headstock was also overlaid in quilted maple. The neck was flamed maple with carbon fibre bars and two way truss rod finshed in a tobacco burst which blended into a red burst on the mahogany.
So there we have it - the 'Superbass'. This title was added to the headstock logo at Nina's request.
The range of tones is obviously wide considering this is not an active bass. A set of flatwound strings add a lot of good old fashioned 'fatness' and no squeaky finger noise. Yes it is still a little top heavy but with this design it was always going to be, but it plays wonderfully and sounds superb and yes, it looks cool.
...or a guitar called Colin?
No of course it's not really called Colin, read on.
About a year and a half ago, I received an email from a guy who played in a "Killers" tribute band and he enquired about me building a copy of a Fender Starcaster. This was a semi acoustic that Fender brought out in the mid 70's through to the early 80's to compete with the Gibson 335.
I can remember travelling to London with some friends in the mid 70's to do the trawl of the London music shops - Charing Cross Road, Denmark Street etc. and asking a rather reluctant shop assistant if we could 'have a go' on the black Starcaster in the window. I loved it and watched as Mr Reluctant polished off our greasy finger marks and put it back on display.
Anyway I priced up a build for Mr Killers but suspected that he could get a real one for similar money as I heard no more from him. A few months down the line, I had a similar request from Colin in Glasgow and we chatted via the phone on specs. I soon realised that he knew a lot about guitars etc. and settled on making a guitar with the shape of a Starcaster but scaled down in size. As is often the case, when I need inspiration or an original guitar to take details from, I went to Old Hat Guitars, an emporium of vintage and rare guitars and amps.
They had just sold one to another Colin, (Colin 2) and gave me his phone number and I duly chased it up and arranged to visit with camera, ruler, paper etc. Colin 2 was most accommodating and allowed me to photograph, draw and measure his Starcaster. The first thing that struck me was just how big the guitar was, far far larger than the one in my memory. I rather suspect it was as large as a 335 - not that surprising I suppose. With all details taken I then produced four scaled outlines of the guitar as Colin 1 wanted a smaller guitar and he decided that a 90% sized one was for him.
The original Starcaster was built with a laminated contoured top and back but we decided to do a carved top with hollowed out mahogany back and sides. Colin chose some gorgeous quilted maple and soon the build was on. Hardware was to be two TV Jones pickups, a Classic Plus bridge and a Powertron neck, two volumes and two tones with three way toggle set on the top rather than bottom horn, a TonePros bridge and a B5 Bigsby.
It was only when I thought about it that I realised the B5 wasn't suitable for a carved top, so we swapped this for the B7 tailpiece unit. Then I found that this wouldn't work either as it was too long for the scaled down body and with the offset body shape it would not fit the end of the guitar. So......... it was back to the B5 and some careful thinking about the carve on the top.
Bodywise the build was now very consistent with my other hollowbody builds and went smoothly. The Fender "f" holes were dropped in favour of my, 'Vox meets Thinline' holes, that appeared a short while ago (knew they would). Scaling down the body size brought about a slight change to the headstock shape as the tuner hole spacing needed to be standard to fit the Gotoh self locking and height adjustable tuners. To me it has shades of a Gibby Explorer about it but we did keep the original's concave chamfer. (PIC 1)
I'm now really pleased that I couldn't talk Colin into one of my 'bursts' on the top and my, did I try. It has a nice 'honey glow' that is reminiscent of a Rickenbacker Mapleglow finish and I love it. The back, sides and neck were finished in cherry lacquer, all gloss apart from the back of the neck which had a satin finish.(PIC 2)
I did take it to meet it's dad and they seemed to get on well together.(see below) Many thanks to Colin 2 and of course Colin for the commission.
I'm a little wary of writing about this build as it is for one of my customers, who for a better description, can only be called a 'complete guitar nut'. He has had a number of guitars built by me. I dare not say how many, in case his wife should discover my site, and I'm held responsible for the divorce or worse.
Suffice it to say that this build differs from all of Steve's others. He is Tele man at heart so it came as a bit of a shock when he muted his next build would be a small 335-ish hollowbody. I was pleased, as I had wanted to build a similar style of guitar for some time, more so now that I had built 'my' Hollowbody based on my Custom Classic shape. Steve's spec was remarkably similar to the afore mentioned hollowbody in that it was mahogany set neck, with a carved spruce top with piezo bridge and mag pickups, unfortunately no Bigsby (boo hoo). Steve chose Lollar Low Wind P90s, whereas the Hollowbody sported three Lollar Charlie Christian pickups. Again the LR Baggs piezo bridge was set into the top to give a lower, more Fendery feel than a Gibby. Scale length was Gibby too.
I played about with the sizing until we settled on a lower bout of 15 inches, and after a few tweaks, a pattern was made.
The top was hand carved out of European spruce, although at one time it was going to be mahogany. Two unbound 'f' holes were added (or should that be subtracted) and once the outside was carved the inside was hollowed out, not as thin as in an archtop jazzer but about 1/4" thick apart from the bridge and neck blocks. (PIC 1) The body was routed out only leaving the back, walls and matching bridge and neck blocks. The neck was my now, usual triple spliced mahogany with carbon fibre bars and two way truss rod with a slight vintage vee profile. As Steve wanted a double bound body, it wasn't my heeless design but rather a traditional heel with a macassa ebony heelcap to match the unbound fingerboard. Steve wanted a red wine, rather than cherry finish to the body, the neck having a slight hint of tobacco and the back of the neck was satin, whereas all other was nitro gloss.(PIC 2)
Control wise it was one tone, one volume and selector toggle switch for the p90s and one volume for the piezo bridge. To keep things looking 'right', the miniature LR Baggs mags/both/ piezo toggle switch was replaced with a three way rotary one.
Battery access for the piezo preamp was housed on the rear control cavity plate. As usual the inside control area was heavily copper foil screened.
The end result bought nice comments from folk who wandered into the workshop. I must say I was chuffed with the colour but only got one chance to play it in earnest at a 'Rocket' rehearsal. The LR Baggs bridge and preamp always amazes me with it's sound. The Low Wind Lollars are more gentle than a standard P90, more towards Fender than Gibson to my ears but the real pleasure is having piezo and mags on together into two amps and blending the mags into the piezo mix via a foot volume control but then I've always been an acoustic folky with rock ambitions at heart. (PIC 3)
So with this build complete Steve has told me not to answer any emails or accept any calls from him. It's his 'last' guitar........pull the other one Steve, see you soon.
I know it's not really funny but always when asked to make a Les Paul type guitar I'd refer it it as a 'Les Dawson'. So when Keith, a previous customer with a set neck 'T' type and a set neck 'S' type under his belt, came to me and commissioned a Les 'P' type single cut electric, I referred to it in all correspondence as the 'Les Dawson'.
The spec. for this build was very high. Indeed the top (5A quilted maple) had been put aside for a special for myself - it was so good, but as Keith fell for it, it was his. Keith's previous two builds had common features, locking Neutric jack sockets, LSR Roller nuts, Steinberger tuners, and necks spec'ed to a few thou. This build however was to supersede the other two. All hardware, including the pickup rings, were to be gold plated, the ebony fingerboard adorned with abalone and Moth of Pearl rectangular inlays, and to cap it all the body and headstock would be bound with abalone and cream bindings. I have been known to be a bit 'Bling' with my builds but even to me, this seemed rather like a 'Bling Fest'
However with those wise old words, "The customer is always right", whispering in my ears, we set off on the build.
On the hardware side I must mention the nice guys at Sperzel machines. They made up a custom set with the key barrels in differing lengths, so that when fitted they would give a straight string pull on a typical 'Gibby' headstock, gold plated of course.
The body was mahogany with a 'belly cut' and weight reduced but not chambered. The set neck was to follow my heeless design. It was to have an unbound ebony fingerboard and bound ebony headfacing. Pickups were two Seymour Duncan JBs and there was to be a single volume and a single tone control with a push/push on the tone control to engage each pick up separately (no 'both pickups on' option, "I never use both humbuckers together", end quote).
The basic build was quite straight forward, one piece mahogany body, and a triple laminated mahogany neck with two carbon fibre rods and two way adjustable truss rod. The carbon fibre is used to stiffen the neck as it rather long without the more usual Gibby type heel. The quilted top was given a slightly exaggerated carve and because the pickup surrounds were gold plated metal, the top carve had to be made to match (there is little or no 'give' in the metal as there is in plastic surrounds).
In keeping with the 'Gold' look we decided to use gold fretwire - no, not real gold but Jescar 'Evo' wire which is gold coloured. I even went as far as fitting Optima gold plated strings - well if they're good enough for Brian May.......
The inlaid abalone bindings round the body and headstock took a lot of work. They were was made up of fine line black/abalone/fine line black/cream plastic, but all turned out just fine. Rather fine actually.
The maple top was triple stained and grain enhanced before being lacquered with an 'edge burst' and the mahogany body and neck were given my typical tobacco burst.
Now this is where I got my comeuppance, (my petard in fact,) I had put a gold 'CUSTOM' transfer on the trussrod cover, in keeping with the Les Paul vibe, and was feeling rather pleased with myself until Keith emailed to say he would like the cover to have a 'Les Dawson' logo on it! No it wasn't a joke. So I thought I'd go one better and asked my transfer maker, Glen, (plankspanker@blueyonder.co.uk) if he could do a 'Les Dawson' but in the 'Les Paul' font, and he did bless him.
So there it was, a genuine Les Dawson, and me dangling from the end of my own petard.
Over the past few years I've carried out work for 'The Doctor' on some of his high end American boutique guitars and so was rather flattered that he wanted me to build him a guitar. Mind you, it had varied from an acoustic to an electric, so I wasn't holding my breath. Finally it was decided that it would be double a cutaway, twin humbucker electric. No problem I thought - little did I know.
The Doctor had very definite ideas. It was to be an "S" type but 95% size and with thinner horns. It would have a chambered mahogany body with a Koa drop top, exaggerated contours and a flamed maple heeless set neck, compound radius board and stainless steel frets. Hardware was to be a pair of Lollar Imperial Humbuckers, a Callaham Vintage trem, Steinberger gearless tuners and a Tremol-No locking tremolo device, one tone and one volume control (both are numbered 1 to 11- "it's one louder innit!") oh and some trick switching via a 5 way pickup selector.
I'd made a few set neck "S" types before so first port of call was to scale one down via a very clever photocopier and make a drawing of what goes where. As the neck was to have a headfacing in Koa (PIC No 2) we decided to have the truss rod adjustment at the fingerboard end rather like Music Man, using a spoked-wheel adjuster. I made a few mock ups with the adjuster set into the fingerboard recess (Music Man) but The Doctor liked my solution more (PIC. No 3). We had decided not to have pickup surrounds and to mount the Lollars in the Koa top. They would be accessed from the front of the guitar but - and it's a big BUT - with only the pickup covers showing and not with the ugly mounting legs as on most other direct mounted humbucker guitars. I had done this before and although it's not that difficult, it does make the build process much more protracted. However, the end result is a very clean, uncluttered look that we both liked. The Koa that was chosen was quite stunning, so much so that I had bought two sets, thinking that I would use one for myself one day but The Doctor has laid plans for a matching future build.
So with the mahogany body shaped and chambered and the forearm chamfer radiussed, the 6mm Koa top was pre-bent to fit, but not before the pickup holes and trem routing had been carried out. Remembering that the pickups had to be dropped in from the top, the mahogany body was routed so that the pickups could be slid in and pulled back into position - particularly tricky with the neck pickup as the long neck tenon extended to the back of the pickup cavity. This still made the adding of the mounting springs quite difficult but nothing that a skilled luthier couldn't do (If only I could find one).
So, assured that the pickups could be mounted, the Koa top was glued to the mahogany body. Originally the edge of the Koa was to be left unstained to look like binding (a la PRS) but the Koa was so stunning that we didn't want to put a lot of colour over it and yet we wanted some form of contrasting binding. This is always where a guitar builder opens his big mouth and suggests something that is very time consuming and difficult to do. Enter Big Mouth, "It would look good with flamed maple bindings". Not the easiest of tasks with the forearm chamfer and the rather tight radii on the horns but the result was well worth the blood, sweat and tears. (PIC No 4) With the bindings on, the neck was glued in using a long tenon joint and blended into the body. (PIC. No 5)
The guitar was finished in nitrocellulose with a slight edge burst on the front and tobacco burst to back and sides. The neck very slightly stained to show the flame off. (PIC. No 6)
The result is one of my favourite guitars. It is one I would gladly keep for myself with very little modification from The Doctor's spec. (Let's be picky - a slightly higher action perhaps?) But far more importantly 'The Man' was genuinely over the moon. Just what the doctor ordered then! (Sorry about that) (PICS 7, 8, 9)
Spec.
Chambered mahogany body with highly figured koa top and flamed maple bindings
Flamed maple set neck with koa headfacing. Two carbon fibre bars and two way truss rod
Macassar ebony fingerboard with 11/14" compound radius. Stainless steel medium jumbo fretwire, abalone dot markers
Lollar Imperial pickups with aged nickel covers
Callaham Vintage S Trem with Tremel-No locking device
Steinberger gearless tuners
5 way superswitch with custom wiring (anoraks see below) One volume and one tone control
Edge mounted Electro socket and Dunlop strap buttons
Nitro cellulose finish
Anoraks only-wiring details
Switch pos.1 Bridge pickup with tone
pos.2 Neck front coil+Bridge front coil, reverse phase with tone bypassed
pos.3 Neck and Bridge pickup with tone control
pos.4 Neck back coil+ Bridge back coil, reverse phase with tone bypassed
pos.5 Neck pickup with tone
Errata - Apologies to MusicMan for my error. Musicman guitars have the adjuster at the end, and not set into the fingerboard as I stated. (exactly like mine in this build) Where I got the notion that they set theirs into the board I have no idea, I'll put it down to too much lacquer fumes!
This was, strictly speaking, not a build but a conversion of a standard Telecaster into a Tele/Variax hybrid. I do get a number of enquiries of this nature and often my build schedule doesn't allow me to accept this work, however now and again I take it on.
What attracted to me to this one was that Chris, who is 'Keef' in a Stones tribute band (The Bog Rolling Stones), wanted a Stetsbar vibrato fitted and he wanted to be able to switch between the fitted mag pickups and the Variax models, using the same output jack socket. This was different to custom "T" types I had done previously as the customers wanted two outputs, so I thought I'd rather like to take it on.
The guitar was a Mexican Fender 72 Custom Reissue Telecaster, a bit road worn but in fine fettle. I advised Chris to chase after a 500 series Variax as a doner, rather than the 300/600, as there is much more flexibility in the control positioning and he wanted all controls to fit on the original pickguard.
The added beauty of the Stetsbar is that it uses the original bridge screw holes so you know exactly where it is going. It was ordered as a 'special' as the bridge needed to be machined to take Graph Tech 'Ghost' piezo saddles to power the Vx electronics. Once all the parts were gathered, the conversion went smoothly. As with any custom job or modification, it all comes down to planning. The positioning of the Vx output jack was carefully considered, as it has to closely match the guitar's edge contour and as it protrudes into the guitar a fair way it could interfer with the 'fixed' positions of the pickguard mounted control layout.
I spent some time experimenting with the switching arrangements and decided to use a small push/push switch to select Vx/mags. Only the switch tip was to be visible, no screws, no bezel, very neat and it worked!
The top needed to be routed to give space for the original Variax ribbon connector underneath the Stetsbar base plate and for the Vx 5 way switch and volume control. The back routs follow the standard 500 pattern.
Routing the back could have had a problem with the finish chipping but all went well and even if I do say so myself, it was a pretty neat job.
All electronic cavities and the pickguard were copper foil screened (miles better than paint) and the Vx electronics installed. The fixing of the push/push switch required a bit of thought and was eventually mounted on a small aluminium bracket attached to the large rear control cover.
Here is the finished product with the control cavity covers in place.
We decided to keep the original top shoulder pickup selector for the magnetic pickups and to wire them to a single volume and tone pot. That would leave two existing holes in the pickguard to take two of the three Vx controls. A third hole (complete with a white dot marker) was added to take the Vx volume pot, spaced to match the originals. So the top row from left to right are Vx model, Vx tone and Vx vol. The Vx 5 way was positioned rather like a Strat with the push/push just above it. Bottom row, mag tone and mag vol.
With the neck on and all strung up it was sent to Chris who gave it a good road test on a gig at the Isle of White Festival.
His Les Paul was poorly (Les Poorly?) and so he completed the gig solely with Mr Televax.
Job done as they say!
This is not a true featured build in that it includes four acoustics guitars built in succession. All were identical in dimensions but different in detail. It started late 2009 when Tony got in touch and commissioned an OM size guitar in Koa/Sitka with a three piece back of Koa and quilted maple.
It was very similar to my personal OM guitar featured previously. Tony and I had been to college together in the dark ages and although we hadn't kept in touch at all we were soon reminiscing about our old college folk club days.
With the spec finalised and Tony being banished from the workshop, his wife Lesley agreed the price, as she was buying it for him - lucky bloke I thought.
The second was for Paul, a previous customer who chose Cocobolo back and sides with a Sitka top. Paul gigs regularly and so needed a pickup system included. I had just retro fitted a Shadow Dual Sound system into my guitar and after trying it, Paul decided to have the same.
Third along the queue was Mick, again a previous customer and ex member of the South Chingford Rockets. His spec was Sitka top with Indian rosewood back and sides and this one was to be purely acoustic. The headstock inlay was a copy of the inlay I had done on his nylon string cutaway some years ago, jokingly titled 'Tattershall Celtic'.
Finally the fourth one was for Peter who manages my web site. Peter decided that 'less was more' and went for Tazmanian Blackwood (very similar to Koa) back and sides with a Kamode spruce top. The top was from a split billet (rather than sawn) of top end wood.
Peter had bought his favourite neck, attached to a guitar! and measurements were taken. Headstock and fingerboard inlays were to be more Gibsonesque than the previous guitars and rather followed my electric 'Custom Classic' pattern. Again this was to have the Shadow Dual Sound system.
So four guitars, same shape, same size, same scale lengths all fitted with bolt on necks and a bridge truss system, same scalloped bracing but different woods and visual appointments. So how do they sound? Well the honest answer is very similar but each slightly different.
All quite punchy, can be strummed or picked and nicely balanced. The two rosewood ones (Mick's and Paul's) have perhaps a little more middle. But all will change with playing and time. Do I have a favourite?
Yes actually I do but no, I'm not saying. Well, would you?
[Ed] Yes, I would - obvious really! [Ed]
This build actually started, in my head at least, shortly after my first Variax equipped guitar appeared in Guitarist magazine in 2004. I received an enquiry about the guitar from a guy who was into Gretsch guitars, and from the pics in the mag, assumed that mine was of similar hollow body construction whereas, it was in fact a chambered body.
We met to discuss the possibility of a custom guitar but nothing came of it. Then again in 2007, I discussed the possibility of building a hollowbody with another guy, who was into the same type of guitar. Again it remained just an enquiry. (Interestingly, both were into Jerry Reed style of playing, coincidence or what?) but it had sowed the seeds for me to design and build a hollow body electric. I 'booked' some time in my build schedule, the only way it was going to get done, and in July 2009 I started.
As I have said previously in a 'featured build', one of the most difficult, and exciting things, about building a one off for no one in particular is deciding on the details. I had, however, been working on a fair few old Hofner, Framus and Kay guitars from the 60's and the idea of a 'vintage vibe' began to materialise. I had also recently built a number of custom guitars where the customers had supplied Lollar pickups. One in particular stood out and that was the Lollar "Charlie Christian" model. It was supplied to me to use in a custom thinline "T" type. So pickup type sorted, and with the guys who had first inspired this build in mind, I decided to add a Bigsby vibrato for the wobble factor and because they do give a guitar a certain 'vibe'. "Guitar jewellery" I think is the term. I had also recently fitted a LR Baggs piezo bridge and preamp to a couple of my customs and wondered how a piezo bridge would fair with a Bigsby. So that, together with a set of TonePros locking 'Kluson" tuners, was the hardware spec. sorted.
Initially the guitar was to be a copy of my 'Custom Classic' shape but this changed to a 7% increase in size making the lower bout 14.5 inches and I increased the body depth at the rim from 1.75 to 2 inches. In keeping with a "Hofner/Framus" vibe, I decided that the top would be spruce rather than my usual over the top figured maple and I even forced myself to leave the two "f" holes unbound. "Keep it simple" was to be my mantra! The body was one piece mahogany, routed out, apart from a bridge and vibrato "U" shaped support section, and a neck block to take a long neck tenon. This long tenon proved to complicate the build more than somewhat as you will see.
The neck was triple spliced mahogany with carbon fibre reinforcement bars and a two way adjustable rod. Despite my mantra, the fingerboard was highly figured Bocote with split block pearl markers. The neck to body join was my 'heeless' design, going a little against the vintage vibe but oh so usable at the dusty end of the fretboard. The body was single bound with matching fingerboard and headstock.
The build went smoothly. The spruce top was beautiful to carve and far easier than my usual maples and the carve was slightly more pronounced than my custom classic. Once the outside was shaped it was then carved on the inside much like an archtop but thicker, leaving only the bridge and neckblock areas untouched. The hexagonal holes for the pickups were cut out together with the 'f' holes. It did take some effort not to bind them but my mantra won through. The LR Baggs bridge was recessed into the top to slightly lower the string angle to the vibrato and to hide the 6 wires from the piezo saddles but also to suit my playing style. I'm more of a Strat than a Les Paul player and I favour the lower bridge. .
I had a set of Lollar CCs made, the middle being RWRP, and this was where the fun really began. The CCs cannot be dropped in from the top, like humbuckers or P90s, as the base is larger than the pickup's top plate and there are no pickup surrounds to cover the mounting plate. With a hollow body they can be dropped sideways through the hexagonal pickup holes in the top and then straightened up and brought back up through the top.This is fiddly but doable, as long as you have glued some rubber mounting tube to the base plate instead of using springs. Alternatively they can be slid in through the rear control cavity. This works fine for the middle and the bridge pickups but the neck position was made difficult with the long neck tenon and neck block not allowing enough space for the pickup to drop down and be straightened. The problem was finally solved by ramping the tenon on the base side and sliding this pickup in through the control cavity and up into the pickup selector cavity and finally up through the spruce top. Needless to say a number of "dry runs" took place before the top and body were glued together. Even then it proved to be a long slow tricky job, once the guitar was finished. The inside areas of the hollow body were sealed and copper foil screened at this stage, as the pickups are single coil and not humbuckers. However once top and body were together, the build proceeded quickly.
I had decided to use a 5 position rotary pickup selector switch with a chicken head knob for the Lollars, in keeping with the vibe, but instead of the obvious Strat type combinations, I opted for bridge only, bridge and middle, bridge and neck, middle and neck and neck only- the bridge and neck option being my favourite sound from a Tele. I wanted the controls to be simple with one volume and one tone control for the Lollars but I did equip the tone control with a push/push switch to change the capacitor value from 0.015 to 0.047. The volume control also had a switch inside the control cavity, which could switch in or out a treble bleed capacitor as I wasn't sure which I would eventually prefer. The Baggs had a volume control for use when outputting in stereo and this would act as a pan control in mono mode. A discrete switch on the back of the control plate will select mono/stereo mode.
The guitar was finished in gloss nitro tobacco burst but with the back of the neck in a satin finish, again influenced by a recent customer.
I'm really pleased with the overall vibe of the guitar. The Baggs and Bigsby work perfectly. (I did wonder whether it would sound a bit like a chainsaw, but there is enough movement by the bridge to prevent 'sawing' over the saddles) and the Lollars are wonderful. The natural resonance is pleasing. It doesn't have the 'boxy' sound when played unamplified, that you can get with some semis but that's down to the thicker than semi top and back. I was a little surprized at the weight, 8 lbs, but the Lollars on their own add just over one lb and the Bigsby and the gorgeous 'Gretsch' knobs a further one pound. Thank goodness I hadn't bound the 'f' holes!
I plan to use a stereo lead into two amps, one acoustic, one electric, to get the best out of it, rather than mixing it into one amp. Piezos never sound good to my ears on an amp set up for mag pickups. So far it has only been played at band rehearsal but even the drummer noticed. Must be better than I thought!
So finally my thanks go to those who sowed the seeds-George, Peter, Paul, Steve and Warren, you may know who you are!
For the real anoraks:-
Single cut mahogany hollowbody with single bound carved spruce top
Triple spliced mahogany neck with Bocote fingerboard with split pearl markers
Figured ebony head facing with pearl inlay. Bocote inset truss rod cover
Scale length 24.75"
F/board Radius: 10 to 12 inch (conical) Medium jumbo frets
Nut width: 42mm GraphTech
Depth of neck at 1st fret: 21.5mm
Depth of neck at 11th fret: 23.5 mm
Max body width: 14.5"
Max body depth: 64mm
Depth at rim: 50mm
Three Lollar 'Charlie Christian' pickups
LR Baggs T Bridge and Preamp
Bigsby B7 Vibrato
TonePros locking Kluson tuners
'Gretsch' style metal knobs
5 way chicken-head pickup selector
Dunlop locking strap buttons
Weight 8 lbs
Nitro cellulose tobacco burst gloss to body, satin to back of neck
The really nice thing about being a custom guitar builder is you never know what's round the corner. A while ago I took a call from a guy who wanted a copy of a Vox Consort. Now I knew about Vox Phantoms, Teardrops , Mandolas and Organ guitars of the 60's but I'd never heard of a Consort. It was apparently the three pickup version of the two pickup Vox Escort, again a guitar I'd never heard of. Not to worry I have a picture of one said Ian and so we arranged a visit to my workshop to discuss the possibility of a custom build.
Ian duly arrived with an old 60's Vox handout held together with yellowing sellotape. It showed a five centimetre tall, grainy shot of a heavily Fender Strat/Jaguar influenced guitar. Not the prettiest beast I had ever seen and sporting a headstock that looked as though designed by Salvador Dali.
It was very apparent whilst chatting with Ian that he had something of an encyclopaedic knowledge of guitars ( It turned out that he actually made parts for the 'resotube' trems on the 60's Burns guitars) and that he was passionate about the Consort.
The spec. for the proposed guitar was a bolt on neck, three pickup guitar with trem. Switching was via three pickup selector sliders with two phase reversal switches for pickups one and three. There was also a Strat style master volume and two tone controls and an active mid boost circuit. With this agreed, we arranged another meeting before work started.
My first port of call was to trawl through all of my guitar books- no mention or picture of a Vox Consort or Escort anywhere. I tried Google and came up with amps and organs bearing the name, a line or two about the first series Consort (1961/63) and second series (1963/65) but nothing more. I did get a picture of a second series model sent to me by a very helpful American firm called 'Phantom Guitar Works', unfortunately the shot wasn't square on and so it was somewhat distorted. But together with it and some scale measuring and a good enlarging photocopier, I finally came up with a version which I was happy with.
Ian was also happy with the shape and suggested a slight mod to my pickguard outline and it was then down to choosing woods and hardware.
Ian chose Alder for the body and some very nice flamed maple for the neck, (which was to have a Phantom 'paddle style' headstock rather than the original.) Fingerboard was rosewood; all very Fender. The nearest to an original trem. was a Fender Mustang unit and the pickups, covers and aluminium knobs would be supplied by the friendly Phantom Guitar Works (the pickup covers were square ended unlike modern single coils but accepted Fender 57/62 pickups). The only outstanding item was a mid-range boost tone control that Ian assured me the original Vox did have. This I was going to have to work on. The body colour decided upon was a pale blue, again a very Fender DuPont colour. Ian had bought his favourite guitar neck with him (attached to a Gibson SG) and I took measurements and profiles. So all this decided Ian went on his way and I said I'd keep in touch when the build started.
With a one off custom build, success is all in the planning. I like to get all the hardware together, every piece and every screw so that any layout can be as accurate as possible. The only missing part was the mid boost circuit. I made templates for the body and pickguard and routing templates for the trem, pickup and control cavities and set to work on the build.
I tried searching for mid boost circuits but couldn't find what I wanted, which was a fixed frequency, variable gain circuit. Most came as Strat packages with all active volume and tone controls but I wanted the guitar's volume and tone controls to be passive, with only the mid boost active.
I rang Andrew Rothwell of Rothwell Audio Products to see if he could help or at least advise. I had used his famous 'Hot Little Knob" circuit in a Strat and was much impressed and I had also met him and we had got on well.
Andrew said he was looking into building a mid boost floor pedal to add to his range of boutique guitar pedals and thought it possible to use the guts of this to put into a guitar. He sent a mock up pedal which had frequency sweep and gain controls.
I sent this to Ian so that he could choose the exact frequency that he wanted boosting on his guitar. This done, Andrew supplied the circuit with the frequency fixed, and what a circuit it was, If you want that "Money for Nothing, wah wah pedal halfway down" sound this is it! I would suggest all Straits players go out and buy the pedal when it hits the streets, the sounds are gorgeous.
The build went really well, the only change along the way was Ian decided he wanted the body in a three colour sunburst. At one point I had to phone Ian as I was going on holiday so the guitar would be two weeks later than the original completion date quoted to which Ian replied, "I've waited forty six years for this, another two weeks won't make a lot of difference!"
The guitar is a delight. The sounds are truly early sixties and the range of sounds amazing and it does have the feel and vibe that Ian wanted.
As I said you never know what is round the corner. ( I do actually, its a hybrid T type with Variax and mag pickups and parallel outputs for a guy in Texas!)
MARCH 2010 UPDATE - Since building this "Vox-a-like," I have been contacted by Brian who used to own and play an original Consort in the early 60's. Many many thanks to Brian for the photo below. Why did we always pose with THAT chord?.
Coals to Newcastle or Tele's to Texas?
"Well I guess I only know those other two guys".
These were the words that convinced me that I had to build this guitar. Let me explain. I had received an email from a guy in Texas who was enquiring about a custom "T" type guitar with both regular pickups and Variax electronics. It was at the time when the British pound was worth two US dollars. I roughly priced up the guitar and suggested that the prospective customer seek an American builder as it seemed to me that every third person in the States was a luthier and this guitar would be considerably cheaper if it was built over there. That's when I got the reply, "Well I guess I only know those other two guys". I just knew that we would get on.
Erin turned out to be quite a character. He made jewellery and had made bespoke cycle frames. Judging by examples of his work, he was a perfectionist and above all, he had my sense of humour. The deal was done.
The spec. was a 'T' type guitar with a mahogany body, a bound top and no pickguard. It was to have a quilted maple, bolt on neck with ebony fingerboard, mother of pearl position dots and dual outputs for the magnetic pickups and Variax electronics. Literally two guitars in one, it would be a Variax and regular guitar, each with its own controls and switching systems. An outboard A/B pedal would select which "guitar" would feed the amp. Oh yes and it had to be purple!
Erin shipped his Line 6 Variax guitar and three Seymour Duncan pickups to me and work began. I had some stunning quilted maple for the top and decided that because the wood was so striking, I didn't really want to use any pickup surrounds. I decided that I could 'tunnel' the neck and middle pickups into position through the main electronic control cavity, after the maple top was glued to the mahogany body. This 'tunnel' was also copper foil shielded before gluing, as it would be impossible to do it later on.
All went well. Two of the mag pickups were coil split via push/pull mag. tone and volume controls. Two five way switches left the control cavity snug to say the least. The Strat style Variax bridge was swapped for a modern tele-style which was machined to take the Variax piezo saddles and cable. We added a shaved heel for upper access to the dusty end of the fretboard and a contour or "belly cut" to the rear of the body. The quilted maple neck was stiffened with two carbon fibre bars and a two way adjustable truss rod installed. So to the home straight, or so I thought . . .
Erin had sent me a picture of Tom Anderson guitar with a quilted maple top, finished in a vibrant purple. The colour varied from violet to magenta and looked fantastic and rather foolishly, I had said yes of course I could do that, wrong! I spent three weeks with stains and dyes to try to capture the colours. I emailed Tom Anderson who, typical of the man, replied and said what he used. In the end, and to cut a very, very long story short, I settled on "NTA Purple" (Not Tom Anderson Purple!). It was a combination of triple staining, using dark blues and cherry reds, to get to the final result. Erin, bless him, accepted that I could do no more but I have to say that I did like the final result, very different colours and hues under different lighting conditions and the quality of the wood shone through.
So the finished guitar was shipped (another story altogether and praise for UPS whom I found very helpful from my end) and Erin seemed pleased. But talking of perfectionists, I did get an email asking why I had used slot headed screws on the humbucker and cross headed on the other two pickups, and you know what? I thought when I was fitting them that they should have been the same but Seymour Duncan "Gibby" style come with slotted and "Leo" style come with cross headed, BUT I should have sorted it! Next time I'll get it perfect.
My thanks to Erin - I know we will stay in touch. It's been an absolute pleasure sending coals to Newcastle.
These two guitars came about by a series of odd coincidences.
Dave Burrluck had sent me a prototype electric guitar. It was one of two that had been designed, in collaboration with JHS's Dennis Drumm and Trev Wilkinson, and built in China as part of a feature Dave was writing for Guitarist magazine: Project China.
Along the way Dave hoped to create an inexpensive, but fully gigable, no nonsense workhorse for musicians on a budget. This particular prototype needed some attention, however, as it had a few teething problems. These were duly sorted and the guitar sent back to Dave.
A month or so later I had to deliver one of my guitars, which was to be featured in Guitarist magazine, to Dave. He showed me the guitar that I had worked on which had now been transformed by his daughter, Lucy, into what they called the 'Art’ guitar.
Lucy was in her final year of her art A-level (she achieved an A grade, by the way!) and she’d hand-painted the body and head-facing using metallics and colours that matched the metal hardware after Dave had, severely 'aged' them with etching fluid! (Don't try it at home folks!).
Dave asked if I would lacquer over the paint to smooth and protect the artwork. I agreed and used a two-pack finish which I thought would do the job and give enough build to flatten back and polish.
A while later I called to collect my reviewed guitar and to return the 'Art' guitar, which by this time I was quite fond of. Over a coffee, or two, Dave showed me an old Hofner Congress, a 15-inch wide cello-style acoustic from 1957 that he'd recently acquired for next to nothing. I immediately loved it - my very first guitar was a very similar style Aristone archtop.
What struck me was the shape. It reminded me of a one-of-a-kind flat top acoustic that I had built in 1964 for my friend, Rog - the bass player in my old folk band Hunter Muskett. I had re-built it for him a couple of years ago and I rather liked its 'non-American' shape. So, I drew round Dave's Hofner with the idea that I would compare it to Rog's guitar as I still had the original mould. The two were very similar - although I have no idea where I got my shape from - and an idea began to form about building a new acoustic using this Hofner shape.
I felt I owed myself a medium sized 'picker' but it had to have a good bass response as most of my recent acoustics had been in the Epiphone Texan drop-shouldered style.
Now any guitar builder will tell you that when an idea hits, especially if it's for themselves, there is no stopping it. Ideas come and go, they change and various options offer themselves and then change again before you settle on a pretty firm picture of what you'd like. Eventually I decided on striped Maccassar ebony for back and sides but with a three-piece back featuring some startling quilted maple. The top would be Sitka spruce (for it's workmanlike appearance and character) and the neck would be triple spliced flamed maple with Maccassar ebony facings to front and rear of the simple headstock. The bridge also would be out of Maccassar ebony and all bindings in flamed maple, all purflings in wood. I fancied small snowfake inlays on a rosewood fingerboard and all other inlay would be in abalone. Machines were to be open vintage-style Gotohs in nickel.
So that was it, except that it wasn't! As this was a guitar for me I thought I should experiment further. I fancied an Earvana compensated nut and stainless steel frets. I wanted to try a bolt-on neck that some of the boutique big boys use and I wanted to use a bridge truss system that I could use to 'tune' the guitar with - it also prevents the bridge twisting and bellying the guitar's top.
But then I thought, if I was building one picker why not build two identical in every detail except their shape? I justified this on the grounds that it was now an experiment to determine the effect of the shape on the sound. Not really true, I might add, I just fancied making a slightly smaller picker with a shape I had used before and had very good results with. So that was it. and this time it was!
The two guitars are a delight. The bolt-on neck works well; the truss system does what it is supposed to and the combination of Maccassar ebony and maple makes me grin. The only problem I have is which do I prefer? If it was to be purely for finger-picking it would be the smaller, more parlour-sized model but the larger Hofner-styled guitar wins out with it's fuller sound. The experiment was a total success. although I had to build two guitars to find out!
Photos of the "Art" guitar courtesy of Lucy Burrluck
Considering that I am old enough to remember the original Gibson Les Paul Gold Tops it seems odd that it has taken me until now to really appreciate their beauty.
Many, many years ago when I made my first Candy Apple "Strat" I can remember liking the gold base coat on the guitar before adding the translucent red but it never seemed appropriate to finish a guitar just in gold.
Rather more recently Gold Tops have seemed to have cropped up more and more, a headstock repair on a Gibson, a heavily (intentionally) distressed PRS, an Epiphone fret dress and a request to build a nearly traditional Gold Top. I was smitten.
It was the Gold Top build that really did it. The colour seemed to add more shape to the guitar somehow and I thought it would be good to do one in my single cut shape that I had previously reserved for my Variax equipped guitars.
As this was going to be a "special" I thought that I would indulge myself and equip it with my wish list of parts and perhaps experiment at the same time. The body would be my single bound single cut shape out of mahogany with a carved top also out of mahogany (I usually use figured maple). I wanted a robust Les Paul Junior response especially as it was going to be loaded with P90s. The neck, also out of mahogany, but triple spliced, was to have an ebony, rather than perhaps a more appropriate rosewood, board purely out of personal preference. It would be a set heeless neck that I developed for this shape. Matching binding would frame the neck and headstock and "F" hole and all inlays were to be pearl. Scale length was 25 inches with my favourite 12 inch radius and a compensated nut, as I had put a couple on some recent guitars.
Choice of hardware was TonePros top locking tuners with slightly longer barrels than normal as my head stocks are tapered from 15 to 16.5 mm (The more common "low profile" lockers are too short) and the very stable TonePros stop bridge/tailpiece was to transmit maximum vibration to the body. In my heart I'm a single coil man but I wanted something more, so it was to be three P90s together with a five way switch. The P90s were to be "Bareknuckle" who wound me a matching set (very nice guys!) The mid one was reverse pole/reverse wound for hum cancelling in positions two and four.
I wanted a simple control set up, a single volume and single tone control but the volume was to have a treble bleed capacitor and resistor to keep the brightness when rolling down the volume and I experimented with different values of capacitor for the tone control.
As I had recently built a couple of Tele type guitars I grew very fond of the "both pick ups on" mid position on a Tele and so I added a push/push switch to the tone control which switched in the bridge pick up, so in position five I could have neck and bridge, and position four gave me all three pickups giving a total of the seven possible combinations. As P90s are single coil I used copper foil screening inside the covers as well as throughout the control cavities to keep out as much "noise" as possible.
The guitar is finished in nitro cellulose lacquer and I mixed my own gold after experimenting with three different bronzing powders. The rest of the guitar is finished in my favourite "Tobacco burst".
What I like most about this guitar is its versatility. I love the positions two and four as on a Strat you get that mid scooped "in between" sound and with the volume rolled down a little you can do a passable "Sultans" impression. Roll the volume down even more and an almost acoustic rhythm sound ideal for background strumming fills can be obtained. Roll thing full on and we're right into Les Paul Junior rock country. Could it be my ideal guitar?
Probably. . . . . . until the next one.
This custom build came about really by accident. A customer of mine had a custom 6 string and decided that he would like a matching 12 string. The 6 string was my custom classic carved maple top single cut, with tobacco burst finish and we both thought that the 12 stringer would be a matching "bookend".
I have two electric 12 string "Ric" type guitars that I had built for my band and I let Frank have a play as they had different neck profiles (both much wider than a real "Ric") and wanted to see which he preferred. One of the guitars, a Lennon style 325, was finished in black with chrome hardware and cream bindings and along with magnetic pick ups it also had a "Headway" piezo saddle with "preset" controls accessed via the slash sound hole to give a very good interpretation of an electro acoustic.
Frank took this guitar home just to make sure that the neck and sounds were what he wanted. About a month later I had to wrench the guitar back from him and by now he had completely changed his mind and wanted this guitar or one very much like it.
We decided on a model 360/12"Ric" type (more Harrison than Lennon) with three toaster top pick ups and a 5 way selector giving the nice acoustic-ish positions 2 and 4 rather than the piezo bridge system. All hardware was to be chrome with cream bindings and scratch plate. Black nitro cellulose finish set off with fine black/white linings to the sides, back and neck and black and white herringbone purfling to the front. The ebony fingerboard with real Mother of Pearl inlays completed the spec.
The build followed the traditional "Ric" pattern with the front and back being made out of solid wood and hollowed out and the back glued on later. We did digress slightly and recess the pickups into the top to give a lower string height and chose a bridge with individually adjustable saddles but more importantly to give a wider string spacing than an original "Ric" (Frank has big hands!). The observant amongst you will have noticed that six strings terminate at the bridge whilst 6 go to the traditional trapeze tailpiece.
I have always been a huge fan of 'Ric" guitars, especially the iconic John Lennon model, and, whilst this guitar has many differences, I was really pleased with the finished product - more importantly so was Frank, who's band is rumored to be rehearsing Byrds and Tom Petty numbers and, if I hear that introduction to "Hotel California" again, I will scream!
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http://45.33.86.207/textbook-solutions/threads/filedownload.ashx/mark-knopfler-and-chet-atkins.pdf
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en
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Mark Knopfler And Chet Atkins
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http://www.craveguitars.co.uk/tag/chet-atkins/
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en
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Chet Atkins
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2020-09-16T11:41:16+01:00
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CRAVE (Cool & Rare American Vintage Electric) Guitars - Love Vintage Guitars
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en
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CRAVE Guitars
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http://www.craveguitars.co.uk/tag/chet-atkins/
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Prelude
HELLO AND WELCOME to the second half of 2020 for what it’s worth. The fact that most of us meek hominids have made it this far is surely a good thing (for mankind, if not the planet), despite the best efforts of coronageddon. At the time of writing there are over 17 million confirmed cases and 667,000 deaths recorded globally due to coronavirus and sadly the numbers are still rising. I hope you are surviving amongst the mercenary madness. Thoughts, as always, lie with those affected directly and indirectly. Also, it is important to recognise the detrimental effects of the COVID pandemic on mental health & wellbeing; the risk of long‑term psychosis is a concern, worse because it cannot be seen and is rarely disclosed as an issue. Civilisation still has some way to go before it can prove resilient to the virus and worthy enough to survive as a species.
Before further ado, let’s move forward to the past. In the last article, I covered the key acquisitions made by CRAVE Guitars during 2019. As signposted last time, this month I’ll be covering the experience of repatriating 42 guitars and basses (40 of them vintage) after an extended period in enforced storage and bringing them back to as good a shape as they can be. None of the guitars covered here were featured in last month’s article, so there is no overlap between the two.
What are we actually talking about here?
As a reminder, here is the full list of the guitars that eventually returned home (by brand/alphabetic order):
Vintage Fender guitars (13):
1966 Fender Coronado II
1965 Fender Duo-Sonic II
1965 Fender Jaguar
1965 Fender Jazzmaster
1965 Fender Musicmaster II
1966 Fender Mustang
1972 Fender Mustang Competition
1977 Fender Stratocaster
1983 Fender Stratocaster ‘Dan Smith’ Era
1988 Fender Telecaster
1974 Fender Telecaster Custom
1973 Fender Telecaster Deluxe
1972 Fender Telecaster Thinline
Vintage Gibson guitars (20):
1983 Gibson Corvus II
1963 Gibson ES-330 TDC
1985 Gibson ES-335 Dot
1983 Gibson Explorer
1984 Gibson Explorer
1982 Gibson Explorer CMT/E2
1984 Gibson Explorer Custom Shop Edition
1984 Gibson Explorer ‘Union Jack’
1976 Gibson Firebird Bicentennial
1966 Gibson Firebird III
1980 Gibson Flying V2
1989 Gibson Les Paul Custom
1977 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe Gold Top
1975 Gibson Les Paul Standard
1964 Gibson Melody Maker
1961 Gibson Melody Maker D
1982 Gibson Moderne Korina Heritage
1981 Gibson RD Artist
1965 Gibson SG Junior
1968 Gibson SG Standard
Vintage other brand guitars (5):
1966 Epiphone Olympic
1962 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins Double Cutaway Hollowbody
1965 Gretsch 6135 Corvette
1974 Rickenbacker 480
1964 Silvertone 1449 ‘Amp in Case’
Vintage basses (2):
1977 Fender Precision Fretless Bass
1978 Music Man Stingray Bass
Non-vintage guitars (2):
2002 Gibson Les Paul Standard
1998 Gibson Les Paul Standard DC
Many purists may assert that some of these aren’t ‘vintage’. However, that is a debate for another time and place (and has actually been deliberated upon in previous articles). CRAVE Guitars’ cut‑off point is currently the end of 1989, i.e. over 30 years old.
While I might bloviate limitlessly about these musical devices, you will probably be relieved that I won’t be going through each of the guitars in sequence and in forensic detail. Rather, I will try to relate the key headlines, the highs and lows, the learning points and any resultant implications arising from the exercise.
At the time of writing, 38 vintage guitars have been given a well-deserved cossetting and these are the ones I’ll be covering here. The only ones remaining are the two vintage bass guitars, which I dread will both need some expert remedial work, as well as the two newer guitars (1998 and 2002). These remaining instruments will get the treatment they require in due course but now is the time to reflect on the significant work done on the major assets. I abhor calling them that but in this context, I guess that’s what they are.
Where they went and how they returned
In this first section, I may reiterate some points I’ve previously covered, so for regular readers, please forgive me for repeating myself. The elephant in the room is… ‘why?’.
I have to admit that the events that led to ‘here & now’ include a very dark period for me and the impact of the hardship still deeply affects me to my core. I won’t go into the detail of the circumstances, suffice to say that I lost pretty much everything back in 2011 and rapidly had to find a temporary home, not only for us as a family, but also for most of my guitars, which at that time was around 37 of them.
My first job was to document what was going away as best as I could, which included photographs and a comprehensive database covering each guitar. Fortunately for me, a good friend was able to find a safe space for them and they were stored away in a dry and reasonably ventilated roof space. Certainly not the ideal conditions for temperature and humidity but when desperate needs must, it was a saviour of momentous proportions and for which I will be eternally grateful. At least we live in a cool temperate zone, so the swings in climate could be a lot worse.
I had hoped to get back on my feet in a matter of just a few months, however that turned into a year and then several years until they were brought back home in 2019. I felt truly bad about the imposition on my friend and very fearful about what deterioration might be taking place in a less than perfect environment over an extended period of confinement. At least the guitars were all in cases of one sort or other, offering some degree of protection. During the lengthy hiatus, some guitars were retrieved, others swapped out and some were interred. Some of them, however, spent the full 7‑8 years in horrible exile.
We eventually relocated into a new home in the SW of the UK in 2017. When we moved, a few of the newer non‑vintage gear had to be sold off to preserve the core vintage items. A year after our move, my friend also moved home, staying in the SE of England. It was that combination of events that led to ‘the 42’ and I being reunited at long last in January 2019. A specialist haulage company charged the Earth for the pleasure of transporting them 200‑odd miles but at least they arrived OK. I had originally planned to refurbish our damp, dark cellar to make a new home for the guitars first but, as is usually our luck, circumstances got in the way and now I’m living amongst many stacked guitar cases. At least they are always close to hand.
I knew that it wasn’t just going to be a case of unpacking and playing them as if nothing had happened, so I set about planning a very unhurried and practical approach to assessment and reconditioning. There was no set order to this process; it was very much a case of starting at the beginning and working through in whatever order they happened to be in. Now, in July 2020, I have worked through all the key returnees.
Nevertheless, it has taken over 18 months to complete the programme of refurbishment to this point. Not a quick procedure but not rushed either. I always felt that it would be better to take it easy rather than potentially to make things worse by jumping in too enthusiastically. They are already old, a little longer doesn’t matter.
General Condition
Thankfully, all the guitars were in cases, although the condition of each case varied greatly. Some cases are good and strong, while others have various signs of wear and tear and some are very tatty and weak, providing hardly any physical protection but better than nothing. The oblong cases were far easier to accommodate, being easier and safer to stack, unlike the shaped ones.
The first thing to notice was a predictable coating of general entropy. A lot of people pay a lot of money for genuine old dust and grime (heehee), so the cases stay as they are, as testament to the trials and tribulations to which they had been exposed. I am not one of those snobbish ‘collector’ types that insist on everything being perfect and as‑new. I fully understand that I am only a temporary custodian in their long lifespan that in some cases started before I was born and which most likely will well outlast me. This part of their existence has at least been documented for all to see. It is all part of our collective heritage, albeit a miniscule representation.
Opening each case for the first time and taking each guitar out was the point of maximum trepidation and anxiety, rather than excitement. On initial release, each one was given a cursory once over to see if there was any immediate and obvious appreciable damage. I can report that, so far, that no appreciable impairment has occurred to any of the guitars during stasis. No significant issues requiring immediate corrective work were noticed, which was a massive relief. Phew!
One thing common to many, if not all, guitars was an unidentified surface film/smear, despite being effectively protected from too many outside elements. There were also signs of varying degrees of oxidation and/or corrosion to some metal parts although, again, nothing particularly serious. Most of these ‘issues’ would be rectified by a sensitive clean. A few guitars seemed to have more nitrocellulose weather checking than I remember. Whether this was a result of inaccurate memory or a genuine reaction to environmental factors, I cannot be absolutely sure. While finish crazing can add mojo to a vintage guitar, I’d rather not intentionally make it worse, so I was a bit despondent on that front, as the crazing process is irreversible. So, job number 1 would be a thorough deep cleaning – not enough to ruin the genuine patina of age but just to bring the finish back to life and protect it for the future.
The next thing was a quick acoustic strum and noodle before plugging them in. All of them were strung at full tension to preserve the neck relief but the strings themselves showed various degrees of corrosion and were horribly sticky to the touch. What surprised me was that about 80% of them were still in tune. Impressive. They sounded dead and lifeless though, even acoustically. So, job number 2 would be a full restring and setup for each of them.
Each guitar was then plugged in to an amp to test the instrument’s electrics. This is, sadly, where the most obvious degradation was evident across the board. Initially, some showed no signs of electrical life at all, which was a concern. Others had annoyingly intermittent noisy signals, many had rough scratchy pots, iffy crackly switches and raucous jittery jack sockets. I don’t think that any permanent failures occurred although they clearly needed to be seen to before they could be used in earnest. To be honest, with unkempt electrics and long dead strings, they generally sounded awful compared to how they should be. Not a promising initial analysis. So, job number 3 would be to go over the electrics where necessary to return them to usable operation.
That’s about it. Thankfully, there were no major concerns other than any reservations I might have had anyway (these are vintage guitars after all). The appearance could easily be resolved through some sensitive tender loving care (TLC). The electrics, I was pretty sure could be cleaned up and just used. Restringing and setting them up properly would, I hope give them a new lease of life. Phase 1 sorted then – just 3 key straightforward tasks for each guitar plus anything specifically identified on each one as they went through the TLC procedure.
Playability
As mentioned above, straight out of storage, pretty much every guitar felt dead and lifeless with little resonance from the bodies. Anyone who has followed CRAVE Guitars over the years knows that it is my firm belief that guitars should never be kept as mere trinkets and they need to be played regularly. The guitars seemed to agree wholeheartedly with this observation, as they were telling me loud and clear that they didn’t appreciate not being used for so long. It makes me wonder how many would‑be collectors are put off vintage guitars because they try one out in this unprepared state and then presume that they are all like that.
As I wasn’t in a hurry, I experimented with my approach to this zombie‑like phenomenon. They are just bits of wood, metal and plastic after all; why should a period of abandonment make that much difference? What is it that makes the difference? I decided to take some amateur and idle investigation a little further.
Some guitars I stripped down straight away, while others I decided to play for a while before reconditioning them. The interesting thing is that they didn’t need cleaning or restringing to bring them back to some resemblance of vitality, they simply needed playing for a while. Even with ratty old strings, tarnished finish and creaky electronics, they surprisingly would recover much of their vibrancy after a few days of being used. Some needed more teasing than others – no surprise there. This doesn’t mean that they couldn’t be made even better. Those that were given some TLC first seemed to spring back a bit quicker and stronger with fresh strings on board.
Most of the guitars did not need much in the way of set up to restore their playability. Not one needed a truss rod adjustment (phew!). I suppose the necks have been OK for several decades and they had already settled into how they should be. However, restringing gave an opportunity to check action, nut, bridge saddles, intonation and pickup height to fine tune them. A couple needed appropriate lubrication for the nut, bridge and tuners but not much. Time for some D’Addario/Planet Waves ‘LubriKit Friction Remover’, especially on vibrato‑equipped instruments. Just a few simple things made a lot of difference.
However, getting back to the point, the biggest difference to usability was simply to play them for a while. The comparison between ‘before’ and ‘after’ was remarkable in almost every instance. I’m sure that there must be scientific reasons but I’m not clear in my mind what actual cause and effect is going on here.
General TLC
This is the bit of maintenance that I’m probably best at – the simple stuff. I have mentioned quite a few times that my practical guitar tech skills are limited. What I can do though, is to give guitars a thorough pampering. The first thing is to take the old strings off (and recycle them). Some needed a bit of extra dismantling, for instance to get at the electrics, to shim a bolt‑on neck or to capture neck/body codes and document internal condition.
Cleaning is a relatively straightforward and painless process but it does make a huge difference to aesthetics. If there were specific reasons to do so, I might start off using T‑Cut judiciously to get through thick grime or smooth out some minor scratch marks. However, T‑Cut isn’t recommended to use on vintage guitars but it can help in some circumstances, as long as one is very careful. I have tried other abrasive products with varying degrees of success.
Most of the cleaning process was done using my guitar maintenance ‘system’ of choice, which is D’Addario/Planet Waves products.
More gentle than T‑Cut is D’Addario’s ‘Step 1 Restore: Detailer’, which is good for restoring the underlying nitrocellulose finish without ruining the natural aging and patina that develops over many years. It also helps to reduce minor swirl or plectrum marks, giving a nice healthy overall sheen. The degree of elbow grease required depended on each guitar and it is worth it.
After leaving the finish for a day to stabilise, I then used D’Addario’s ‘Step 2 Protect: Guitar Wax’, which uses premium quality Brazilian carnauba wax to give it a lovely finish and protect it for the future. As a wax, I’m uncertain as to how effective it actually is on nitrocellulose or polyester finishes but I figured that it certainly can’t do any harm. It is important here not to use anything that contains silicon or other unhelpful contaminants.
At this point, I would stop and not use D’Addario’s ‘Step 3 Shine: Spray Cleaner’ unless I continued to play the guitar for some time. It is ideal for use when a guitar needs a quick spruce up after playing, before putting it back into its case and/or moving onto the next one.
Plenty of people prefer other maintenance systems such as Dunlop’s excellent cleaning products. I just prefer the ’Addario/Planet Waves’ products. It may seem like I’m promoting and/or recommending their products, I’m not – it just works for me. They are quite expensive per millilitre but I think worth it on balance.
All rosewood and ebony fingerboards needed a good clean and multiple applications of lemon oil (which, incidentally, ain’t what it used to be!). Here, I use Kyser Lemon Oil, now that I’ve run out of my old good stuff, which it seems you can’t get any more. I’m still looking for something better though. Maple fingerboards only needed the same cleaning as for body/neck finish and it is important not to use lemon oil on lacquered maple fingerboards.
The condition of frets unsurprisingly varied from guitar to guitar, especially in the lower ‘cowboy chord’ frets. A few will require expert fret work at some point but not immediately. There were a few signs of rough surface corrosion. At its worst, rust build up could be removed using very fine grade wet & dry paper, whereas routine sprucing up could be achieved with fine wire wool depending on condition. For a final gleam, I used D’Addario’s ‘Fret Polishing System’. Visually, it does make a difference and it makes playing much nicer, especially when string bending in the higher registers.
Most of the other metalwork was OK and nothing needed anything radical. One has to be careful on gold, chrome or nickel plating, not to abrade the surface too much, so a gentle application of Brasso Metal Polish wadding was usually enough to remove surface tarnish and restore a nice metallic shine. I didn’t need to go further and use something harsher like Solvol Autosol on any guitar metalwork.
The crackly, glitchy, scratchy electrical components, including the usual pots, switches and jack sockets were mostly solved with a dose of electrical contact cleaner and repeated use to clean the surfaces. Here, I use Tone Electro-Sound Guitar Pick-Up & Electronic Cleaner, which is expensive but cheaper than the class leader, DeoxIT. There were a few remaining electrical problems that will require soldering and/or replacement parts/wires but nothing requiring immediate attention. As they were mostly OK when they went into confinement, it was really only new issues that will need sorting out.
As I’m sure most guitarists will attest, new strings are a key part of the playing experience. Here, I am very pragmatic and don’t insist on a ‘must have’ type of string. I am certainly not a string snob, opting for some (expensive) esoteric boutique product that needs changing after every play. Frankly, I can’t tell the difference. What I will mention is that it requires a level of investment to restring 40+ guitars, especially without ready access to bulk buying as a regular end‑consumer.
For Stratocasters with a vibrato block, I generally use Fender Bullets 10‑46 gauge. For most standard scale guitars, I use Ernie Ball Regular Slinky 10‑46 gauge. For short scale guitars or ones that benefit from a little extra string tension, I’ll go up to Ernie Ball Power Slinky 11-48 gauge. For the Gibson ES‑150, I haven’t decided on a suitable string set yet but it will probably need something like 12-56 semi‑flat wound strings to give it the necessary volume, warmth and resonance that it deserves. With the dreaded Brexit negotiations and no clear trade deals with either the European Union or the U.S.A. (or anyone else for that matter), I may decide to migrate to British‑made Rotosound strings for general use.
A final buffing with a lint‑free duster keeps the guitar’s finish nicely clean and shiny. No guitars are going back into long‑term storage and all will be played regularly over time. They aren’t on constant display and are kept indoors in their cases when not being played.
Remedial Work
Most of the guitars were in pretty good condition when they were stored away, so they didn’t go into incarceration with (m)any outstanding issues. Fortunately, they also came home in pretty good condition too. As mentioned above, I think both basses need some expert attention to their necks. I can’t be sure what issues they may have or what may be required but it is probably best to leave that to the experts.
There are a few guitars that do need electrical work doing, once again, anything beyond cleaning up contacts is best left to the experts. Some have intermittent problems (hums, crackles) or weak signals. On some, the balance of tones doesn’t seem right and could do with investigation. Perhaps some combination of new pots, switches, wires, capacitors, jack sockets, solder joints, etc. may be required.
If replacements and/or repairs are needed, where possible, these will be vintage correct. However, finding genuine vintage parts in the UK is a big issue and importing them is disproportionately expensive, so it isn’t something to be taken on lightly. In several instances, I may have to be pragmatic and replace faulty vintage parts with newer quality equivalents. After all, it is better to have guitars working properly, otherwise they are just planks of wood, bits of metal and plastic that won’t get played. Things like vintage pots can always be fitted retrospectively if need be.
Apart from the basses, not one of the guitars suffered neck problems, which I am genuinely amazed at. I guess they were old and settled anyway. Certainly no fretwork will be needed other than some basic levelling, crowning and polishing. I wish it was something I felt more confident about doing myself but I know that, if I made a mistake, it would undoubtedly be worse than when I started. Best left to a competent technician.
None, thankfully, require any finish work. I would prefer to leave any worn finish, dinks, scuffs, scratches or other marks as they are, rather than refinish a guitar and ruin its authenticity. Besides, I am smitten by the untold stories behind the genuine blemishes and imperfections that give them character. These are not new guitars and neither should they look it. Neither are they museum pieces, so the ravages of daily use are important to both their integrity and charm.
I only have one refinished guitar, which is CRAVE Guitars’ ‘signature’ 1975 Gibson Les Paul Standard. The guitar came to me when it was about two years old and had significant buckle rash on the back. For a while, it was finished in natural before being refinished again in a beautiful cherry sunburst. If you are wondering, it was originally a dark tobacco sunburst. At the time, as a teenager, I didn’t know any better and had absolutely no idea that in several decades that I would a) still have the guitar or b) value original finishes. Oh well. One lives and learns.
Guitar cases are a different matter. Some of the very old ‘cardboard’ cases are pretty tatty and there is not much that can be done about that. A number of cases have broken latches or missing handles and I would like to work through these to make them at least usable. Sourcing vintage or OEM NOS parts and restoring the hardware isn’t easy, as latches, hinges and handles were mainly riveted on, rather than screwed. Again, this isn’t entirely necessary or urgent, so it can be a project for a future date. Mostly, they are best left as they originally came to me.
Parts and Accessories
There are a few guitars that have had newer parts fitted at some point (not by me, I might add!). Some of these examples could do with sensitive conservation by using vintage original replacement parts. None of this is necessary or urgent so, like several other jobs, it can be done over time as opportunities present themselves. Messing with them or modifying them is not on my agenda.
Case candy is always nice to have but I don’t go out of my way to acquire it, if it wasn’t original to the guitar. Authenticity matters here. We have more than enough fake news and phoney history to contend with, without adding unnecessary doubt to the origins of the guitars.
Some have optional parts missing, for instance, my 1977 Fender Stratocaster doesn’t have its original bridge cover but, let’s face it, does it really matter? It may be another ‘nice to have’ but it serves absolutely no beneficial function.
Many of the guitars have their original cases but, similarly, many came to me with non‑original or modern cases. While I might like to get vintage original cases for some guitars, that can be inordinately expensive and it kinda messes with originality. Another ‘nice to have’ but not essential. If an occasion comes along to conserve the instrument better, I’ll consider it as and when. It really is the contents that matter.
If I’ve done my buying well in the first place, the acquisition of parts and accessories to restore a guitar to as close to its original condition generally aren’t needed. There are always exceptions to each rule, so it’s on a case‑by‑case basis.
Documentation and Photographs
By now, you’ll have hopefully concluded that they are all in more‑or‑less acceptable playable condition. Everything else is a bonus.
All that is left to do is to document each guitar at this particular point in time. As mentioned above, when the guitars went into storage, they were photographed and their individual characteristics logged onto a comprehensive database. Now, several years later, some of the details on the database can be updated and, where information was missing, new data can be added.
New photographs have been taken for historical evidence and also added to the database. In the event of some potential future catastrophe such as theft or damage, all the necessary details will be available. Many of the same photographs can also be used on the web site to go with new all‑new features that have been written. I will come back to the web site in due course, so that’s enough on that front for the time being.
In addition, and perhaps more interestingly, this article and the documentation are all part of each these guitars’ long life stories and something that can go with them if and when they ever get passed on. Perhaps for the first time in their long lives, there is a written and photographic moment‑in‑time record for these wonderful heritage artefacts. This extensive task is still only partially completed but there is no ‘burning bridge’ imperative to hurry the task and it can be done at leisure.
The one I couldn’t put down
Rediscovering these lovely vintage guitars all over again was a real pleasure and there weren’t really any major surprises or disappointments. I wasn’t planning on comparing or ranking the returnees. There was, however, one guitar that stood out above all the rest during the process.
It was… drum roll please… the cool 1965 Fender Jazzmaster. It is an all‑original, pre‑CBS standard sunburst Jazzmaster, so there is nothing particularly unusual about it to differentiate it from any other of the period. Once it was resurrected, fairly nearly the end of the programme, it was the one that I just couldn’t put down and I kept playing and playing if for several weeks before I was compelled to move on. The Jazzmaster must have had some fairy dust sprinkled on it for it to stand out from very tough competition.
I consider myself to be very fortunate not only to have had all the guitars but also to re‑experience them for a second time. I am therefore largely content with my lot, despite the hellish privations in getting through the wicked times to this redemptive point.
What next?
Well, the obvious next thing to do is to play and enjoy them. That is, after all, the whole point of having these things in the first place, isn’t it? They can’t all be played at once, so organising them so that they can have equal opportunity for playtime will be important.
That brings us back to an oft‑repeated bugbear of mine, which is my priority to refurbish the house’s currently unused cellar to make a safe and secure home for them all. In the meantime, they are arranged not too badly, so they can be accessed without too much heavy lifting.
While I have worked through the vast majority of the repatriated guitars, these only represent about two thirds of all the instruments here at CRAVE Guitars. There are also the other 24 guitars (and counting), some of which could well do with the same sort of pampering that the returnees have had, and some also need similar remedial work to, for instance, frets, electrics, etc.
I think the cycle of TLC is a continuous one. Once one cycle has been finished, it will be time to start another one. It is a bit like the metaphor of ‘painting the Forth Bridge’, i.e. an on‑going, repetitive and never ending process. Almost the definition of Sisyphean. At least it is a pedestrian task that I can enjoy as therapy from the mad, mad world unravelling outside my little hikikomorian bubble.
While the focus of this article has been on the guitars, there are also effect pedals and amplifiers that need regular attention and some of which were repatriated alongside the guitars. The same basic principles apply to keeping them in tip‑top shape, even though their needs are different.
I don’t need to sell any guitars although a bit of rationalising and trading up may actually be a good idea. The thing is that I’m not one of those people who regularly buys and sells to keep a constant flow of ‘new’ (to me) guitars coming through. I tend to grow an attachment to guitars, and especially these guitars that have been through so much at my expense. There is maybe a small number that I could part with to make space for something else. It’s just whether I can break the emotional ties. Oh, that and the impending global recession will undoubtedly have a bearing on matters.
There will also inevitably be further additions to the ‘collection’ in due course. I can’t see it getting smaller but I can certainly envisage it getting bigger. However, due to the finite constraints of space, time and money, buying anything else is on hold for a while out of plain old and boring necessity.
Help Needed
I mentioned in the last article that vintage guitars, effects and amps need expert attention from time to time to keep them working at their best, so this is basically a reiteration. If there is someone out there with the requisite skillset to help maintain these treasures, and who is local to SE Cornwall in the UK, I would be interested in exploring opportunities. Is there anyone out there attracted to the proposition? If there is, please contact me at the e-mail address at the bottom of every page on the website.
Learning points
Well, having gone through all of the above, I must have learned something, right?
Probably the most important lesson is simply, ‘don’t do what I did’. Don’t store guitars away for long periods, especially in inappropriate environmental conditions. I couldn’t help what happened to me and I did what I had to do using my best judgement at the time. In retrospect, I am not sure what I could have done differently and retain the guitars. I ‘swear to God’ that I don’t ever want to go through that experience again.
The second lesson is ‘to take your time and not rush in’. To do so would risk the integrity of the guitars. After all that time away, a few more weeks waiting to be sorted out made no difference in the big picture. A measured approach worked wonders and also took a lot of the potential stress out of the process. In effect, instead of a single insurmountable task, breaking it down into manageable steps made it more of a therapeutic and cathartic exercise.
The third lesson is to ‘do what you can and do not do any more’. Leave the other stuff to the experts. Be prudent and cautious about what you undertake. Any foolish actions might well prove to be irreversible and therefore regrettable. One also really doesn’t want to make them look like new; they are old and they are meant to look and feel that way. Conserving these artefacts is important, while preserving them (proverbially ‘pickling them in aspic’) is not. Sensitive refurbishment means accepting that what they are is a direct result of what happened to them and to be happy about it. That doesn’t, however, mean that they should now be neglected all over again. They can be played, enjoyed, maintained and kept in good condition, no problem. They’ve survived this long; my job is to ensure that they survive for a long time after me.
That is really it. Three fundamental, profound and straightforward learning points. Simples! The vista of glorious vintage guitars has been re‑opened to me, so that is one thing to celebrate for sure. The haptic experience of playing these gracefully aging instruments has been restored at long last.
Tailpiece
So, that represents some of their story, revealed at long last. After a year‑and‑a‑half, I can finally say that I am relatively pleased with how things are and no longer over‑anxious about what I might find. Why am I not over the moon? Any overwhelming joy or excitement has been surpassed by the detriment of the past decade that I cannot obliviate.
There is still plenty to do, even in one’s splendidly isolated silo of virus‑induced exile. The short‑term aim is largely to continue on the path already set, while also looking forward more ambitiously to the medium‑to‑long‑term future. I have a plan; it is executing the plan that is the problem. That, ultimately, comes down to filthy lucre.
Anyway, that’s two out of the three catch‑up topics now dealt with. I hope you’ll be willing and able to return for another tasty course of ‘whazzup’ delights next month.
Stay safe and hope you continue to survive the coronapocalypse. Remember that the basis of karma is to ‘be good and do good’. Until next time…
CRAVE Guitars’ ‘Quote of the Month’: “Addiction to false beliefs is equivalent to wronging the world’s rights”
© 2020 CRAVE Guitars – Love Vintage Guitars.
← Return to ‘Musings’ page
Welcome to what is, for now at least, the final part in this series of articles on the history of the world’s most popular musical instrument.
If you wish to recap on any or all of the previous seven posts before starting with this one, the whole ‘Potted History of the Guitar’ series, can be accessed here (each part opens in a new browser tab):
Part I – The ancient world up to the early Renaissance
Part II – The Renaissance up to the end of the 19th Century
Part III – The late 19th Century up to the 1930s
Part IV – The 1920s and 1930s
Part V – 1930s up to the 1950s
Part VI – 1950s and 1960s
Part VII – 1960s to date
Part VIII – The current day and into the future. Read on below…
Having pretty much reached the present day, all that remains is to summarise where we are now and to take a somewhat flippant and imaginative look ahead. The ‘current day’ is a tricky subject, as ‘now’ is at best ephemeral. The future, on the other hand, can only ever be guesswork, even if it can be informed by the past. Perhaps the best way to predict the future is to help to create it, so that means that what happens to the next chapter of the guitar is in our hands. Can we be trusted to behave as responsible guardians of the guitar’s destiny? As Mahatma Gandhi (1869‑1948) said, “The future depends on what we do in the present”. This suggests that what will happen is not predetermined and individually or collectively, we can take action to shape the future.
There are not many images again supporting this article so, apologies to those who like pictures to speak a thousand words. Anyway, without further ado, on with the last part of the chronicle…
The guitar has come a very long way in the last 3,500 years or a road slightly less travelled in the preceding 350 years depending on whose version of the facts you want to believe. The story has finally reached that pivotal moment that lies between the past, which is, on the whole, pretty well documented and the future, which of course isn’t. There is much to be played for and the stakes are certainly high.
It is hopefully of little surprise that the future of the acoustic and electric guitar, as well as all its derivatives and distant relations, is probably well‑assured, at least for the foreseeable future. Whether it survives in the (very) long term or not, the world’s favourite musical instrument is undeniably going to be a hard act to follow, let alone surpass.
As with many industrial and technological revolutions, predictions have proved variable in terms of accuracy. As time passes, change tends to accelerate in both pace and scope. While progress may be inexorable, there is an unseen ‘force’ that tends to counteract unbridled advances and which acts as a bit of a restraint. That set of reins is the very human tendency to hold onto what is familiar while resisting change until it is either inescapable or desirable. This natural ‘drag’ effect has laid waste to many grand ideas and great inventions. Numerous well‑marketed ‘next big things’ have fallen at the hurdle of persuading the general public to take up something new or unfamiliar, especially if one’s respected peers haven’t bitten the bullet of early adoption either. Mankind’s flawed history is littered with countless failed marvels. This phenomenon isn’t, I hasten to add, just a trait of idiosyncratic musicians; it appears to be a fundamental characteristic of the human condition.
Anyway, as usual, I digress. It is time to get back to the point which is basically that whatever you read from here on has absolutely no basis whatsoever in fact and is highly likely to be extremely wrong! My consolation is that few people will regard it as portent or look back to judge its accuracy in a century’s time. There is nothing genuinely prescient here in the vein of Da Vinci or Nostradamus. Apologies if you were hoping for more in the way of a profound visionary insight. Unfortunately, my stock of that ran out last week.
General indicators of change
It is fair to suggest that popular music is often representative of, and in turn is dependent on, broader social, cultural and political movements, and guitars follow in their footsteps. Whether we like it or not, music is integral to our everyday lives, so it is not surprising that it is also inherently powerfully evocative. As a result, it can dramatically affect the way we identify with past events.
One of the key factors that drove guitar evolution has been the trends in popular music, so perhaps musical trends may provide a much generalised hint at parallel guitar developments. Let’s start by considering the (very simplistic) genre movements and the types of instrument used over the last century. Starting with the post‑classical era, there was jazz (Gibson archtops) and blues (National & Dobro resonators) in the 1930s and 1940s, country and rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s (Gretsch & Gibson hollowbodies), pop and rock in the 1960s (Fenders and Rickenbackers), progressive and heavy metal (Gibson solid bodies) and then punk (pawn shop guitars) and hair metal (pointy super Strats) in the 1970s. Then we get to the guitar doldrums of electronica, new age and rap in the 1980s, followed by revitalised guitar music of alternative, grunge in the 1990s, and indie (retro guitars) nu‑metal (PRS) and dance in the 2000s, etc. I struggle to think of a musical genre that so far defines the 2010s or perhaps many distinctive guitars to go with them. So there is some kind of link going on here. Google has attempted to map the progression of musical genres from 1950 to the current day (take from it what you will).
The type of guitars de jour used by famous musicians, including artist associations, during these epochs often reflected the style of contemporary music they played and these have largely been well covered in previous parts of the story. Just think of Chet Atkins with his Gretsch 6120, Buddy Holly with his Fiesta Red Fender Stratocaster, The Beatles with their Rickenbacker 300s, or Jimmy Page with his Gibson Les Paul Standard and EDS-1275 double neck. The various interconnections are manifold and too many to mention here, and many have been captured in photographs to become iconic in the annals of rock history.
Cinema and television music regularly use key songs to catapult us back in space and time without the need for narrative exposition to describe what’s happening. Just think about classic movies such as American Graffiti, Stand By Me, Almost Famous, Saturday Night Fever, The Breakfast Club or 8 Mile among many, many others. Those random examples don’t include the numerous biopics (e.g. Sid & Nancy, Walk The Line, The Doors) and musicals (e.g. West Side Story, Grease) or original scores (e.g. Paris Texas) that use familiar, memorable and/or popular music to transport us to another ‘reality’. Then there are the one‑offs like the mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap. TV programmes also picked up the strategy for domestic viewing since the 1960s and often featured manufactured artists such as The Monkees or The Archies. The lists of relevant examples are endless. Music is used to draw the viewer into the director’s vision of a certain bygone era. Many of the sound tracks of our lives rely heavily on evocative (guitar) music to manipulate us emotionally and, more importantly, intentionally.
The way that environmental factors affect local communities may spark a genre direction that is then promulgated more widely. For example, one could point to the rise of electric blues in Chicago, soul in Detroit, Mersey beat in Liverpool, punk in New York and London, rap in Los Angeles/Philadelphia, or grunge in Seattle, etc. What we cannot predict is what or where any future musical revolutions (if any) may emerge, from where, and what step‑change responses guitar builders may then make.
As with many other aspects of our 21st Century lives, the nature of music, how it is made, distributed and accessed suggests that anything genuinely ‘new’ will find it much harder to stand out from the mainstream. What is already there will continue in some form and anything new will simply be added to it, often at the margins of existing genres, hence the proliferation of sub‑genres, e.g. thrash or nu-metal in rock; house and techno in dance; raga and dancehall in reggae; dubstep and grime in urban music, etc. One only has to compare and contrast the mind boggling varieties of heavy metal music and then consider how they continuously diverge, converge and cross‑fertilise in order to keep it fresh and vibrant.
While some technological change may be more predictable, social change and the music that characterises it is certainly more unpredictable. When one looks at something as specific and tangible as the guitar, it becomes increasingly risky to anticipate with any certainty what change may occur over an extended period of time, say the next century or so.
One view is that we are powerless and don’t need to think about it, as what will be, will be. Another is that we wait passively and be subject to what transpires with little or no influence over it. A third way may be not to accept the status quo and take positive action to stimulate change, which can happen in oddly random ways. Being of an opinionated sort, I tend to fall into the latter camp. Apologies, that probably actually doesn’t help much!
Perhaps the biggest challenge to the guitar’s supremacy is likely to lie in the digital revolution that really started to make an impression in the 1970s and 1980s. Part of the reason for the guitar’s seemingly unassailable success has been that it is a hugely expressive and flexible instrument, which actually makes its nuances extremely difficult to replicate in a world constructed entirely of binary 0s and 1s. We shall see whether digital advances can fully overcome the difficulties in recreating the subtleties provided by a very analogue instrument in the hands of discriminating (and generally quite conservative) musicians.
The evidence so far suggests that digital is making ever increasing inroads into the analogue guitar’s dominance and the discernible gap between analogue and digital output is decreasing all the time. How long will it be before even the most ardent luddites finally admit that they can’t really tell the difference (despite what they may say outwardly)? However, it isn’t just the sound of guitars that appeals to guitarists; it is also the feel and the look of them that matters, as well as how they allow musicians to communicate with each other in unspoken ways.
New generations of guitarists, however, may be looking for something very different from their predecessors. What form will ‘the shape of things to come’ take? Will it be all hyper‑modernistic and crammed with tech and flashing lights and built from materials we cannot yet imagine, or will it be the same old bits of tree wood crafted into the familiar shapes of Telecasters, Stratocasters, Precisions, Les Pauls, ES‑335s and SGs that we covet today? Only time will tell how things pan out and it will be for future authors to use the convenient assistance of hindsight to determine and document what path the history of the guitar takes from here on.
Looking and learning from the past, one might simply extrapolate forward. Future guitarists may well be like their ancestors and pragmatically seek to mix the best of the past with the best of what’s to come, regardless of whether it is analogue or digital. My personal prediction is a typically ambiguous ‘sit on the fence’ one, in that guitars will probably become increasingly hybrid if they are to keep ahead of other comparable instruments. Let’s face it, there are not really any threats` to the guitar’s dominant popularity at the time of writing and it has always been a continuously evolving instrument, so it would be of little surprise if this were to continue. While the 1980’s temporary trend for synth and electronica attempted to eradicate guitar music in the minds of popular listeners, the guitar has proved very resilient and difficult to displace.
Since the 1970s, the guitar has been used to trigger digital electronics. However, while both signal tracking and polyphony still present problems, these barriers are gradually being overcome. There have been several attempts to introduce effective guitar synths over the years but they have really been analogue or digital filters activated by either an ordinary guitar pickup or by discrete signals from a hexaphonic pickup. Hex pickups, which output a separate signal for each string, were often added to an existing guitar and used to transform it into a MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) controller while still able to be used as an ordinary guitar. MIDI was a standard specification published in August 1983 by Japanese electronics giant Roland and American synthesizer company Sequential Circuits, and is commonly used to control electronic audio equipment. While attempting to revolutionise guitar music, Roland’s excursions into guitar synths since the 1980s have still relied on a standard guitar as its starting point.
Other Japanese companies specialising in electronics have also experimented with MIDI control of external synthesis engines, for instance guitars from Casio (DG20) and Yamaha (EZ-EG). It seems incredible to think that these early electronic instruments are now being considered as ‘vintage’. Today, there are now plenty of guitars on the market with MIDI capability built in. Technology has moved on and the fundamental concepts of a digital source are now ripe for being reinvestigation and improvement.
Other pioneering companies such as Line 6, now owned by another Japanese giant Yamaha, introduced their ground breaking digital modelling preamp (the Pod) and digital modelling guitar (the Variax) to indicate the direction in which development might go. Line 6’s philosophy inspired and influenced subsequent successful products such as the Kemper Profiler and the Fractal Audio Systems Axe-FX. Computer control of complex parameters, presets, firmware and downloads are commonplace for amps and effects in the 2010s and we can certainly expect this trend not only to become de facto but also to become a requirement in the near future, so a laptop at live gigs is already almost a necessity to keep your rig running smoothly – not a comfort zone for many analogue technophobe musos.
Guitar making cannot stand still and neither should it. Even the companies with a century or more of history, such as Gibson, Gretsch and Martin, have to keep moving forward or risk being overtaken. However, the tightrope of appealing to customers who appreciate the heritage is also key to the future success of long‑established manufacturers. Newer, smaller companies, though, are not constrained by the time capsule factor.
It is probably safe to say that the future is likely to be a practical symbiosis of both the familiar to satisfy the conservative traditionalists and the whizzy new gizmos to appeal to the technologically savvy experimentalists and neophytes… just as it always has been if fact. Even Gibson has been toying with the addition of digital features into its guitars, including the Les Paul HD.6X Pro and the Firebird X models. Intriguingly, Fender and other major brands have yet to declare their hands. It will be the fine balance between the opposing forces that will enable lasting incremental change, via ‘chimera’ guitars, rather than a number of fundamental radical shifts. That eventuality could prove a bit boring though, don’t you think? However, sadly, it also seems to mirror the way that modern popular music is going as well?
Leaps of unadulterated conjecture:
This next section is pure fantasy and should not be relied on as authentic in any way. It came from an idea that it can sometimes be fun to imagine what things might be like in some near or distant future. One hopes, though, that what follows doesn’t come to represent some form of self‑fulfilling prophecy.
It may be that the guitar itself could become superseded by something completely different from what musicians (rather than video game players) use today. Could it be possible that something along the lines of the PlayStation ‘Guitar Hero’ controller may someday make inroads into real instruments to create real music? I would anticipate that the majority of guitarists would sincerely hope not.
There are already some very modernistic looking instruments out there, such as the HTG Hyper Touch and the Misa Kitara (note the use of the Greek name kitara from Part I of this long story). Are these all‑electronic ‘guitars’ the sorts of instruments that will replace our beloved classic designs and become de rigeur in the near future? Alternatively, perhaps the electric guitar could somehow morph into some form of fully digital instrument via the route of hybridisation. As a logical conclusion, is the ‘Digital Guitar’ with analogue playability a holy grail and, if so, for whom? Here are some current digital guitar innovations from the 2010s…
So… suspend your disbelief for a few minutes and take a tentative look ahead to the scary world of AIs, AAs, AVs and AM (spoiler alert – these acronyms may seem familiar but in this context, they don’t mean what you think they mean today). You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. Read on…
10 years’ hence (c.2028):
Analogue vs digital – Digital technologies will be used increasingly to enhance the analogue signal chain rather than usurp it completely. We have already seen many examples of this appearing in effects and amps, so there isn’t really any clever insight in mentioning it. Digital control of analogue signals is already becoming commonplace especially in delay and modulation effects where digital manipulation gives much more precise control over what happens in the analogue domain.
It remains unpopular to sample the original signal through an analogue to digital converter (ADC), mess around with it and then put it back through a digital to analogue converter (DAC) to turn it back into a signal for further processing. Many purists say that the act of conversion using today’s chips taints the original signal. It will be a while longer before we make that bold step of a fully digital signal chain from fingers to ears but it is getting ever closer. It will happen but possibly not by 2028, mainly because of the difficulty in engineering effective fully digital instruments and loudspeakers.
Research will continue to develop a truly digital guitar ‘pickup’ that could compare to current electromagnetic pickups and provide the first step to more complex processing in the future. Digital modelling using DSP (Digital Signal Processing) chips will continue to improve and will become almost indistinguishable from analogue electronics in effects, amps and digital audio workstations (DAWs). There will be a hardcore fan base that remains wedded to the old school stuff for many, many years to come. The guitar itself is highly unlikely to become fully digital in the next 10 years, if only because there are far too many dogmatic people invested in preserving the status quo. Auto‑Tune for the guitar anyone?
Guitar Making – In the near future, it is highly unlikely that wood will be superseded by any other material as the primary input for the majority of guitars. Wood has proved over millennia to be a very flexible, durable renewable material. Let’s face it, it can also look wonderful. One major advantage of wood is that it contributes towards the organic tone and touch of an individual musical instrument. Many alternative materials have been used in the construction of guitars since at least the 1920s, including plastics, metals, carbon fibre and a wide variety of composites. To‑date, though, wood has prevailed in terms of structural integrity allied to inherent musicality. What will change, though, is the shift away from the use of endangered exotic hardwood species such as rosewood, ebony and even mahogany to more sustainable species. For instance Pau Ferro (Libidibia Ferrea, a.k.a Bolivian rosewood) is rapidly replacing the CITES‑restricted rosewood (varieties of the genus Dalbergia) as a popular fingerboard material. Quite how fussy musicians will accept unfamiliar wood substitutes, will be determined in due course. What is clear is that guitarists really have no choice but to go with the ecologically acceptable flow in the long‑term.
Like their classical musical counterparts, the guitar itself (whether acoustic or electric) will remain very much a natural instrument for a good few years yet. The guitar will still be supremely popular and will be making great music all over the world. Guitars will be made by a broad range of entities from one man band local custom luthiers up to multinational mass manufacturers. Competition, particularly from China, will be a threat to many established western companies until their economic bubble bursts, which it eventually will at some point.
Recorded music – The vast majority of recorded guitar music will be produced on digital equipment with a few retro studios still using analogue equipment including valve preamps and tape machines. The relative accessibility of convenient digital recording equipment will continue to provide openings for all sorts of artists from the home musician to the professional mega bands using famous dedicated studio facilities such as the famous Abbey Road Studio in London. Recorded music will be increasingly distributed and accessed online, although legacy formats will maintain a solid niche popularity.
Live music – Live music will continue to grow in popularity to become the cornerstone for many successful artists, provided that they do not price themselves out of live appearances and that over‑zealous regulations don’t stop large live events from taking place. PA and monitoring systems will continue to improve significantly and sound pressure levels at venues will be severely restricted, removing some of the visceral excitement of the live music experience.
30 years’ hence (c.2048):
Analogue vs digital – Digital will be the primary domain in which music will be made, recorded, distributed and accessed. The guitar will remain analogue, although it is likely that the entire chain from the pickup onwards will be predominantly digital. However, as with current classical instruments and music, there will still be an important place for traditional analogue guitars. Amps and effects are likely to be almost totally digital. Successors to the analogue electromagnetic pickup and the loudspeaker will be introduced to a point that digital sound will be common if not universal. ‘Old fashioned’ guitars will remain very popular and will experience regular revivals and rejuvenations, even if the overall battle will be won by the digital technologies of the 2040s. New digital connectors will proliferate, as the currently ubiquitous USB port will long since have been superseded, and the jack pug/socket will be purely of vintage interest.
Guitar making – Most of the large manufacturers will be producing some sort of digital instrument as the norm, even if the vital interaction between fingers and strings will remain as it is now. All guitar tone woods will be derived from sustainable sources by strict regulation and use of rare species tightly controlled (outside the unavoidable black market). The use of alternative materials will be in full swing, reducing the reliance on today’s natural materials. New guitars will be built to be recyclable. Automated manufacturing will be the norm and the demand for traditionally made guitars will be catered for by numerous specialist guitar builders. Pure wooden analogue guitars will be vintage only and regarded with the same respect as classical instruments are now. Guitar development will be relegated to refinements around the margins, rather than core revolutions. Hybrid instruments will be fighting a rear‑guard action, with digital beginning to win the final battle. Competition to the guitar will continue but will not succeed… yet.
Recorded music – Digital will almost totally dominate recorded music production, distribution and access. Diehard analogue fans will be regarded as geeks and nerds. Vinyl albums will, however still persevere… just.
Live music – Like recorded music, live music will be, apart from the musicians themselves, almost universally digital. ‘Loud’ live music will be a thing of the distant past. Music venues will begin to disappear as discrete locations, with personalised performance content delivered direct to the individual.
50 years’ hence (c.2068):
Analogue vs digital – Analogue guitar music will be like classical music is today, a popular, niche and a largely historic pastime. All other aspects will be digital.
Guitar making – Standardisation and construction will be largely prescribed. Hybridisation will just about have peaked and on its way out. The majority of guitar production will move towards making AIs (Artificial Instruments). The focus will be on the technical facets of music making, rather than subjective, emotive ones. Guitars as we know them now will be of heritage interest.
Recorded music – Music will be manufactured in the digital domain with just a few maverick analogue‑obsessed musicians beavering away in the minority. The vast majority of contemporary recorded music will be created electronically, with few outmoded musical instruments as we know them now being used. Many artists will be AAs (Artificial Artists), rather than by artistically inclined human beings – the latter will concentrate on performing historic pieces from the golden heyday of guitar music.
Live music – There will no longer be a need to travel to a discrete venue where music is performed in person to a collective audience. ‘Live’ music will be created in computers, customised to an individual’s tastes and accessed in the home, in a domain known as an AV (Artificial Venue) giving the sight, sound and feel of a venue.
100+ years’ hence (c.2120):
Analogue vs digital – Analogue guitar music will be an historic vocation and largely a lifestyle pastime. All other aspects of ‘modern’ music will be entirely digital. Some authentic old‑style music will be recreated on historic instruments for research purposes, rather than as entertainment.
Guitar making – Even the last few old‑school luthiers will be migrating to alternative materials, automation and digital electronics. Hybrid instruments will be seen as a thing of the past. AIs will be commonplace and there won’t be a need for human musicians to learn the art or skills needed to make any type of contemporary music.
Recorded music – Popular music will be artificially created without the need for accomplished musicians. Music will be constantly morphing on a second‑by‑second basis, known as AM (Artificial Music).
Live music – Performance capture will be produced electronically and experienced direct by the listener’s visual and audio receptors, bypassing the unreliable eyes and ears altogether. Finally, the digital signal path from computerised source to the recipient’s brain will be complete and will require no human intervention whatsoever.
Alternative Reality
Or… in some alternative, perhaps more desirable dimension, the unwritten future could well be pretty much as it is today, with new generations doing just what we do now, rocking to good old electric guitar music. To many guitarists, the tactile and synergetic relationship between musician and his/her guitar in full flow with other musicians is unbreakable and simply cannot be usurped by some dystopian digital future scape.
One trusts that there will always be a place for creative artisans and a desire or the musically minded to enjoy the fruits of their vision for the guitar of the future. It is encouraging that many well‑known guitar makers are actually stepping back in time in order to move forward. This isn’t the paradox that it may first seem. Savvy guitar builders are investigating in great depth what made great guitars great in the first place and identifying what musicians actually want from their instruments today. Much of this current R&D is leading to a number of findings that indicate that what was important 100 and 200 years ago (and probably longer) is still important today but with modern consistency and reliability.
Perhaps the past masters did get it largely right in the first place and that is why their products, new or vintage, are still desirable artefacts today. While traditional manufacturers like C.F. Martin use modern production methods for some parts of the building process, they are also still using tools and equipment employed by successive cohorts of luthiers, as well as relying on many of the basic techniques and skills refined and passed down from one generation to the next. Most of the top flight guitar builders also work very hard to ensure long-term supplies of precious tone woods to make into future guitars. This focus on the best‑of‑the‑best perhaps suggests that guitars may well remain, for the large part, relatively familiar in 10, 30, 50 and 100 years from now but with improvements to the detail. Perhaps it takes that bold flight of fancy to realise that we already have what we and future generations of musicians actually need. Owning inspiring guitars inspires guitar playing and results in inspiring guitar music.
There really is no point in speculating any further ahead. The likelihood is that, even with advances in medical technology, most if not all of us reading this in 2018 will not be around to see anything beyond c.2020. The guitar is dead, long live the guitar. The passage of father time will inform just how accurate these flights of fantasy (or descents into nightmare) really are. Clearly, the further one looks into the future, the less precise any predictions become. Welcome to tomorrow’s very scary ‘brave new world’.
I, for one, am certainly not laying any bets. I’d like to think that there is something about our very personal instruments that will endure for many decades, if not centuries. If we lose that quintessential ‘something special’ about making guitars that make guitarists that make music, it will all have been for nothing. Watch this space.
Conclusion
So, that’s it. The long‑running and on‑going story of the guitar has finally reached a logical stopping off point, at least for now… However, it not the end of the story by any means. Somewhat disappointingly, the denouement to ‘A Potted History of the Guitar’ series seems to be a bit more of a whimper than some almighty bang. After so much history and so much personal investment in researching it, it seems a bit of a let‑down to leave the guitar’s evolution ‘hanging’ without some sort of definitive resolution to the script and with the various loose ends neatly tied up. Nevertheless, remember that this is not a fictional piece and let us not forget that this is definitely not the epilogue.
‘They’ say that a picture speaks a thousand words. So, to sum up the 3,500‑year, 8‑part journey in a single image that tells the story of the guitar from its origins to the possible near future, here is a fitting 27‑picture montage that possibly speaks approximately 50,000 words. Basically, I could have saved 9 months of my life and just posted this one composite picture. That, I guess, is one of the benefits of hindsight. I hope that you’ve enjoyed the expedition with me and that, like me, you have learned a little something about the guitar along the way. You wanted a potted history of the guitar? Well, how about…
From this point in time onwards is the start of the future and, whatever happens next. It will be fascinating to experience the on‑going next instalment of the long story and to observe with trepidation and excitement what is to unfold. Let us try to make it a bright and positive outcome for everyone who loves The Guitar and Great Guitar Music. Thank you for reading. Enjoy the future, whatever it holds for us guitar aficionados.
End of Part VIII and the end of this series
Now… I need a break from the relentless rigmarole of the research and write routine, which has, for the best part of a year (or more), been on top of everything else. As mentioned previously, at some point, I might adapt the eight separate ‘Guitar History’ parts into a more coherent and accessible feature set on the CRAVE Guitars’ web site.
Very shortly, I will try and start to prepare for 2019’s (hopefully slightly less) epic partner piece to this year’s gargantuan opener. For the rest of this year, it is back to opinionated hum‑drum ‘normality’ with stand‑alone observations of a more topical and transient nature.
One thing I have noticed is that I haven’t been playing enough guitar in recent months, hardly any at all in fact, which is deplorable. So perhaps now that this particular endeavour is over for now, it’s time to practice what I preach, pick up a lovely vintage guitar and plink away for a bit of cathartic enjoyment. At least, in doing so within the context of the past, I now have an enhanced appreciation of the history that led to it coming into my hands and why it is so important to conserve the heritage for that future. Until next time…
CRAVE Guitars ‘Quote of the Month’: “Let’s be honest, the future is all we really have and it is the only thing we can do anything about”
© 2018 CRAVE Guitars – Love Vintage Guitars.
← Return to ‘Musings’ page
Welcome back to the latest in a long series of articles chronicling the history of the world’s favourite musical instrument. Last time, we covered the advent of production solid body electric guitars during the guitar’s ‘golden era’ from c.1950-1965. That article also covered some relevant later events, but the essence was about a period of intense invention and creativity, hence why it deserved a separate article dedicated to it, even though much of the content would be familiar to many.
This month’s article mostly focuses on ‘what happened next’ between c.1965-1987, although it does also cover the subsequent period up to the current day, albeit in less depth than the earlier years. Depending on how the rest of the story is covered, this 7th part is likely to be the penultimate episode.
If you’ve been following the various twists and turns along the way, you’ll know that I have tried very hard to strike a balance between light entertainment for the general reader and the level of detail that would appeal to the needs of the nerdiest of guitar geeks out there. As previously stated, this is not an academic thesis – I just don’t have the time or resources to reference every element along the way, so it probably will never make it into book form, which is a bit of a shame but ç’est la vie. However, once the 3,500 year history has been finished, I may try to bring it all together as a ‘box set’ feature on the web site, so it will be easier to find and come back to than monthly instalments. It also provides the opportunity to correct the content. I may also add a bit off the original longer version back in (!!) and to balance the various parts as a more coherent whole.
You may wish to recap on previous articles before starting here at Part VII. If so, the previous segments of ‘Potted History of the Guitar’ series, can be accessed here (each part opens in a new browser tab):
Part I – The ancient world up to the early renaissance
Part II – The renaissance up to the end of the 19th Century
Part III – The late 19th Century up to the 1930s
Part IV – The 1920s and 1930s
Part V – 1930s up to the 1950s
Part VI – 1950s and 1960s
I hope that you’ve enjoyed the journey so far and will stick with it for just a little longer. For me, it has certainly involved a huge amount of hard work researching and learning along the way. There is an enormous amount of information that had to be excluded in order to make it digestible in an online format. As always, while I have been diligent, some errors and omissions will inevitably have crept in. Not only do I apologise if that is the case but also, I welcome feedback from readers in order to correct or clarify. I would also encourage readers who might wish to look at things either from a different perspective or with a different level of detail to explore the fascinating world of guitars for yourselves.
There are not many pictures this month, as the subject matter is largely narrative‑driven. Sorry about that, photo fans.
Post-Modern Reconfiguration, Rejuvenation and Consolidation
It has become generally accepted that the electric guitar’s so‑called ‘golden era’ started at the beginning of the 1950s with the introduction of Fender and Gibson’s solid body electric guitar models and ended in the mid‑1960s around the time that Leo Fender sold up in early 1965, followed by Gibson in 1969.
On the face of it, the years immediately after the mid‑1960s would appear to be of little historic interest, particularly as far as investors and ‘serious’ collectors are concerned. While the 1950s and early 1960s have been very well documented in countless learned tomes, the subsequent years have tended to be characterised by vociferous opinion and anecdote in a relative vacuum, rather than subject to objective scrutiny.
The Internet has, perhaps unsurprisingly, encouraged many already polarised opinions to become even more extreme. Assertive and often throwaway hyperbole of many self‑appointed ‘experts’ has possibly been consistently exaggerated to the point that they have gained some sort of historical validity. Widely read ‘unpopular opinion’ is often misinterpreted as indisputable definitive evidence. It isn’t gospel; there was more to it than what many would have you believe.
This version of the ‘facts’ is arguably simply that and, while every effort has been made to remain impartial, it should be read with a degree of realistic scepticism. This doesn’t mean that there wasn’t some ‘smoke without fire’, just that the flames may have been fuelled by circumstances and intensified by ill‑informed prejudgment.
The music industry wasn’t alone in coming in for acerbic over‑criticism; the American automotive industry was also subject to similar issues during 1960s and 1970s. The parallels extend beyond the superficial with the demise of many historic car brands and the inexorable rise of Japanese competition. As with guitars, some of these old models are now becoming highly sought after. The guitar industry during the latter part of the 20th Century, it seems, was symptomatic of wider deep‑seated socio‑political problems in the world’s largest capitalist economy.
Actually, ‘what happened next’ is an equally fascinating tale and one that is worth spending a little while looking at. At the same time, it’s also worth standing back and looking at the bigger picture as events unfolded. While it’s all a matter of degree, what transpired was rife with intrigue and machination. The appeal of these transitional years is one of the reasons that CRAVE Guitars tends to focus on ‘forgotten underdog’ and quirky cool American electric guitars from between around 1960 and 1989, although not exclusively.
Was that all‑too‑brief 15‑year ‘golden era’ the end of the story? Will guitars built in the ‘dark ages’ between 1965 and 1987 remain ignored most as gross errors of judgement? Will there be another defining period of electric guitar evolution or will musicians spend their lives experiencing mediocrity by default while harking back to that unobtainable time viewed through rose‑tinted spectacles? Perhaps digital technology will deliver the next step‑change with some Darwinian mutation that future writers will look back upon and write about. OK, enough of the rant, on with the story…
The Catalysts
The trouble really started once both Fender and Gibson been acquired by faceless corporations used to running commercial businesses, rather than important customer‑led operations. Despite post‑war prosperity and growth, the period between the mid‑1960s and the mid‑1980s could possibly be described aptly as eventful and tempestuous. In hindsight, whichever way you look at it, the sale of the industry’s ‘big guns’ was a 20th Century watershed for guitar building.
Firstly, let’s take a quick look at what actually happened immediately after the ‘golden era’ drew to a close circa 1965. The subsequent corporate merger & acquisition activity impacted directly on American musical instrument manufacturing up to the end of the 1980s. A few choice examples may help to illuminate the significant strife that befell the industry for a couple of decades (in rough chronological order)…
Rickenbacker – The only one of the major American brands that didn’t ‘sell out’ during the 1960s was Rickenbacker. They had, in some ways dodged that particular bullet, as Adolph Rickenbacker had already sold his company to music industry businessman Francis C. Hall in 1953. In retrospect, the move to transfer the undertaking and to keep it in safe hands seemed both pre‑emptive and positively prophetic. Arguably, the timing enabled Rickenbacker to capitalise on 1950s creative growth and become more resilient to what was to come. RIC (short for Rickenbacker International Corporation) has remained under the ownership of the Hall family since 1953 with John C. Hall as CEO at the time of writing.
Fender – After Rickenbacker, Fender was the first of the big names to capitulate to big business ambition. In 1965, Leo Fender sold his company to CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) for just over $13m. The reason often given for the sale was Leo Fender’s health, although an injection of capital funding probably was also contributory. Other perspectives cite Leo Fender’s desire to pursue new ideas, which he possibly couldn’t do while running the company. CBS started making changes almost immediately and expanded capacity at Fullerton to increase supply. By agreement, Leo Fender was prohibited from setting up another music instrument company for 10 years, after which he went on to found Music Man (1974) and then G&L (1980). After 20 years under CBS control and on the brink of total collapse, division president William Schultz bought the company, forming Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC) in 1985. What followed was a period of intense restructuring, with guitar production temporarily moved to Japan for approximately two years before resuming full American manufacturing with the launch of the American Series guitars in 1987. U.S. manufacturing was moved from Fullerton to Corona, California and its headquarters were relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona. Fender was once again back on the path to success as an independent company and has remained so ever since.
Danelectro – Danelectro was originally formed by entrepreneur Nathan Daniel in 1947. Daniel built his business on the back of large scale, low cost department store and mail order demand for electric guitars, often branded as Silvertone and Airline. This enabled him to start building instruments under the Danelectro brand from 1954. By 1966, Daniel sold Danelectro to industry giant MCA (Music Corporation of America). MCA tried unsuccessfully to introduce the Coral brand and to restructure its distribution network. The outcome was that Danelectro ceased production altogether just 3 years later in 1969. The brand was resurrected by the Evets Corporation in the late 1990s and, after several faltering attempts to recapture market share, Danelectro remains in operation as a successful American company with overseas manufacturing based in China and Korea.
Gretsch – Gretsch was originally founded by Friedrich Gretsch in 1883. Two years after Fender and one year after Danelectro, Fred Gretsch sold the family business to the Baldwin Piano Company in early 1967. After many organisational troubles including relocation, factory fires, Chet Atkins withdrawing his endorsement, and misjudged model decisions, Baldwin finally ceased production of Gretsch instruments by 1981. Fred W. Gretsch acquired what little remained of the company in 1985, basically just the Gretsch name and rights ownership. After a number of abortive efforts, consistent output was eventually re‑established in Japan. Rockabilly guitarist Brian Setzer became a key endorsee for Gretsch in the 1990s and consumer interest in the brand was rekindled. Retaining family leadership, Gretsch has been under the patronage of Fender since 2002 and the famous brand is once again a significant player in the guitar industry.
Gibson – Gibson was really the last of the large American names to succumb to corporate ownership. Gibson’s parent company, Chicago Musical Instruments Ltd (CMI) followed the competition in 1969 when Gibson was taken over by a South American brewing company called ECL and then subsumed by Norlin Musical Instruments in 1974. Gibson survived cost‑cutting, relocation to Nashville and general mismanagement largely intact, although its hard‑earned reputation was severely tarnished. Gibson eventually returned to private ownership in 1986 through a consortium management buyout. Despite a major financial crisis and bankruptcy protection initiated in May 2018, there are signs of a positive future for the company.
These were just some of the big players who were able to weather the economic storms during the second half of the 1960s through the 1970s and into the 1980s. In addition to the big names, plenty of other well‑known American companies failed to survive, including:
Valco merged with Kay in 1967; a move that included familiar names such as Supro and Airline. However, the newly combined company went bust in 1968
National Dobro merged with Mosrite before the latter went bankrupt, also in 1968
Harmony lasted until 1975 before it ceased trading
Those that survived the volatility would continue to fight for survival at best. Overall, when viewed in hindsight, it proved a disastrous phase for American guitar making and collectively one that isn’t widely documented, other than in individual circumstances. The ‘golden era’ was, seemingly, definitely over.
As is often the case, the causes of American guitar manufacturing woes between the mid‑1960s and the mid‑1980s are quite complex, based on deep‑seated structural flaws. Looking at the circumstances strategically, there were probably, amongst many other contributory factors, five key issues…
Industry structure and stability – Inward investment and backing of large business should have provided a positive commercial injection to guitar companies who were either struggling with financial difficulties or were unable to grow quickly enough with existing management structures. What actually happened was that big businesses, as is their wont, were looking to cut costs and increase profit, seemingly unaware of the impact that they were having. The large companies tried to stimulate demand by experimenting and introducing new products without assessing whether what they were making was adequately meeting consumers’ needs. For small agile companies, risk taking was a vital part of the creative process, while the bigger firms focused on large scale, efficient production methods, conversely heightening the risks of failure. Remote and disconnected governing bodies tended to dictate business decisions based on balance sheets and shareholder return, rather than customer satisfaction. Arguably, though, the businesses were in dire need of ‘better’ rather than ‘different’ management both before and after takeover.
Industrial relations – Strict operational disciplines, controlled production processes and rigorously applied policies are a fundamental requirement of larger bureaucratic organisations. These management styles were generally not part of the music industry’s ‘way of doing things’ at the time. Companies needed to be managed effectively rather than efficiently and, unfortunately, the pendulum swang too far towards the latter. Business managers exhibited a flagrant disregard for the expertise and skills required to make consistent, high quality musical instruments. Production facilities were relocated, often giving long‑term highly experienced luthiers a ‘move or go’ ultimatum. In addition distribution and dealership networks were changed with little regard for what went before. Unhappy employees and belligerent trade unions led to heated industrial disputes (and worse), thereby causing significant leadership and management problems. Decades of accumulated knowledge, skills, expertise and, perhaps importantly, attitude were lost to the industry in a short space of time – something that would take years to rebuild. The outcome was that quality fell, exacerbating existing deficiencies elsewhere in the industry.
Industry culture – New corporate owners did not fully appreciate or take the time to understand why the guitar industry worked as it did, resulting in fundamental mistakes internally and externally. The latter disenfranchised those involved in the supply chain from distributors to dealers and, ultimately, impacting on paying customers. Crucially, working musicians’ requirements were not being met and, with that dissatisfaction, brand loyalty diminished as professional guitarists looked elsewhere for alternatives. In addition, musical tastes were rapidly changing and short‑lived fads required nimble organisations that knew how to adapt to changes quickly and appropriately. Smaller companies that were better‑tuned into what was going on could flex more easily. The larger corporations, however, were unable to spot change and respond, leading to mismatches and time lags between demand and supply. Many commentators suggest that it was because musicians weren’t running the show. However, guitarists don’t necessarily make good business people (or vice versa!), which might have contributed to the difficulties. Significantly, two of the most influential guitar innovators – Leo Fender and Ted McCarty – didn’t play the guitar at all. Nevertheless, they were effective leaders because they ensured that professional artists were closely involved with business decisions. Importantly, the time when musicians were listened to and relationships were actively cultivated had fallen by the wayside.
Supply problems – Availability of consistent materials, particularly the all‑important tone woods, created challenges for large‑scale American production. Variable density and therefore weight of some imported tone woods meant that it was difficult to manufacture to dependable standards. Depending on the combination of materials, the shortage of quality inputs affected builders to different degrees. Around the same time, sustainability and environmental factors were becoming an issue, leading to further supply issues. Manufacturers started looking to alternative materials including metal (e.g. Kramer, Travis Bean), plastics (e.g. Ampeg/Dan Armstrong) and composites (e.g. Gibson) that were intended to improve consistency and streamline manufacturing processes. Other moves included building guitars not from single pieces of difficult to acquire, expensive wood but from cheaper, smaller, more available cuts. Consumers saw such actions as negative and symptomatic of other perceived underlying problems. Unfortunately for the manufacturers, customers were not impressed by ‘good intentions’ and the changes were seen as cost‑cutting measures taken a step too far. Many consumers saw through superficial claims and resented the big companies for making what they felt were false marketing claims.
Far Eastern competition – Enterprising Japanese companies, revitalised by post‑WWII recovery and able to observe from outside, spotted that American labour and manufacturing costs were contributing to a combination of poor quality and high prices – an equation that would present opportunities to penetrate a previously U.S.‑dominated market. Companies such as Ibanez and Yamaha did two crucial things. The first was to use their structural advantages to make high quality instruments at lower cost, and to produce them in large enough numbers to compete with American products on their own ground. The second thing they did was to brazenly copy iconic American designs, presenting consumers with recognisable products built to (generally but not always) higher standards and sold more cheaply than the American ‘classics’. There is more on the Japanese competitive assault on American guitar makers below. They also used rapidly changing music trends to create openings for entirely new products, including their own designs, thereby beginning to build a strong and more ethical reputation of their own. When the inevitable backlash came (see below), the marketplace had already changed fundamentally.
Lawsuit Guitars and Trademark Protection
During the post‑1965 period, sales of major American brand guitars was in decline and the home industry was in disarray. This provides a broad background against which American companies had to contend. Generally speaking, the way in which the industry and marketplace was organised was not favourable for the likes of Fender, Gibson, Gretsch, Rickenbacker and many others.
The takeovers and general (mis-)management of American firms left the U.S. industry weakened and susceptible to aggressive business manoeuvres. American labour, tooling and material costs didn’t fall, so prices for finished instruments generally remained high for guitars that were increasingly poorly made. It is relatively easy to understand why the 20‑year period between approximately 1965 and 1985 was crucial to reshaping the global guitar making industry.
One particular Japanese guitar maker, Hoshino Gakki Gen, saw an ideal opportunity to enter the fragile American market. Cleverly, Hoshino recognised the potential animosity towards Japanese‑sounding products after WWII and adopted the Ibanez moniker. Incidentally, the Ibanez name was derived from Spanish guitar maker Salvador Ibáñez, who made classical guitars and sold them to Japan from the 1920s. When Ibáñez, failed during the Spanish Civil War (La Guerra 1936-1939), Hoshino acquired the rights to use the name, dropping the accents in the process. Hoshino’s next step was to take over an American company, Elger, which had already been importing Japanese guitars into the U.S. This move gave them ready access to the American territory, initially as Hoshino USA and then Ibanez USA. From 1970, Ibanez began systematically targeting and imitating popular American guitar models, particularly from Gibson, Fender, and Rickenbacker.
Initially, Fender and Gibson chose not to challenge these foreign copies unless they were identical to the originals, i.e. deliberate forgeries. Perhaps they didn’t see the early copies arriving in relatively small numbers as a significant threat and therefore not worth the lengthy and expensive battles through the American court system with no guarantee of success. Perhaps naively, they may have seen the copies as providing entry‑level experience that would lead consumers to trade up and purchase the ‘real thing’. Nobody really knows for sure. However, by taking their eye off the proverbial ball, the already struggling American brands were storing up a hornet’s nest of latent problems.
The relatively cheaply made Japanese copies often used bolt‑on necks, cheap materials and inferior hardware. Having said that, they were often reasonably well made for what they cost the consumer. The slavish copies appealed to many novice guitarists wishing to have guitars that, at least visually, looked like the more expensive American counterparts without the accompanying high price tags. Notably, and perhaps pertinently, Fender’s own low cost ‘student’ guitar lines (the Mustang ‘family’) and Gibson’s budget models (the Melody Maker) didn’t resemble their upmarket pro‑level instruments, further exacerbating the weaknesses in the eyes of customers.
The Japanese picture at the time is typically complex and confusing, particularly when trying to differentiate the production companies from the brands they made and the importers they used. Some of the companies such as Tokai, Greco, Yamaha and Suzuki followed Ibanez’s lead and jumped on the cloning bandwagon, making relatively faithful copies of American guitars.
The huge Kawai Teisco company was a mass producer that made guitars under many names, including Apollo, Domino, Kent, Randall, Sterling, Victoria and Winston. One brand, Antoria was actually a German company (Framus) that imported Japanese Guyatone (Suzuki) guitars that included replica Stratocaster copies. Others, such as British firm CSL (Charles Summerfield Limited) originally rebranded imported Ibanez guitars. Columbus was another brand that simply imported Japanese‑made guitars under its own name. Hondo was an American company that imported Japanese copies, giving them some home‑grown legitimacy. The Spanish‑sounding Fernandes, on the other hand, was a wholly owned Japanese company that also used the name Burny. Many companies made guitars for other companies, so the picture is further obscured. There were many, many Japanese manufacturers that were largely unknown outside the country but were indirectly contributory to the assault on America and Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, including Fujigen Gakki, the aforementioned Hoshino Gakki Gen (who also used the Tama brand), Matsumoku, Moridara and Tombo.
So… just what were all these Japanese companies actually targeting? In particular, Gibson’s Les Paul and SG models, as well as Fender’s Telecaster and Stratocaster came in for ubiquitous copying. Popular Martin, Guild and Gibson acoustics also came in for replication, as they were the world’s most recognisable acoustic instruments at the time. Acoustic copies including names like Takamine, Morris, Pro Martin and Ventura. Even the fonts used for headstock logos often mimicked the original American brand styles.
As volumes increased, the wave of imports understandably caused problems for the original manufacturers and it was only a matter of time before there was a defensive response. That reaction was based largely on Gibson’s famous Les Paul and particularly the outline shape of the headstock.
In June 1977, Gibson’s owners at the time, Norlin, filed a legal case against Ibanez/Hoshino for copying the Gibson ‘open book’ headstock outline. The case was settled out of court by February 1978, by which time Ibanez had already changed their headstock shape. However, since 1974, Ibanez had been astute enough to foresee the complication and had been developing and improving its own unique Artist guitar designs, thereby circumventing any further rights issues. From 1978, once the lawsuit was behind them, Ibanez focused purely on its own designs.
Despite appearances, there was, in fact, only one landmark lawsuit at the time and it only related to the design of the headstock on Gibson guitars. Presumably, other American manufacturers were watching and waiting for the outcome of the Gibson case. Not looking for potentially damaging confrontation in the courts, other Japanese companies sought to avoid the wrath of the American companies and changed their designs just enough so as not to fall foul of further litigation.
Ironically, some of the Japanese ‘lawsuit’ guitars have since become collectable in their own right. Although many copies that claim to be subject to the lawsuit aren’t, they are just guitars made during the ‘lawsuit era’ of the late 1970s. Generally speaking, Japanese guitar making – having made its mark for better or worse – went on to plough their own furrow in the multinational market, establishing a successful business model on which they could build.
The imitation game hasn’t gone away completely though. Many ‘knock off’ guitars in the 21st Century are emanating from China, where there is little effective means of legal challenge. While some of the guitars originating from China replicate American designs and are produced in large volumes, some of the fakes are appearing in small quantities as very convincing forgeries of rare and valuable vintage instruments.
Also, somewhat ironically, the big American brands struck back by strategically shifting manufacture of lower cost instruments off‑shore. Fender made guitars in Japan from 1982, only later changing the name to Squier to differentiate them from the American originals. Similarly, Gibson started Far Eastern manufacture of Epiphone guitars in Japan in the early 1970s, then in Korea from 1983, before relocating production again in 2003 to a dedicated Epiphone factory in Qingdao, China.
In 1984, PRS guitars was established by luthier Paul Reed Smith and has since become one of America’s major guitar manufacturers. To cater for all price points, PRS also introduced Korean production facilities for its SE‑branded guitars in 2003. While on the subject of lawsuits, after PRS had released the PRS Singlecut in 2001, Gibson filed a trademark infringement claim against PRS for allegedly copying the Les Paul design. Gibson’s lawsuit failed at appeal and PRS resumed production of the Singlecut, albeit slightly altered, from September 2005.
Fender now actively defends its trademarks, which exist in perpetuity, unlike patents that have a limited duration. To illustrate the issues, Fender’s defence of its trademark headstock design reads as follows, “The headstock is the key source-identifying feature of the modern electric guitar. In particular, the shape of the headstock (which, in the types of guitars at issue here, is part of a single piece of wood that also includes the guitar neck) is nonfunctional and primarily serves to identify the brand and model of the guitar. Fender owns trademark rights and federal registrations for the shapes of its headstock designs. These marks are instantly recognizable to generations of musicians and music fans as indicators of the source of Fender’s products and of the immense history and goodwill associated with Fender.”
Furthermore, Fender lost a 2009 application to trademark its guitar designs retrospectively. Opponents stated that consumers had had decades of unopposed exposure to those shapes from a wide variety of other guitar makers. This particular ruling opened the door to many look‑alike guitars, bar the familiar and distinctive headstock shapes.
Rickenbacker, unlike many of its counterparts, trademarks its important designs and vigorously protects them through the courts, hence why there are generally fewer Rickenbacker copies on the market compared to Fender and Gibson clones.
The whole issue of who owns what and how owners’ rights can be protected in a global market rife with replicas is a hugely complex issue and the nuanced legal debates are not for this story, so it is time to close this particular case and move on.
The Fallout and Time for Objective Re-assessment?
The Gibson law suit was, however, a wakeup call for American guitar building, as it proved beyond doubt that they were vulnerable to competition. While it may seem a relatively small isolated incident, it was contributory to the way in which guitar making, distribution and sales had to change. It was time for a shake‑out. By getting back to the basics, the rebuilding of American production that took place from the mid‑1980s resulted in vastly improved fortunes, even though it would take years for several companies to return to prosperity. Gibson and Fender were back in private ownership, Rickenbacker had sustained its business and, although Danelectro and Gretsch would find success, it took some time to regenerate historic popularity.
Despite what naysayers, respected journalists and wealthy vintage guitar collectors will delight in telling anyone who will listen, not all guitars built between 1965 and 1987 (when Fender introduced the landmark American Standards) are bad. Yes, there are many examples of poor quality instruments produced during those ‘dark ages’ but, let’s be honest, that has always been the case. Just look at some of the cheap and nasty instruments from the 1950s and early 1960s produced during the ‘golden era’.
Being a bit provocative and controversial, it is the author’s considered belief that there were many very good instruments built in the 1970s but these tend to be overlooked and caught up in the sweeping generalisation that ALL instruments from that period are sub‑standard. Some unique and interesting models only appeared during the 1970s and 1980s as part of the drive for experimentation. Some of these experiments were often made for relatively brief periods before they disappeared again. As a result, many of these rare examples are highly likely to be of interest to collectors in the future. As vintage prices of 1950s and 1960s guitars are rapidly increasing beyond many enthusiasts’ ability to purchase them, 1970s and 1980s guitars are also creeping up in value and are likely to become the ‘next big thing’ in the vintage marketplace. When they do eventually become desirable, which they will, that critical labelling of ‘poor quality’ is likely to be conveniently forgotten as the wheat is separated from the chaff.
Generally speaking, with the introduction of automated and computer controlled construction technologies, instruments from c.1990 onwards are generally consistently well‑made. This means that poor quality instruments are fewer and further between. Value‑for‑money since the 1990s has never been better with some very good guitars available at relatively low prices compared to the past. Broadly categ
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https://www.elsewhere.co.nz/weneedtotalkabout/7569/we-need-to-talk-about-hank-garland-the-forgotten-star-of-the-six-string/
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WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . HANK GARLAND: The forgotten star of the six string
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2016-07-25T00:00:00
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When guitarist
Hank Garland's '59 Chev station wagon spun out on a road in Tennessee
and hammered into a tree in September 1961 it left him unconscious in
hospital for weeks.
And although he
recovered and lived another 43 years he never went back to work . . .
but what a career he'd had since he'd arrived in
Nashville as a precociously gifted teenager 13 years before the crash.
At... - WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . HANK GARLAND: The forgotten star of the six string by Graham Reid
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en
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https://www.elsewhere.co.nz/favicon.ico
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Elsewhere by Graham Reid
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https://www.elsewhere.co.nz/weneedtotalkabout/7569/we-need-to-talk-about-hank-garland-the-forgotten-star-of-the-six-string/
|
When guitarist Hank Garland's '59 Chev station wagon spun out on a road in Tennessee and hammered into a tree in September 1961 it left him unconscious in hospital for weeks.
And although he recovered and lived another 43 years he never went back to work . . . but what a career he'd had since he'd arrived in Nashville as a precociously gifted teenager 13 years before the crash.
At the time of the accident he'd spent three years playing on sessions for Elvis, Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers, Patsy Cline, Marty Robbins, Ronnie Hawkins and many others.
He'd also crossed over from pop and country into jazz and recorded an album – Jazz Winds from a New Direction for Columbia, the first jazz album recorded in Nashville -- with Joe Morello (Brubeck's quartet drummer), bassist Joe Benjamin and vibes player Gary Burton.
He helped design a guitar for Gibson.
He was known for his speed and assured attack (he'd been discovered as 14-year old playing as a guest at the Grand Ole Opry) and counted among his admirers Chet Atkins who considered him the best of the Nashville session players.
Yet for all that, Hank Garland (known as Sugarfoot after his huge '48 instrumental hit Sugar Foot Rag) barely rates a mention in music encyclopedias. If any.
He's not there in any on Elsewhere's creaking shelves and even in Peter Guralnick's massive two-part biography of Elvis (Last Train To Memphis and Careless Love) he gets scant references: Down to these comments in fact: “guitar virtuoso”; “Garland could really play but he didn't hit that intro the way Scotty [Moore] did” on Don't Be Cruel at a live concert in late '57; and as one of the “top Nashville players” on sessions a year later . . .
That's about it, except for this about a Presley concert in Hawaii in early '61.
“Even with the poorest home recorder-quality sound, you only have to listen to the tape of the performance that has survived to sense the energy that was coming off the stage . . . again and again [Elvis] urges guitarist Hank Garland to solo, indicating his appreciation with grunts and exclamations that have nothing to do with the audience . . . [according] to Jordanaire [vocalist] Gordon Stoker, who had worked with Elvis steadily since 1956, there was a spontaneity to [Presley's] performance that most closely resembled a man being let out of jail”.
So who was this Hank Garland and why is everyone not talking about hi?
Well, maybe one reason was that he was an irascible character, prone to bouts of angry boozing, kept a jealous eye on his wife (when his car crashed he was racing after her because he thought she'd taken the kids and left) and by some accounts let his early success – he was just 19 when Sugar Foot Rag sold a million – go to his head.
He's certainly not portrayed as an entirely sympathetic character in the '08 bio-pix Crazy.
However famed Nashville guitarist player Harold Bradley – with whom Garland worked – counted him a close personal friend and a nice guy.
Whatever he was like as a person, no one casts doubt on his talent.
“He’s one of the most talented musicians I have encountered in my career,” said Gary Burton. “His obvious enthusiasm for whatever music he was playing was inspiring to everyone around him. I’ve always thought that was one of the reasons he was so popular in Nashville and why everyone wanted Hank to be on their sessions.
“His very presence seemed to create a buzz among the musicians, whether it was country, rock, or jazz.”
Hank Garland – born Walter Louis Garland in exotically-named Cowpens, South Carolina in November 1930 – began playing on a cheap guitar as kid and taking lessons from a neighbour. But as with even famed players in Nashville, he quickly flew past and teachers or peers, and when he arrived in Nashville for a guest spot at the Opry he was just 14.
He impressed everyone . . . but was too young to work legally so went home, honed his craft and returned when he was 16. He tried to get session work but struggled, then everything changed with Sugar Foot Rag. There were two version recorded, one with Red Foley on vocals and the other the furiously fast instrumental version.
After that he was picking up plenty of session work (that's him on Patsy Cline's I Fall to Pieces), on the road constantly and could slip effortlessly from country and pop to the jazz that he loved.
Three-Four, The Blues, from Jazz Winds From A New Direction
Your browser does not support the audio element.
For Elvis he played bass on Soldier Boy, Stuck On You, A Mess of Blues and other songs from Nashville sessions in March '60 (alongside guitarist Scotty Moore, upright bassist Bob Moore, pianist Floyd Cramer and drummer JD Fontana). He played guitar on Fever, It's Now or Never, Dirty Dirty Feeling, Are You Lonesome Tonight, Reconsider Baby and other songs from sessions the following month. All very different in style and feel.
He had also been on Elvis' Hound Dog, A Fool Such As I, Surrender, His Latest Flame, Little Sister and others; Webb Pierce's hit In the Jailhouse Now and Bobby Helm's Jingle Bell Rock. He was used by famed Nashville producer Owen Bradley, recorded with Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Rich . . .
He was working with Presley on songs for the soundtrack to Follow That Dream when the accident happened.
And in every meaningful way that was the end of Hank Garland.
He apparently had over 100 treatments of electro-shock therapy in the hospital . . . and that alone would do anyone in.
After the accident Garland tried to play his way back but he was a damaged man. Johnny Cash brought him in for some sessions but the recordings were not released.
He moved to Florida and lived quietly until his death two days after Christmas in 2004.
He was admired by his peers, he was inducted into the Hollywood Rock Walk of Fame in '97 (his handprints are outside the famous Guitar Centre on Sunset Boulevard) and although Presley once said he didn't have the feel, at another time he introduced him as “one of the finest guitar players in the country”.
And the King could pick whomever he wanted.
He – and many others – chose this man.
And that's why we need to talk about Hank Garland.
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Chet Atkins
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Type: Person, Gender: Male, Born: 1924-06-20 in Luttrell, Died: 2001-06-30 in Nashville, Area: United States
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wrong_mix_range_death_00074
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FactBench
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0
| 39
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https://www.rhino.com/article/chet-atkins
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en
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Chet Atkins
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Inductee: Chet Atkins (guitar; born June 20, 1924, died June 30, 2001) Few guitarists have had more influence on the instrument than Chet Atkins. In Atkins case, his influence extends from the country-music realm into rock and roll. As a studio musician, he appeared on records by Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, and countless country musicians. Atkins thumb-and-fingerpicking style influenced George Harrison, Duane Eddy, the Ventures, Eddie Cochran, Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler, as well as innumerable country pickers.
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en
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/sites/g/files/g2000012691/files/rhino_r.png
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Rhino
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https://www.rhino.com/article/chet-atkins
|
Inductee: Chet Atkins (guitar; born June 20, 1924, died June 30, 2001) Few guitarists have had more influence on the instrument than Chet Atkins. In Atkins case, his influence extends from the country-music realm into rock and roll. As a studio musician, he appeared on records by Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, and countless country musicians. Atkins thumb-and-fingerpicking style influenced George Harrison, Duane Eddy, the Ventures, Eddie Cochran, Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler, as well as innumerable country pickers. Even the likes of Ted Nugent has credited Atkins with inspiring him to take up the instrument. ''I think he influenced everybody who picked up a guitar,'' said Duane Eddy.Atkins was a key architect of the "Nashville sound," which opened up traditional country music to pop influences, allowing it to remain commercially viable in the Fifties and Sixties. His multiple roles in the music industry included recording artist, record-company executive, producer, guitar designer and sideman. Although inducted into the Hall of Fame as a sideman, his versatility and impact could have made him a viable candidate as a performer, early influence or nonperformer, too. Atkins won 14 Grammys (including the Lifetime Achievement Award). Guitar Player magazine proclaimed him Popular Music's Most Influential Stylist. In 1973, he became the youngest person ever inducted to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Two decades later, Atkins was one of the oldest musicians (he was 77 when he died of cancer in 2001) inducted into the Rock and Roll of Fame.Atkins was a virtuoso guitarist whose smooth, clean-sounding style belied his intricate mastery. His style was a tasteful blend of country, jazz and pop, informed by such early influences as Merle Travis, Les Paul and Django Reinhardt. Atkins would pick a bass line with his thumb on the lower strings and fingerpick melodies and harmonies with his other four fingers. He played Gretsch and Gibson guitars, and he helped design numerous models by both instrument makers. These include the Chet Atkins Country Gentleman and the Chet Atkins Tennessean.Born and raised in rural east Tennessee, Atkins debuted as a sessionman in 1945, backing up a group that would eventually become the Oak Ridge Boys. He moved to Nashville and cut his first solo album, Chet Atkins' Gallopin Guitar, and later recorded 1966's Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles. He has collaborated with such fellow guitarists as Les Paul, Jerry Reed and Merle Travis.In 1954, Atkins persuaded the Everly Brothers to move from their small Kentucky hometown to Nashville. There, he became their adviser, sideman and friend. He played electric guitar on many of the duo's early classics, including "Bye Bye Love," "All I Have to Do Is Dream," "Wake Up Little Susie" and "When Will I Be Loved." ''Chet Atkins was the reason we came to Nashville,'' Phil Everly has said. "He was always our mentor."In 1957, Atkins was appointed RCA's Manager of Operations in Nashville. With Atkins help, Nashville became known around the world as Music City. He produced and signed not only pop-country crossover stars like Eddy Arnold, Jim Reeves and Charlie Pride, but also mold-breaking rebels such as Willie Nelson, Hank Snow, Dolly Parton, Guy Clark, Charlie Rich, Skeeter Davis, Bobby Bare, Gary Stewart and Waylon Jennings all of whom have considerable followings among rock and roll fans. Atkins also convinced RCA to build an office and studio, the legendary Studio B (a.k.a. The House That Chet Built) on Music Row. Elvis Presley alone wound up cutting 250 songs between 1957 and 1977 at Studio B. More hits were recorded at Studio B than any other studio in Nashville history.In 1974, longtime admirer Paul McCartney visited Nashville to record a track with Atkins. In 1994, Atkins and New Orleans R&B great Allen Toussaint collaborated on a track, "Southern Nights," for the album Rhythm Country & Blues. Atkins and Mark Knopfler released an album of guitar duets, Neck and Neck, in 1990. No doubt speaking for many rock guitarists, Knopfler said, "When I was coming up, I made a religion of the Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley, and a lot of the sessions that Chet produced and played on. My whole sensitivity, my whole approach, my whole way of listening to music stems from all that."In the end, Atkins viewed what he played not as rock and roll, country or pop but an amalgam that he referred to, simply as American music. "I just try and play things that give me chills, to express myself from the heart through my music," said Atkins. A musician who came to epitomize the term country gentleman, Atkins offered his own epitaph to writer Alanna Nash back in 1981: "I'd like for people to say that I played in tune, that I played in good taste, and that I was nice to people. That's about it."Atkins died of lung cancer at age 77 in 2001.
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wrong_mix_range_death_00074
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FactBench
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3
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https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/harbeth-monitor-40-2.25222/
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en
|
Harbeth Monitor 40.2
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2018-04-09T22:20:14-05:00
|
The Harbeth Monitor 40.2 speakers are, for me, at least, end-game speakers. With these I can sail happily through my Golden Years. They have the sound of...
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What's Best Audio and Video Forum. The Best High End Audio Forum on the planet!
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https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/harbeth-monitor-40-2.25222/
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The Harbeth Monitor 40.2 speakers are, for me, at least, end-game speakers. With these I can sail happily through my Golden Years. They have the sound of music as I've always dreamed it would sound at home.
Back to the Future
Last December I began listening again seriously to my Harbeth Monitor 40.1s in my downstairs music room. The size of the presentation, the richness, the AUTHORITY and NATURALNESS of the big Harbeths! No, even dialed in to face the listening position they didn't image and stage as precisely as the Janszen Valentina Actives in my upstairs audio room. But they just sounded REAL, even spatially. It struck me that at some basic level, for all their clarity, precision, and seemingly natural tonality, the Janszens, by comparison, sounded artificial and small.
So, as has happened again and again since my acquisition of the original Harbeth Monitor 40s back so many years ago, speakers come, speakers go, but I keep coming back to the big Harbeths because they, and only they, seem to have the sound of real, live, unamplified music and have it in such an abundance, no matter the material. I bought my Monitor 40s around the year 2001, within a year or two after Robert E. Greene's (REG) seminal review of them in The Absolute Sound #116 (February/March 1999). I waited to buy mine until there was a North American distributor in the United States, and thus waited until Fidelis AV in New Hampshire (which remains the North American Harbeth distributor to this day) acquired distribution rights and established a dealer network so I could hear the Monitor 40 before making a purchase decision. Before that, Winter Tree Audio in Canada seemed to be the sole North American distributor/dealer for Harbeth, despite REG's walk-on-water review. Since I've owned the Harbeths, I've acquired and then sold:
AR-3a (vintage)
AR-5 (vintage)
AR-303a (vintage)
Rectilinear III (vintage)
KLH 12 (vintage)
Spendor SP1/2 (vintage)
EPI 100 (vintage)
Ohm Walsh 5 Mk III
Linkwitz Orion
Sanders 10C
Gradient 1.3
Gradient 1.5 Helsinki
Gradient Revolution Active + Gradient SW-T triple tower subwoofers
Stirling Broadcast LS3/6 + AudioKinesis Swarm
Now I've sold the Janszen Valentina Actives as well.
System Changes and Context
In my prior home, after my first wife passed away in 2010, I had up to nine complete serious audio systems at once in seven different rooms. Since I remarried in 2015, in our new home, I've had two rooms dedicated to audio for the past couple of years.
But now I've decided it's time to slim down further audio-wise. I have now consolidated to a single dedicated audio room. The lifestyle changes involved in now having a large family for the first time in my life (my wife is one of seven siblings, for example) means that even I need to limit the space dedicated to purely audio pursuits. And the rewards of having a large family are very much worth it. Thus, the downstairs Music Room where my Harbeth Monitor 40.1s resided is now a living room without any serious music system.
When the Monitor 40.1s were developed, I had the original pair which was making the rounds of reviewers (the same pair reviewed in Stereophile and TAS) in my home for a couple of weeks. As a result of that audition, I traded in my M40s through Fidelis AV for the Monitor 40.1s.
Some (REG, for instance) say that the original M40s are better than the subsequent 40.1s. REG objects to the Monitor 40.1's emphasis in response around 1 kHz which he thinks needs to be equalized out in order for the later speaker to be competitive in accurate reproduction with the earlier version. I disagree, finding this emphasis benefits the subjective results on most music even if the objective response measurement is a bit elevated in this region. One thing REG and I agree about as to the original M40 is that the tweeter guard on that model needs to be removed for best sound, sound competitive with the openness of the high frequencies of the later models. See my discussion "A Delicate Operation: Removing Tweeter Guards From Harbeth Monitor 40s."
But I certainly think that both the M40 and M40.1 are GREAT speakers, so who am I to argue with REG's preference? Even Paul Seydor, who reviewed the new Monitor 40.2 for The Absolute Sound says that REG’s superbly dialed in M40s yield a reproduction of symphonic music second to none in Seydor’s experience.
I'd heard the new Monitor 40.2 two years running at AXPONA in Chicago and was impressed at both hearings. Designer Alan Shaw definitely seems to be onto something in his new designs, something which allows his newest creations, the SLH5+ and now the M40.2, to sound simultaneously very accurate and yet forgiving enough to allow the 90% of recordings which are not sonic exemplars to still be deeply satisfying listening experiences. Now, with the help of Mike Kay at Harbeth dealer Audio Archon in Illinois, I've traded in my Monitor 40.1s for a new pair of Monitor 40.2s.
I have also now paired the M40.2s with the bespoke 14.25"-high Ton Trager Reference stands for the M40.2s. For the first couple of weeks with the M40.2s I was using my similarly sized tried-and-true Something Solid XF MkII stands I was using with the M40.1s. Power is from a brand new pair of Benchmark AHB2's run in bridged mono mode. I'm high on the Benchmark electronics right now, if you hadn't noticed.
Here's a rundown of the equipment I'm now using in my dedicated upstairs audio room (a converted bedroom):
Sources: Oppo UDP-205 for disc playback; Auralic Aries G2 for streaming Tidal, internet radio, and Airplay from my iPhone. Both are new to my room.
The update from my former EVS-modified Oppo BDP-105D means that I can no longer decode my Reference Recordings HDCD discs, but all of these are available decoded through Tidal. And since I exclusively use the HDMI output of the disc player so as to be able to input high-resolution disc sources (SACD, Blu-ray Audio) to my Benchmark DAC, I wanted the HDMI de-jittering feature which is new to the latest Oppo UDP-205.
Since I rely on streaming from the internet for a lot of my listening these days, I've chosen one of the top new internet streamers to replace my classic Logitech Squeezebox Touch and Apple Airport Express. See the linked Aries G2 thread for my comments on the improvements the Aries G2 brings about in streaming sound quality.
HDMI De-Embedder: Kanex Pro HDMI Audio De-Embedder (converts the HDMI output of the Oppo to coaxial digital for input the my Benchmark DAC).
DAC: Benchmark DAC-3 HGC (driving speaker amps) and Benchmark DAC-3 DX (driving headphone amp). One of the coax digital inputs of the HGC is configured by moving an internal jumper to be a digital pass-through output to the DX.
Speaker Amplifiers: A pair of Benchmark AHB2 amps, run in mono. I'll have more to say down the road about these amps in another thread.
Headphone Amp: SimAudio Moon Neo 430 HA, fed a balanced analog signal from the Benchmark DAC-3 DX. The DAC in the headphone amp is not used.
Headphones: Audeze LCD-4 with aftermarket balanced cabling in the form of the Moon Audio Silver Dragon premium cabling for the Audeze LCD series.
Speakers: Harbeth Monitor 40.2
Stands: The sources all sit centered atop an Ikea Lack table enhanced and leveled with felt pads under its legs plus Bright Star Little Rock damping weights (themselves with felt padding on the underside contacting the tabletop). The Oppo sits atop a large Little Rock which damps the top of the Ikea Lack table. A smaller Little Rock sits on the cover of the Oppo; it is small enough that it does not block all the ventilation holes of the Oppo Chassis. The Auralic Aries G2 sits atop that smaller Little Rock; that Little Rock is large enough for the footprint of the Aries G2. This position for the Auralic and Oppo provides the strongest wireless signal reception from the wireless Netgear Nighthawk X8 router (with Comcast Extreme 105 service) on the downstairs main floor almost directly under these units.
The headphone amp sits under the Ikea Lack table and atop a large Bright Star Little Rock which has three Bright Star Isonode sorbothane feet between it and the wood floor. The top of the headphone amp is damped with another Little Rock which also serves as the base for the two stacked Benchmark DACs. The top DAC is damped with an issue of The Absolute Sound magazine. The Kanex Pro HDMI De-Embedder sits atop this magazine on three small nylon button feet.
The Benchmark amplifiers each sit on separate Mapleshade 4"-thick maple platforms, themselves sitting on three Mapleshade Isoblock 1 rubber feet, two under the front two corners and one in the center rear. These small amps sit at the front of the maple platforms so that the cables attached to the rear are supported on the platforms and have enough room so as not to hit the acoustic panels behind the amps. The speaker cables and all other cables are also routed so as to avoid contact with the room's carpet to minimize electrostatic charges on the cabling.
The speakers now sit on the bespoke Ton Trager Reference stands for the Harbeth M40.2 speakers.
Cabling: With one exception, the cabling is either from Blue Jeans Cable or Benchmark. The exception is the Oyaide NEO d+ Class A Rev 2 USB cable connecting the Aries G2 to the Benchmark DAC-3 HGC.
The Oppo is connected to the DAC-3 HGC via the Oppo's audio-only HDMI 2 output by Blue Jeans Belden Series FE HDMI cable into the Kanex Pro HDMI Audio De-Embedder. The output of the Kanex to the DAC-3 HGC uses Blue Jeans Cable coaxial digital cable.
The two Benchmark DACs are connected by a Blue Jeans Cable coaxial digital cable. The balanced analog output cables from both DACs are by Benchmark.
The speakers cables are Benchmark, with Speak-On connectors at the amp end and locking banana plugs at the speaker ends, the configuration Benchmark recommends for its AHB2 amp when used with non-Benchmark speakers.
Gain Structure: To maximize signal-to-noise ratio and minimize distortion through optimized system gain structure, the Benchmark DAC-3 HCG is used without output padding so it is putting out a high pro-audio-level signal and the Benchmark amps are used at their low-gain setting.
Electrical: All electronics are driven from two dedicated 20-amp circuits (one for the amps, another for lower-draw equipment), each of which feeds a single quad of wall outlets behind the audio equipment. Both of these circuits are fed from the same phase of the home's 220-volt service.
Acoustic Room Treatment: A combination of 4"-thick female-pattern Sonex and Pi Audio AQD Diffusers are used. The diffusers are at the first reflection points of the speakers on the side walls and wall behind the speakers as seen from the listening seat. The Sonex is used for reflection control in the corners behind the speakers, on the wall behind the listening seat to cover the first reflection points, and on the ceiling first reflection points. Wooden blinds cover the room's window and the wooden furniture and CD racks in front of the speakers is arranged to be at least five feet from the speakers. The listening position is also at least five feet from any of the walls or furniture in front of the speakers; this minimizes "early" reflections audible from the listening position.
Other Tweaks: All non-soldered electrical contacts I can reach are treated with Caig Audio DeOxit Gold GL100, the brush-on liquid stuff, not any of the spray varieties. Most equipment (Squeezebox Touch and speaker terminals excepted) have EVS Ground Enhancers added.
Further details about the equipment and set-up are discussed in other threads in Tom's Corner, including:
Kanex Pro HDMI Audio De-Embedder
Sennheiser HD 800 S Headphones + SimAudio Moon Neo 430 HA Headphone Amplifier
Apple Airport Express as Internet Audio Streaming Receiver
Benchmark DAC3 DX
The Lowly Toslink
EVS Oppo BDP-105 Mods, Ground Enhancers, Black Discus & Mounting Tweaks
Electronic Visionary Systems (EVS) Ground Enhancers: Can You Spare $30?
Contact Cleaning: The Right Stuff
If It's Spring, It Must Be Time for New Speakers (and More): Janszen Valentina Active
Electronic Equalization
Sure, in my small (11' x 13') audio room I may need to use electronic equalization to best tame the big Harbeth low end. We'll see; so far on most program material there is no obnoxious flatulence. Designer Alan Shaw has further domesticated the low end of his big guys. But, hey, I've equalized the Harbeth low end many times before and I've long since become an expert at flattening the bass of the 40.x with such EQ, if needed. I've also owned a lot of equalizers in my time, most of them since I've had the Harbeths:
Cello Palette Preamp
Z-Systems rdp-1
Legacy Steradian (for Legacy Whisper speakers)
Rives PARC (the first equalizer I used with the M40s)
Rane DEQ-60L
TacT RCS 2.2XP AAA, both stock and fully Maui-modded versions
Audient ASP231
DSPeaker Anti-Mode 2.0 Dual Core (both 2012 and 2013 models)
Behringer DCX2496 + DEQ2496 (also provided stereo shuffling processing)
ART EQ355
RoomPerfect (in Lyngdorf TDAI-2170)
Z-Systems rdq-1
DSPeaker X4 (coming soon, I’ve again been recently promised)
If I decide that I do need or would just like to try electronic equalization, my trusty Z-Systems rdq-1 is waiting in the wings if the DSPeaker X4 does not soon materialize at my doorstep.
The Ton Trager Stands
Harbeth designer Alan Shaw is not in the habit of recommending speaker stands. To my knowledge, the Ton Tragers are the first speaker stands to get a solid recommendation from him, a video recommendation, no less, which can be viewed here.
My M40.2s are set atop the Ton Trager stands per Ton Trager's recommendations here. Following those directions as closely as I can seemed to make a positive difference.
Without meticulous adherence to those directions, the sound I was getting with my Something Solid XF MkII was at least the overall equal of that produced with the Ton Tragers. Those preferring a bit more high frequency zip and air and the largest possible stage presentation and greatest feeling of envelopment from near-field listening will probably still prefer the Something Solids even if the directions are meticulously followed.
But get the speakers positioned just so atop the Ton Tragers and give the stand feet a few days to really settle into the carpet and what you get is better depth, increased mid and high frequency smoothness and realism, as well as increased natural detail with all traces of excess tizz eliminated. Bass seems deeper and better defined. Most of all, at high playback levels, the speakers seem cleaner. It sounds like room and/or speaker box resonances or overload are reduced. The stage shape and size changes more from one recording to another.
At just under $1,400 a pair, the Ton Trager stands are expensive. The Something Solid XF MkII, the next best stand by far which I have used with any of the M40 series, is still a close second and is much less expensive, less than 1/3 the cost, even counting shipping charges from British dealer Deco Audio.
Appearance-wise, yes, I suppose the Ton Tragers are more handsome. Certainly my wife thinks so. But there is something to be said for the vestigial appearance of the Something Solids with their much more open framework. That more open framework also makes it very simple to approximately adjust the toe-in of the speakers to get each toed in equally by just looking at the frame from the listening position.
I should note that these comments are in the context of not using spikes with either of these speakers stands. The stands "float" atop the carpet and carpet pad atop the wood floor.
I generally do not like the sound of spiking the big Harbeths or any other speakers, for that matter, to the floor. Not using spikes allows the carpet and weight of the speakers to considerably damp a metal-frame stand like the Something Solids compared to the awful metallic ringing you get when the metal stand is spiked to the floor. With the Something Solids the entire lower rectangle of the framework of the stand contacts the carpet. With the Ton Trager, only the extended tenon "tone bed" makes contact with either the floor or the speaker. When plucked or tapped with a finger with the M40.2s on board, both the Ton Trager and Something Solid stands resonate a bit. The Ton Tragers sound like wood with an apparently lower-frequency resonance, the Something Solids like metal with a higher-frequency resonance, but neither has a long resonant "tail" to the excitation produced when tapped or plucked.
Even with heavy speakers on board, the Something Solid stands are fairly easy to move on the carpet by small amounts to get the speakers adjusted just so with respect to the walls and listener. The much smaller contact points of the Ton Trager stands makes such movements considerably more difficult, but not impossible. You just have to lift up a bit and concentrate on moving a particular corner at a time, rather than swiveling or sliding the entire stand. Obviously the whole stand does in fact move; it's just the technique that is different.
I also should mention that the Ton Trager stands apparently were designed to be mounted directly on hardwood floors or, even better yet, on slate rock atop the hardwood floor. That is not possible in my room given the room size and desired carpet damping of the listening room floor. Anyway, in my experience, you definitely want a thick carpet and pad at the first floor reflection between you and the speaker drivers as viewed from the listening seat. Thus, even if you mount the speaker stands on a wood floor, you'd better have carpet begin very close to the stand and the carpet should extend from there to and through the entire listening area.
Actually, Sonex damping of the floor sounds more wonderful yet, but is a dangerous tripping hazard, especially in a darkened room. But in my younger and even more idealistic years, I sometimes had not only 4" Sonex covering the first floor reflection areas, but as much as 12" of Sonex damping the floor reflection. That one reflection is responsible for quite a lot of upper bass coloration, but to scotch such a reflection, you need a thick layer of acoustic foam. The carpet will damp the treble nasties, but not much else.
Speaker Set Up
Given this room's size and shape, I have found that the listener and speaker positions computed by the Rule of Thirds 29% Version tool to work very well with the previous speakers I've used in this room, so that is what I've started with using the M40.2s. With the room's 132" Main Wall width and 161" Side Wall length, that puts the center of the front baffle of the Harbeths 38 9/32" from the side walls and 46 11/16" from the wall behind the speakers. The listening position is 94 11/16 from the Main Wall behind the speakers, or 48" from the plane of the speakers. The speakers and listener form an equilateral triangle of about 55 7/16" on a side. This is near-field listening as I and most others define it. It keeps my head more than five feet away from the wall behind the listening position, which is important, in my experience, for the best spatial presentation. Bass room modes, while certainly both measurable and audible, are less than with most other arrangements and the spatial presentation is the best I've heard in this room.
On the Ton Trager or Something Solid stands, the tweeter center ends up about 40.25" above the floor (the tweeter is 26" above the bottom of the M40.2 cabinet). My velour-upholstered Drexel listening chair gives me a nominal very comfortable ear height of about 38.25". That puts my ears about 2" below the tweeter center. While Harbeth has long specified tweeter height as the proper listening axis, from the M40 on I've noted that 2" below the tweeter axis has always sounded best to me, especially for near-field listening. This puts the stage up a bit higher and provides significantly better height illusion, thus providing a superior sense of envelopment in the vertical dimension, as well as seeming to be the position where the tonal balance is most natural.
To get the Harbeths into position, I tape a strip of masking tape along the top front center edge of the flat part of the cabinet (the flat part begins about 3/8" behind the beveled front edge of the cabinet). I mark the center of the speaker on that masking tape and measure from the side and back walls to that mark with a tape measure and/or laser measuring device.
I adjust toe in so that the tweeters of left and right speakers point directly at their respective ears when I'm seated in the listening position. To do that, I temporarily remove the speaker grills and tape 2" circular flat mirrors directly below the tweeter guards. Then, with my head pointed straight forward, I look to the left at the left speaker with just my left eye and adjust toe in until I see my left ear's reflection centered in that mirror. For the right speaker with my head pointed straight forward, I look to the right at the right speaker with just my right eye and adjust toe in until I see my right ear's reflection centered in the mirror attached to the right speaker.
The trick to the positioning, and what takes awhile to accomplish, is to get three parameters—toe in, distance from side wall, and distance from the wall behind the speakers—all dialed in as closely as possible by moving the speaker stands just so, all without moving the speakers from their optimal position mounted on the stand itself as specified by Ton Trager's directions.
Once the speakers are thus positioned, I carefully put the grills back on the speakers, taking care not to move the speakers on their stands in doing so. This is more difficult than it sounds since the grill edges fit very tightly into a groove routed around the perimeter of the front baffle. Considerable pressure and a bit of grill bending must be done to get the grills back on. Removing the grills is at least equally problematic because of the tight fit. For both operations it helps to leave one arm atop the speaker cabinet and put some body weight on that arm while working the grill edges with my other hand.
Yes, I suppose that the speakers look better or at least as good with the grills off to show off more of the wonderful wood grain and to see the handsome Harbeth Monitor 40.2 badge. But, looks aside, sonically there is absolutely no contest. There are no sonic parameters improved by listening with the grills removed. Those who think the speakers sound better without their grills need to have their ears examined because they apparently are functionally deaf. The grills are an integral part of the design, making rather obvious contributions to both response smoothness and perhaps consequently the apparent detachment of the sound from the physical location of the speaker baffles.
Once the speakers are thus positioned, I also adjust the diffusers so that the center of each diffuser panel is at the first reflection spot of the nearest speaker front cabinet edge to that room boundary as seen from the listening position with a flat mirror attached to the relevant wall. Decades of experience with experimental placement of room damping and diffusing have shown me that these are the best spots to place the room treatment.
Sonic Evaluation
Bottom line at the Top: based on my early listening at home, to my ears, these are, far and away. the best yet of the M40 series from Harbeth. That makes the M40.2s overall the best speakers I've ever had in any of my home audio set ups. As I said at the very top of this thread, this is how I've always dreamed home speakers should sound.
Read Paul Seydor's review for The Absolute Sound. So far in my early experience with the M40.2s, I agree right on down the line with most of what he says. Below I'll try to mention some aspects not fully explored in Seydor's review.
Designer's Comments: Paul Seydor's review in TAS includes the transcript of an interview with Harbeth designer Alan Shaw. But I think if you want to get a fuller explanation of the evolution of the target frequency response and other aspects of the sound of the big M40.x speakers over the years, you should take a look at Shaw's comments on the Harbeth User Group. Start with post #60 in that thread, and also look at Shaw's subsequent comments in #87, 92, 94, and 146 in that thread.
It does appear that Alan Shaw pays a lot of attention to marketing feedback he gets from dealers, reviewers, and owners in terms of voicing his speakers. That could be good, in the sense of getting more information about how the product performs in a variety of real-world listening rooms other than recording studios. He does say that he designs in isolation with no one else having heard his designs before he finished them.
On the other hand, cynics may conclude that he may just want to grow his company and make some more money by giving his potential customers what he thinks they want. Having heard the evolution of the Harbeth sound over a couple of decades now, I'm inclined to side with those who find that evolution to be the designer's honest approach to making already fine products approach ever more closely the goal of having home speakers which sound like real music.
Measurements: Rather than show the effects of my room on low-end response, here is a link to the German AUDIO magazine's test report on the Harbeth Monitor 40.2. See the response curves in the left graph at the bottom of what is labeled page 24:
http://www.inputaudio.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/harbeth_m402_audio_test.pdf
To my knowledge, these are the only published frequency response measurements of the M40.2 to date. The axial response looks fine to me, like a target curve I would pick when applying an electronic equalizer to the sound measured from the listening position.
REG's response to seeing these measurements after having heard the M40.2s casually at Paul Seydor's house was, essentially:
Of course it looks nice--in a way. I am unperturbed by the bass rise. One assumes one has to control bass anyway and better a bit too much than too little to start with.
[F]urther up, if one looks carefully (compressed vertical scale as always in magazines) one sees a typical Harbeth recessed presence range. Between 1 and 2 kHz, there is what appears to be about a 2 dB shelf down. One might like this. The speaker sounds very easy on the ears. And the reviewer did like it[.] But I would probably pull the presence range up slightly just to get a little more brilliance(and truth) on violins. Still as speakers go it looks nice. (Sounds nice too along the lines suggested by the measurements--this is pretty much exactly what I would have expected from listening a bit)[.]
REG
PS: As such, speakers are not supposed to exhibit target curves above 500 Hz in their direct arrival. The roll off of highs etc in listening position measurement is generated by room effects (rolled down power response)[.] It is better to have a target curve sort of response than to have say a rising top but ideally one would like the speaker to be anechoic on axis neutral and the house curve to be generated by the house as it were. If you mess about with the on axis, one will hear it!
Near-Field Listening Coherence: First, never in my experience were large three-way speakers made which were so conducive to the type of near-field listening I do in my room (about 55 inches from the speaker drivers) as the big Harbeths. Frankly, very few large-ish multi-driver speakers have a degree of inter-driver coherence from this sort of listening distance which makes the speaker sound like a single driver.
The Stirling LS3/6 and Janszen Valentina Actives do okay from this sort of listening distance if one is very careful about getting the listening height correct and/or the speakers angled back just so. For best inter-driver coherence and tonal balance, the Stirling LS3/6s must be listened to with your ears level with the lower of the two tweeters. From close up on the recommended 400 mm-high stands, that requires either sitting on the floor or tilting the speakers back a bit. The Janszens are quite short and the middle of the electrostatic array is only about 22 inches above the floor, so it has to be tilted back a lot to get your ears on the proper axis from any reasonable listening height when you sit close to them.
The problem with tilting short-ish speakers back to get on the proper listening axis is that while the tilt back gets you properly balanced high frequencies, with most such speakers you will still be looking a bit "down" on the spatial presentation. The Janszens almost succeed in this respect despite their shortness since they have been designed to project images and a stage a bit above the top of the speakers and this design goal works pretty well even when listening closer than the recommended eight feet back.
One of the nice things about the big Harbeth speakers is that they are big. That implies that they are tall enough, when used on proper stands, to get the speakers high enough so that your ears will be in the right position with respect to the speakers for best coherence and tonal balance when sitting in a comfortable chair and with the speakers mounted vertically on their stands. Not having to tilt the speakers back, and the speakers having a traditional box shape makes for much less difficulty in positioning the speakers just so with a tape measure and/or laser measurement tool. A tilted-back speaker with an unusual shape like the Janszens makes getting the two speakers symmetrically positioned in the room with respect to walls and the listening position quite a bit more difficult.
As noted before, the small size of my listening room forces near-field listening. Speakers which do not perform optimally at listening distances of much less than 8 feet from the plane of the speakers—which is actually most speakers larger than mini-monitors—will not perform optimally in such a room. Yes, as explained above, I adjust things to maximize the inter-driver coherence from other speakers in this room, but there were still some audible compromises due to close-up listening which I was aware of but could mostly ignore, at least for awhile.
From past experience with the original M40, however, I KNOW that those speakers sound like ONE DRIVER from as close as 20 inches from the plane of the speakers, as long as the speakers are set up to point at my ears and the listening height is carefully chosen to be a couple of inches below the center of the tweeter. Four feet from the speaker plane is thus a piece of cake for the big Harbeths.
As coherent as the M40 was, the M40.1 was better yet. The front panel seemed to radiate sound all across its position, not at any driver locations at all.
But from the moment I put sound through the M40.2s, I knew that by further tweaking the crossover, designer Alan Shaw has wrought further clearly audible improvements in this seamless driver blending. Even from four feet from the speaker plane, the physical positions of the speakers truly disappear on well-recorded, and even much not-so-well-recorded, material, with sounds coming from various locations on the stage behind and in front of the speaker positions, depending on how close those sounds were to the microphones.
The inter-driver coherence in near-field listening like I use is at its quite considerable very best when the listening height puts your ears about two inches below the tweeter centers, as I described how to do in the set-up section. This height yields not only what I regard as the best overall subjective tonal balance, but also maximizes the smoothness of the transition from midrange to tweeter. From this listening height, the blend is seamless indeed. This blend was as audibly seamless as I'd ever heard even with the original 40 from such a listening position. The M40.1 was even better in this respect, and the M40.2 is—well—let's just call it truly seamless and truly undetectable.
No, as Paul Seydor's review mentions, the image height illusion is not the equal of true tall line sources, but from close up to the M40.2s, the speakers have a seeming line-source top-to-bottom radiation angle or space, creating lifelike image sizes, great depth, and wonderful immersion of the listener into the reproduced space of the performance. This quality supports and compliments the fabulous sense of "authority" for which the M40 series is justly famous.
Deep and Mid Bass: One of the first things I noticed compared to the M40.1 is that there is more bottom octave bass and less midbass with the M40.2. That is a very good thing for my smallish room. The specs say that the bass extends flat down another 5 Hz to 35 Hz. Subjectively, the bass warble tones on Stereophile's Test CD 2 sound pretty even down to 40 Hz, still strong at 30 Hz, but the 25 Hz and 20 Hz tones sound weak.
I know what true flat and even elevated 20-Hz-and-below bass extension sounds like in this room, having measured and equalized the response of the Stirling Broadcast LS3/6 plus AudioKinesis Swarm subwoofer array for flat or even elevated bass down to below 20 Hz. Yes, on a few pipe organ bass spectaculars, like the Dorian recording of Jean Guillou playing an organ transcription of Moussourgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, the low notes in, for example, the Gnomus section are more awesomely rendered with superior room lock by great subwoofer support.
But absent that sort of material and direct comparison or good memory of how such sounds, you would never know anything was missing from the bottom octave with the M40.2. In contrast, the Janszen Valentina Active, while having good bass response in this room and never sounding thin, rolls off enough in the bottom octave to make the reproduction of such pipe organ spectaculars more polite and less than authoritative.
And Shaw has definitely tamed what many feel was truly excessive midbass for most real-world room set ups in the M40. In my opinion, without electronic equalization, very few domestic room set ups produce acceptably flat midbass with those speakers—REG is truly one of the fortunate few in this respect. The M40.1 was better, but still needed a favorable, bass-leaky room and ideal placement to avoid a peak of about 8 dB around 60 to 70 Hz.
The M40.2 has been further domesticated. Even in my small room, on most material the midbass is just concert-hall-naturally-full without electronic equalization, not overbearing in any way. I have not yet measured the bass response of the speakers as set up in this room, but I'd estimate a narrow band resonance in my room of about 4 dB in the midbass. This is most noticeable on closely miked acoustic bass solos with notes in that range. Outside that range, the walking bass notes are clearly differentiated and fairly evenly tempered as the bass playing moves up and down the scale.
The bass quality has a great combination of punch, detail, fullness, and warmth. It also will handle considerable power/SPL in this area cleanly. Bass quality is an area where the M40.2 clearly stands above its predecessors.
Authority: Several factors—the above-mentioned inter-driver coherence, the warm and rich frequency balance in the orchestral "power" range, the low distortion, great dynamic contrasts, the ability to play loudly without increased distortion, the generous depth and vertical height illusion—all contribute to reproduction which sounds naturally weighty and authoritative with all sorts of music, but especially acoustic unamplified instruments playing en masse, as with large-scale classical orchestral and choral pieces.
It is in this area where the contrast to the Janzen Valentina Actives I had in this room just before the Harbeths is most striking. With the Harbeths there is a lot of meat on the bone, a lot of gravitas where called for. Delicate sounds are suitably delicate, but with a fully-formed, lifelike balance which is in no way artificial, undersized, or lightweight. Glorious!
The Janszens are every bit as revealing about what is going on in the music both spatially and in terms of musical lines. And instruments sound natural enough. But there is something inherently small, light weight, and not forceful enough about their presentation, despite seemingly very high dynamic contrasts and plenty of bass. Many say that electrostatic speakers generally lack impact compared to good dynamic drivers. Maybe that's part of it. The Janszen presentation is exquisitely high on clarity and analysis without ever sounding analytical, but lower than it should be in terms of guts, heft, and authority.
The Midrange: Well, here it has all been said before. As Paul Seydor's review said, "how many variations can you ring upon 'beautiful,' luscious,' 'ravishing,' 'drop-dead gorgeous.'?" I would just add superbly natural and real sounding. If you know the sound of real acoustic instruments and voices in a favorable space, the Harbeth speakers, Harbeth M40 series in particular—and especially the M40.2—nails that sound as no other speakers I've heard do. Other speakers, like the Janszen Valentinas, Stirling LS3/6, or Gradient Revolution, which can for a time seem natural enough, will sound at least a bit artificial when compared to these M40.2s and the real thing. Most speakers, truth be told, sound QUITE artificial in comparison to these Harbeths and even the best of the rest just don't give you that disarming impression of "yes, this is the truth" about their sound. The impression on much material—not just a few audiophile specials—is overwhelmingly of the sound of actual players in front of you.
This is the part of the Harbeth sound which has been most important in repeatedly drawing me back to the M40 series year after year. It is in this area that they simply are not matched by any other speakers I've heard at any price.
As Seydor mentions, with the M40.2 this window on the all-important midrange is widened to include the upper bass/lower midrange all the way up through the presence range. And the perceived distortion is now lower than ever before, adding yet more realism. And, unlike the Quads, where later versions widened the magic midrange window at the expense of at least a bit of the magic the early ESL had in the heart of the midrange, nothing has been lost and much has been gained by the widening of this area of supreme naturalness in the M40.2.
Presence Range: The range from, say, 2 kHz to 5 kHz is largely responsible for how close we perceive the music as being to our listening position. The words "forward" and "recessed" are largely descriptive of the look of the frequency response graph of speakers in this frequency range. Elevated response in this area moves the apparent sound source forward, while depressed response in this area tends to back the apparent sound source off further from the listening position.
Because of the way most commercial recordings are miked, the traditional BBC speaker voicing had relaxed response through this region, with a depression typically measuring some two to five dB in this range or some part of it. Many classical music listeners believe that this response trough yields better overall realism from the majority of commercial recordings, the theory being that since most recordings involved miking from much closer than concert hall audience listening distances, the recordings have a bit of presence exaggeration built in and this response trough helps ameliorate that exaggeration.
With his earlier M40 and M40.1, Harbeth designer Alan Shaw definitely adhered to this "BBC dip" philosophy. With the M40.2, however, Shaw is on record as having decided to flatten out the presence range response as much as possible. Given the published test report measurements linked to above, there still seems to be a bit of presence-range recession/relaxation in the response. But this increased presence was the very first thing I noticed about the sound the new M40.2s in comparison to the M40.1 and original M40. Solo voices and instruments are more forward, not at all recessed.
But Shaw has managed a fine balancing act here between increased presence and flattering a wide range of recorded material. Through some legerdemain—or maybe it's just an upward extension of the "magic" which Harbeths have long had in the core of the midrange—this increased presence does not grate at all and does not in any way reduce the wonderful depth perspective which the M40 series has had from the start with classical music, large scale and otherwise. In other words, there is no sense of excess forwardness and no less depth of field apparent. Sound sources closer to the recording microphones appear closer to the listener on the sound stage, but sound at least as natural as before while instruments in the back of the ensemble are still waaaaay back there. There is thus actually an enhanced amount of depth information presented. Simply marvelous! This is the way things sound in a good hall from around audience Row 8 to 10: the violins are close but in no way screechy or unpleasantly close, while the woodwinds, brass, and tympani are way back in the next county.
I've noted the same positive effects on pop and jazz. Soloists pop with presence, but the ensemble depth is fully developed, making for a very involving and interesting presentation spatially.
Top Octaves: The M40.2s, like the earlier models in the M40 series, have truly extended, airy highs. There is no lack and no exaggeration here. The top two octaves are there in the proper proportions. The impact ting of sticks on cymbals and the following sheen and shimmer are there in the proper proportions in time, space, and frequency balance.
That was not the case, I'm afraid, either with the Stirling Broadcast LS3/6 or Janszen Valentina Actives. The stick impact was there, but the following sheen and shimmer were reduced, making percussive images that were lower in placement, not as spatially free, and sounding tonally a bit more like escaping steam from a valve. You'd think that electrostatics without any crossover between midrange and highs would get top octave air correct. You'd also think from REG's reviews and subsequent comments that the Stirling and Janszen both get this right. This just is not so, I'm now convinced, whether subjectively or measurably. Both the Janszen and Stirling measured as rolling off above 5 kHz from whatever distance or angle I placed the measuring microphone of the OmniMic V2 measuring system. Both measure down some 12 db by 20 kHz. I thought this was either a measuring artifact or a product of narrow dispersion in the highs.
But I knew that the same measuring system showed the M40.1 to have just a dB or two of gradual slope off above 5 kHz. And the highs of the M40.1 sounded realistically airy on everything from cymbals to violins, not to mention high trumpet note overtones. The M40.2 does just as well, if not better. See the linked published test results. The Harbeths get the balance between the stick impact and the following shimmer and sheen correct and generally have a very natural amount of airiness to their sound.
Judging by both ear and published measurements, many speakers designed in the past few years have excess air built into their design, showing a measured peak in response of 5 to even 10 dB somewhere above 5 kHz. Like REG (see his comments about the linked M40.2 test results above) I find this sort of response tailoring far more objectionable than the type of relatively benign smooth rolloff found in the Stirling LS3/6 and Janszen Valentina Active. A peak or roll-up in this area draws attention to the tweeter (the tweeter sound "sticks out") and in music with cymbals, draws them forward in the mix.
The Harbeth M40, M40.1, and M40.2 have each had a superb sense of blend and integration between the midrange and tweeter. You cannot hear the transition between the midrange and tweeter drivers and there is still the proper amount of high frequency air.
Low Distortion and Clarity: In this respect these Harbeths seem basically equal to the Janszens. While the Janszen Valentina Actives perhaps allow following musical lines in complex music to an even greater degree, these Harbeths are very close to that standard in that respect.
The Harbeths are superior to the Janszens and all other speakers I've owned or heard in allowing small details to emerge naturally without any frequency response peculiarities. Instruments sound both superbly natural/real and you can hear the small musical (and not-so-musical, such as breathing, chair noises, air handling roar and rumble, etc.) sounds with superb clarity. The clarity is not provided by any exaggeration of mids or highs or rolling off of bass or warmth ranges. The M40.2s fully match, and even sometimes exceed the level of detail audible through my Silver-Dragoned Audeze LCD-4 headphones, something I never thought any speakers could do until hearing the M40.2 in my room.
Distortion also seems at least as low as with the Janszens, which is as low as I've heard with speakers. Given decent program material, the sound is very, very clean, with no apparent distortion or noise. Part of this impression is probably the supremely low distortion and high signal to noise ratio of the combination of the Benchmark DAC-3 HGC and AHB2 amps when their gain structure is arranged to produce maximum signal-to-noise ratio and minimal distortion as I have done.
Low Level Listening & Correct SPL: Perhaps because of a combination of all the above factors, the Monitor 40.2s sound more realistic and satisfying at low volumes than any speakers I've ever used before. There is no need to listen at high volumes to achieve a natural low-frequency balance.
The proper or natural SPL for any given material is also very well defined for these speakers, more so than with any others I've used. That natural volume also seems to be at least a bit lower than with other speakers, allowing home listening to sound extremely well balanced tonally even without "blasting" the music. In this respect the speakers mimic the live unamplified concert hall experience better than other speakers. Unamplified acoustic music in concert rarely exceeds the 80 – 90 dB range from audience seats, even in loud portions. With the Harbeths, you get full concert hall realism at similar volumes.
This of course also means that neither the speakers or amps need be stressed by high SPL in order for the reproduction to sound "right." But, if you want to play your music very loud, the speakers are capable of delivering the goods quite well indeed.
High SPL Capability: Part of this is the Ton Trager stands, but even with the Something Solid stands it was quite obvious to me that the M40.2 will play at considerably higher SPLs without compressing or distorting on rock or large-scale jazz, for example, than either the M40.1 or M40. The M40.1 had definite limits which even my Lyngdorf SDA-2400 with its 200 watts per channel could begin to hit, not to mention the Sanders Magtech Monos with their 1600 watts per channel. Earlier speakers in the M40 speakers were natural sounding speakers at respectably high volumes up to and including the mid-90 dB range on peaks, but if pushed would start to complain at SPLs I'd classify as very loud where peaks measure about 100 dB or so.
I'm sure a bigger room would show the M40.2's limitations, but in my small room the M40.2s just get louder to higher SPLs than I care to listen for more than a few moments. They do this without any apparent increase in distortion. This applies from low bass to highest highs. They can do this without taxing my $6,000/pair Benchmark amps which are capable of clean power north of 400 watts per channel into the M40.2 load but are by no means the highest-power amps available.
This may not be important at all to classical music listeners. But if your tastes are eclectic like mine or are more in the rock or big-band jazz veins, the M40.2 can be immensely satisfying on such material at very high SPLs, at least in a smallish room like mine.
The Sum of the Parts: As good as the parts are when analyzed, the Harbeth Monitor 40.2s sound even more impressively natural and real when considered as a whole without any attempt at sonic analysis. That whole package tends to disarm analysis since it just sounds so real, so beautiful. The speaker does not favor certain music over other types; all sound incredibly life-like.
If your musical tastes are as eclectic as mine you will have found a willing partner for your musical explorations. These are speakers just made for today's world of millions of tracks available for internet streaming on demand. Even if you don't regard yourself as having eclectic musical tastes, I can guarantee that the M40.2s will encourage you to make new musical discoveries while it also brings yet deeper appreciation of old musical friends.
Best friends for your journey, that's what these are.
Sure, if Alan Shaw designs a Monitor 40.3 someday before he retires, I will investigate his latest thinking. But if retirement means I can no longer afford new speakers of this cost, as I said at the beginning, with the Monitor 40.2 I can sail happily through my Golden Years. They have the sound of music as I've always dreamed it would sound at home.
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https://www.myheritage.com/names/chet_atkins
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https://www.allmusic.com/artist/chet-atkins-mn0000094205
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Music Search, Recommendations, Videos and Reviews
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AllMusic provides comprehensive music info including reviews and biographies. Get recommendations for new music to listen to, stream or own.
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Inductee: Chet Atkins (guitar; born June 20, 1924, died June 30, 2001) Few guitarists have had more influence on the instrument than Chet Atkins. In Atkins case, his influence extends from the country-music realm into rock and roll. As a studio musician, he appeared on records by Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, and countless country musicians. Atkins thumb-and-fingerpicking style influenced George Harrison, Duane Eddy, the Ventures, Eddie Cochran, Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler, as well as innumerable country pickers.
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https://www.rhino.com/article/chet-atkins
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Inductee: Chet Atkins (guitar; born June 20, 1924, died June 30, 2001) Few guitarists have had more influence on the instrument than Chet Atkins. In Atkins case, his influence extends from the country-music realm into rock and roll. As a studio musician, he appeared on records by Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, and countless country musicians. Atkins thumb-and-fingerpicking style influenced George Harrison, Duane Eddy, the Ventures, Eddie Cochran, Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler, as well as innumerable country pickers. Even the likes of Ted Nugent has credited Atkins with inspiring him to take up the instrument. ''I think he influenced everybody who picked up a guitar,'' said Duane Eddy.Atkins was a key architect of the "Nashville sound," which opened up traditional country music to pop influences, allowing it to remain commercially viable in the Fifties and Sixties. His multiple roles in the music industry included recording artist, record-company executive, producer, guitar designer and sideman. Although inducted into the Hall of Fame as a sideman, his versatility and impact could have made him a viable candidate as a performer, early influence or nonperformer, too. Atkins won 14 Grammys (including the Lifetime Achievement Award). Guitar Player magazine proclaimed him Popular Music's Most Influential Stylist. In 1973, he became the youngest person ever inducted to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Two decades later, Atkins was one of the oldest musicians (he was 77 when he died of cancer in 2001) inducted into the Rock and Roll of Fame.Atkins was a virtuoso guitarist whose smooth, clean-sounding style belied his intricate mastery. His style was a tasteful blend of country, jazz and pop, informed by such early influences as Merle Travis, Les Paul and Django Reinhardt. Atkins would pick a bass line with his thumb on the lower strings and fingerpick melodies and harmonies with his other four fingers. He played Gretsch and Gibson guitars, and he helped design numerous models by both instrument makers. These include the Chet Atkins Country Gentleman and the Chet Atkins Tennessean.Born and raised in rural east Tennessee, Atkins debuted as a sessionman in 1945, backing up a group that would eventually become the Oak Ridge Boys. He moved to Nashville and cut his first solo album, Chet Atkins' Gallopin Guitar, and later recorded 1966's Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles. He has collaborated with such fellow guitarists as Les Paul, Jerry Reed and Merle Travis.In 1954, Atkins persuaded the Everly Brothers to move from their small Kentucky hometown to Nashville. There, he became their adviser, sideman and friend. He played electric guitar on many of the duo's early classics, including "Bye Bye Love," "All I Have to Do Is Dream," "Wake Up Little Susie" and "When Will I Be Loved." ''Chet Atkins was the reason we came to Nashville,'' Phil Everly has said. "He was always our mentor."In 1957, Atkins was appointed RCA's Manager of Operations in Nashville. With Atkins help, Nashville became known around the world as Music City. He produced and signed not only pop-country crossover stars like Eddy Arnold, Jim Reeves and Charlie Pride, but also mold-breaking rebels such as Willie Nelson, Hank Snow, Dolly Parton, Guy Clark, Charlie Rich, Skeeter Davis, Bobby Bare, Gary Stewart and Waylon Jennings all of whom have considerable followings among rock and roll fans. Atkins also convinced RCA to build an office and studio, the legendary Studio B (a.k.a. The House That Chet Built) on Music Row. Elvis Presley alone wound up cutting 250 songs between 1957 and 1977 at Studio B. More hits were recorded at Studio B than any other studio in Nashville history.In 1974, longtime admirer Paul McCartney visited Nashville to record a track with Atkins. In 1994, Atkins and New Orleans R&B great Allen Toussaint collaborated on a track, "Southern Nights," for the album Rhythm Country & Blues. Atkins and Mark Knopfler released an album of guitar duets, Neck and Neck, in 1990. No doubt speaking for many rock guitarists, Knopfler said, "When I was coming up, I made a religion of the Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley, and a lot of the sessions that Chet produced and played on. My whole sensitivity, my whole approach, my whole way of listening to music stems from all that."In the end, Atkins viewed what he played not as rock and roll, country or pop but an amalgam that he referred to, simply as American music. "I just try and play things that give me chills, to express myself from the heart through my music," said Atkins. A musician who came to epitomize the term country gentleman, Atkins offered his own epitaph to writer Alanna Nash back in 1981: "I'd like for people to say that I played in tune, that I played in good taste, and that I was nice to people. That's about it."Atkins died of lung cancer at age 77 in 2001.
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Happy Birthday Chet Atkins, born on this day in 1924. Chester Burton “Chet” Atkins, known as “Mr. Guitar” and “The Country Gentleman”, was...
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35 likes, 1 comments - grizz51 on June 19, 2024: "Happy Birthday Chet Atkins, born on this day in 1924. Chester Burton “Chet” 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. Atkins’ signature picking style was inspired by Merle Travis. Other major guitar influences were Django Reinhardt, George Barnes, Les Paul, and, later, Jerry Reed. His distinctive picking style and musicianship brought him admirers inside and outside the country scene, both in the United States and abroad. Among many honors, Atkins received 14 Grammy Awards and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He also received 9 Country Music Association awards for Instrumentalist of the Year. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum. Atkins continued performing in the 1990s, but his health declined after he was diagnosed again with cancer in 1996. He died on June 30, 2001, at his home in Nashville, Tennessee, 10 days after his 77th birthday. #chetatkins #fingerstyleguitar #legend".
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Chet Atkins
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Without Chet Atkins, country music may never have crossed over into the pop charts in the '50s and '60s. Although he has recorded hundreds of solo records, Chet Atkins' largest influence came as a session musician and a record producer.
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Tweet
Without Chet Atkins, country music may never have crossed over into the pop charts in the '50s and '60s. Although he has recorded hundreds of solo records, Chet Atkins' largest influence came as a session musician and a record producer. During the '50s and '60s, he helped create the Nashville sound, a style of country music that owed nearly as much to pop as it did to honky tonks. And as a guitarist, he is without parallel. Atkins' style grew out of his admiration for Merle Travis, expanding Travis' signature syncopated thumb and fingers roll into new territory.
Interestingly, Chet Atkins didn't begin him musical career by playing guitar. On the recommendation of his older brother, Lowell, he began playing the fiddle at a child. However, Chet was still attracted to the guitar and at the age of nine, he traded a pistol for a guitar. Atkins learned his instrument rapidly, becoming an accomplished player by the time he left high school in 1941. Using a variety of contacts, he wound up performing on the Bill Carlisle Show on WNOX in Knoxville, TN, as well as becoming part of the Dixie Swingers. Atkins worked with Homer and Jethro while he was at the radio station. After three years, he moved to a radio station in Cincinnati.
Supporting Red Foley, Atkins made his first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry in 1946. That same year, he made his first records, recording for Bullet. Atkins also began making regular performances on the WRVA radio station in Richmond, VA, but he was repeatedly fired because his musical arrangements differed from the expectations of the station's executives. He eventually moved to Springfield, MO, working for the KWTO station. A tape of one of Atkins' performances was sent to RCA Victor's office in Chicago. Eventually, it worked its way to Steve Sholes, the head of country music at RCA. Sholes had heard Atkins previously and had been trying to find him for several years. By the time Sholes heard the tape, Atkins had moved to Denver, CO and was playing with Shorty Thompson and His Rangers. Upon receiving the call from RCA, he moved to Nashville to record.
Once he arrived in Nashville, Chet recorded eight tracks for the label, five of which featured the guitarist singing. Impressed by his playing, Sholes made Atkins the studio guitarist for all of RCA studio's Nashville sessions in 1949. The following year, Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters hired him as a regular on the Grand Ole Opry, making his place in Nashville's musical community secure. While he worked for RCA, he played on many hit records and helped fashion the Nashville sound. RCA appreciated his work and made him a consultant to the company's Nashville division in 1953. That year, the label began to issue a number of instrumental albums that showcased Atkins' considerable talents. Two years later, he scored his first hit with a version of "Mr. Sandman"; it was followed by "Silver Bell", a duet with Hank Snow. By the late '50s, Chet Atkins was known throughout the music industry as a first-rate player. Not only did his records sell well, he designed guitars for Gibson and Gretsch; models of these instruments continued to sell in the '90s.
Steve Sholes left for New York in 1957 to act as head of pop A&R, leaving Atkins as the manager of RCA's Nashville division. However, the guitarist didn't abandon performing, and throughout the early '60s his star continued to rise. He played the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960; in 1961, he performed at the White House. Atkins had his first Top 5 hit in 1965 with a reworking of Boots Randolph's "Yakety Sax," retitled "Yakety Axe;" in addition to being a sizable country hit, the song crossed over to the pop charts. Atkins' role behind the scene was thriving as well. He produced hits for the majority of RCA's Nashville acts, including Elvis Presley and Eddy Arnold, and discovered a wealth of talent, including Don Gibson, Waylon Jennings, Floyd Cramer, Charley Pride, Bobby Bare, and Connie Smith. Because of his consistent track record, Atkins was promoted to vice-president of RCA's country division when Steve Sholes died in 1968.
The following year, Atkins had his last major hit single, "Country Gentleman". In the late '60s and early '70s, several minor hits followed, but only one song, "Prissy" (1968), made it into the Top 40. Instead, the guitarist's major musical contribution in the early part of the '70s was with Homer and Jethro. Under the name the Nashville String Band, the trio released five albums between 1970 and 1972. Following Homer's death, Atkins continued to work with Jethro. Atkins continued to record for RCA throughout the '70s, although he was creatively stifled by the label by the end of the decade. The guitarist wanted to record a jazz album, but he was met with resistance by the label. In 1982, he left the label and signed with Columbia, releasing his first album for the label, Work It Out With Chet Atkins, in 1983. During his time at Columbia, Atkins departed from his traditional country roots, demonstrating that he was a bold and tasteful jazz guitarist as well. He did return to country on occasion, particularly on duet albums with Mark Knopfler and Jerry Reed, but by and large, Atkins' Columbia records demonstrated a more adventurous guitarist than was previously captured on his RCA albums.
Throughout his career, Chet Atkins earned numerous awards, including 11 Grammy awards and nine CMA "Instrumentalist of the Year" honors, as well as "Lifetime Achievement Award" from NARAS. Although his award list is impressive, they only begin to convey his contribution to country music.
Thanks to Mister Guitar.US
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NASHVILLE LEGEND CHET ATKINS DIES
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2001-07-01T00:00:00
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Chet Atkins, a guitarist who influenced such greats as George Harrison and Mark Knopfler and a record producer who created the lush string-laden Nashville Sound...
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New York Post
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https://nypost.com/2001/07/01/nashville-legend-chet-atkins-dies/
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Chet Atkins, a guitarist who influenced such greats as George Harrison and Mark Knopfler and a record producer who created the lush string-laden Nashville Sound of the ’60s and ’70s, died yesterday at 77.
Atkins, who suffered several strokes in 1999 and battled cancer for several years, died at his Nashville home.
During a career that spanned five decades, Atkins recorded more than 75 albums of guitar instrumentals and sold more than 35 million albums.
He played guitar on hundreds of hit singles – including Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel,” Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” and the Everly Brothers’ “Wake Up Little Susie.”
As an RCA Records producer for nearly two decades beginning in 1957, Atkins helped develop the careers of Roy Orbison, Jim Reeves, Dolly Parton, and Eddy Arnold.
He later expanded country music’s horizons by introducing black country singer Charley Pride and encouraging the “outlaw” movement of Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.
Atkins also helped craft the lush Nashville Sound, using string sections, lots of echo and backup choruses. Purists cringed, but Atkins insisted the sound brought country into the pop mainstream.
“I realized that what I liked, the public would like, too, ’cause I’m kind of square,” he said.
Chester Burton Atkins was born June 20, 1924, on a farm near Luttrell, Tenn., about 20 miles northeast of Knoxville. His father was a classically trained evangelical singer.
Atkins was a pioneer in the double-thumbing style of playing, in which the thumb plays bass while the fingers play melody.
During the 1940s he toured with acts such as Red Foley, The Carter Family and Kitty Wells.
He began making instrumental albums in 1953. Harrison, whose work on early Beatles albums is heavily influenced by Atkins, wrote the liner notes for “Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles” in 1966.
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Chet Atkins >With his unique guitar-picking style, Chet Atkins (1924-2001) produced music >from country to jazz in a career spanning over 50 years, making him the most >recorded solo instrumentalist in country music history.
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https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/music-popular-and-jazz-biographies/chet-atkins
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Chet Atkins
Guitarist, songwriter
For the Record…
Selected discography
Sources
A more important contributor to the genre of country music than famed guitarist and composer Chet Atkins is difficult to imagine. Not only has the man labeled “Mr. Guitar” by fans and critics alike gifted music audiences with his own recordings of classics such as “Gallopin’ Guitar,” “Country Gentlemen,” and “Snowbird,” but for many years he helped RCA Records recruit other talented country artists, including Waylon Jennings and Charley Pride.
And while Atkins is credited by some with helping country music retain its popularity throughout the boom of rock and roll, he has not limited himself to performing in the country genre—he seems equally adept at picking out the strains of jazz, classical, and pop music on his guitar, and during the 1980s has released records that find airplay on New Age music stations. Atkins has also received numerous awards for his talent, including several Grammy awards and nominations, and was for many consecutive years named top guitarist by Cash Box magazine.
Chester Burton Atkins was born June 20, 1924, in a secluded, rural area near Luttrell, Tennessee. His family was poor, and large—both his mother and father had children from previous marriages. But Atkins was surrounded by music from the beginning, and in addition to listening to his older family members sing and play, he also listened to the records of country pioneer Jimmie Rodgers. When he was very small, his older brothers did not want him playing their guitars, so he first learned the violin, or fiddle. Then, when he was nine, he traded a gun for an old, beat-up guitar, but he continued with the fiddle, and also the ukulele. Atkins and his brother would play at various gathering places, putting a hat before them on the ground for people to throw change in, and, for the Depression years, were fairly successful.
Atkins liked the guitar best, however, and more or less taught himself to play. As a boy he would listen to guitarists on a radio crystal set he had assembled himself, and try to imitate their styles. One of his favorites was Merle Travis, but, as he told Bill Milkowski in down beat, “I didn’t see his fingers so I didn’t know he was playing with just one finger and a thumb. I started fooling around with three fingers and a thumb, which turned out to be this pseudoclassical style that I stuck with. So I guess I was lucky that I didn’t see him and copy him any more than I did.” Thus Atkins developed his distinctive finger style guitar, which, in turn, has been imitated by many other aspiring artists.
While Atkins was still in high school, he landed his first job with a radio station, playing both country and jazz for WRBL in Columbus, Georgia, where he had gone with some of his family to live in order to improve the
For the Record…
Full name, Chester Burton Atkins; born June 20, 1924, near Luttrell, Tenn.; son of James Arley (a music teacher, piano tuner, and evangelical singer), and Ida (maiden name, Sharp) Atkins; married Leona Pearl Johnson (a singer), July 3, 1946; children: Merle (daughter).
Played fiddle in the street for small change as a child; during the 1940s played fiddle and/or guitar for various radio stations and radio shows, including “The Parson Jack Show,” WRBL, Columbus, Ga., “The Jumpin’ Bill Carlisle and Archie Campbell Show” and “Midday Merry-Go-Round,” also member of staff band, WNOX, Knoxville, Tenn.; member of staff band, WLW, Cincinatti, Ohio; worked at WPTF, Raleigh, N.C.; performed on Grand Ole Opry, c. 1946; performed on “Sunshine Sue Show” and “Old Dominion Barn Dance,” WRVA, Richmond, Va.; member of Slim Wilson and the Tall Timber Trio, KWTO, Springfield, Mo.; featured on the Mutual radio network show “Corn’s a’ Crackin’”; member of cowboy band in Denver, Colo.; recording artist, 1947—. Also performed again on the Grand Ole Opry during the late 1940s and 1950s, forming acts with Homer and Jethro and the Carter Family. Served as session musician for RCA Victor Records, 1949-53, consultant, 1953-57, part-time producer, 1957, manager, 1957-68, Division Vice President, 1968- c. 1982.
Awards: Elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, 1973; several Grammy Awards, including Best Contemporary Instrumental Performance of 1967 for Chet Atkins Picks the Best, Best Country Instrumental Performance of 1970 for Me and Jerry, Best Country Instrumental Performance of 1971 for “Snowbird,” and another Grammy in 1976 for Chester and Lester. Has been named top guitarist for many years during the 1960s and 1970s by Cash Box magazine. Humanitarian Award, 1972, from the National Council of Christians and Jews.
Addresses: Record company —Columbia Records, 51 West 52nd Street, New York, NY 10019.
severe asthma he had suffered since childhood. He dropped out of high school, however, and returned to Tennessee, winning a job playing fiddle at Knoxville’s WNOX. He served there on programs such as “The Jumpin’ Bill Carlisle and Archie Campbell Show” and “Midday Merry-Go-Round.” From then on, Atkins spent most of the 1940s playing for various radio stations throughout the United States, often impressing management and other artists with his virtuosity, but often getting fired, either for mixing a little jazz into his country picking, or for missing performances due to asthma flare-ups. He even had a brief stint with the “Grand Ole Opry.”
Atkins was playing with a cowboy band in Denver, Colorado, when Steve Sholes of RCA caught up to him. Sholes had seen a transcription—despite the fact that Atkins never learned to read or write music, and memorizes all of his pieces—of the young guitarist’s “Canned Heat” and was favorably impressed, but Atkins moved from job to job so much that he proved somewhat difficult to locate. Sholes offered Atkins a recording contract with RCA, and Atkins traveled to the company’s Chicago studios. Some of the numbers from this session included Atkins’s own vocals; he has since tried to destroy many of the master tapes that include his singing. Though his first instrumental cuts—“Canned Heat,” “Bug Dance,” and “Nashville Jump” (released in 1947)—did not garner much public attention, disc jockeys liked them and gave them a lot of airplay.
But Atkins was not convinced that his recording career would take off, and he continued to play on radio shows. During the late 1940s he was invited to play with the Carter Family, and with them performed again on the “Grand Ole Opry” in 1950. In 1949, however, he had recorded more tracks for RCA, including the hits “Gallopin’ Guitar” and “Main Street Breakdown.” At last, he was brought to the attention of a widespread audience, and his fame continued to grow with album releases like Chet Atkins In Three Dimensions and Stringin’ Along. Eventually, of course, Atkins became popular worldwide, making successful tours of Europe and Africa in addition to the United States.
Meanwhile, RCA decided to make Atkins a session musician as well as a featured attraction. Recording executives quickly noticed that his suggestions on other artist’s work made for more successful products, and they increasingly involved him in management decisions. He became an artist and repertory man for them, in charge of finding and recruiting new talent, and his discoveries include Don Gibson, Waylon Jennings, Dottie West, Bobby Bare, and pianist Floyd Cramer. Atkins was also instrumental in signing the first successful black country singer, Charley Pride. By 1968, after he had managed their Nashville operations for over ten years, RCA had named Atkins its division vice president in charge of country music.
In his management work for RCA, Atkins helped country music adapt itself for consumption by increasingly modern audiences. He was able to do this because, in addition to having a certain knack for predicting what performances would make for hit records, he continually experimented with his own music. Atkins has played jazz for festival audiences at Newport, strummed the classical notes of Bach with symphonies, and recorded with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, as well as many country artists. One of the first country musicians to recognize the talent of the Beatles, Atkins’s Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles proved to be one of his best selling albums.
Though Atkins left RCA in 1982, he continues to be active as a recording artist for Columbia. In addition, compact disc releases of some of his older albums are still producing raves from the critics. One such compilation, including the albums Pickin’ My Way, In Hollywood, and Alone, prompted reviewer Jon Sievert in Guitar Player to declare that “Chet’s masterful tempo shifts, subtle vibrato technique, intimate feel, and uncommon taste make him required listening for all pretenders to the throne.” Atkins’s Columbia recordings, however, increasingly stray from the country genre, including Chet Atkins, C.G.P. (initials stand for Certified Guitar Player), which Alanna Nash of Stereo Review lauded for its “complex musical images in startlingly vivid colors.” Cuts from CG.P. and a few albums previous to it are often heard on progressive and new age music radio stations, and Milkowski in down beat concluded that Atkins’s 1980s efforts “are really a natural progression for the man who has always been stretching, probing other idioms, and interpreting these modes through his own signature approach.”
Selected discography
LPs; released by RCA, except as noted
Chet Atkins Plays Guitar, 1951.
Chet Atkins in Three Dimensions, 1951.
Hi-Fi in Focus, 1957.
At Home, 1958.
In Hollywood, 1959.
Mister Guitar, 1960.
Teensville, 1960.
Other Chet Atkins, 1960.
Workshop, 1961.
Most Popular, 1961.
Down Home, 1962.
Caribbean Guitar, 1962.
Back Home Hymns, 1962.
Our Man in Nashville, 1963.
Travelin’, 1963.
Guitar Country, 1964.
Best, 1964.
Progressive Pickin’, 1964.
Reminiscing, 1964.
My Favorite Guitars, 1965.
Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles, 1966.
From Nashville, 1966.
Guitar World, 1967.
Chet Atkins Picks the Best, 1967.
Class Guitar, 1967.
Solid Gold’69, 1969.
Warmth, 1969.
Best, 1967.
Best, Volume 2, 1970.
Love and Guitars, 1970.
Standing Alone, 1970.
(With Jerry Reed) Me and Jerry, 1970.
This Is Chet Atkins, 1970.
Portrait of My Woman, 1971.
For the Good Times, 1971.
Welcome to My World, 1971.
Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye, 1971.
Pickin’ My Way, 1971.
Lovin’ Her Was Easier, 1971.
Now & Then, 1972.
Chet Atkins Picks on the Hits, 1972.
(With Merle Travis) The Atkins-Travis Travelin’ Show, 1974.
Atkins String Band, 1975.
(With Les Paul) Chester and Lester, 1976.
Stay Tuned, Columbia, 1985.
Chet Atkins, C.G.P., Columbia, 1989.
Other
(Compact disc compilation) Pickin’ My Way/In Hollywood/Alone, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, 1989.
Also recorded Stringin’ Along and Finger Style Guitar on RCA during the 1950s.
Sources
Books
Atkins, Chet, Country Gentleman, Regnery, 1974.
Periodicals
Country Music, May-June 1989.
down beat, May 1989.
Guitar Player, November 1989; December 1989.
Stereo Review, May 1989.
—Elizabeth Wenning
Chet Atkins
With his unique guitar-picking style, Chet Atkins (1924-2001) produced music from country to jazz in a career spanning over 50 years, making him the most recorded solo instrumentalist in country music history. His talent for finding and nurturing new recording stars and introducing new sounds earned him a second career as a record company producer and executive.
Chet Atkins was born Chester Burton Atkins on a farm near Luttrell, Tennessee, a small town about 20 miles north of Knoxville, on June 20, 1924. His parents, James Arly Atkins and Ida Sharp Atkins, each had children from a previous marriage. The family was large and poor. With a father who was a music teacher, piano tuner, and evangelist singer, a mother who played piano and sang, and siblings who played instruments, Atkins was surrounded by music from birth. At the age of six he played his first instrument, a ukulele, replacing broken strings with wire pulled from a screen door. Three years later he began playing a Sears Silvertone guitar and a fiddle along with his siblings and their stepfather, Willie Strevel. He and a brother played at local gatherings, throwing a hat on the ground into which listeners were encouraged to toss spare change. They were quite successful with this during the Depression years of the 1930s. Atkins idolized his talented half-brother, Jim, who was 13 years older. Jim Atkins was a guitar player on network radio and later performed with guitarist Les Paul. The younger, budding musician was influenced by what he heard on radio and records, including the songs of country music pioneer Jimmie Rodgers.
However, despite the music and large family, Atkins had a difficult childhood. He was an extremely shy and asthmatic child. Music became a way for him to express himself in those early years. He referred to his childhood in eastern Tennessee in a letter to friend Garrison Keillor, writing, "Those were some of the worst years of the old man's life, don't you know. But even the bad ones are good now that I think about it." James and Ida Atkins divorced in 1932. In hopes that a different climate would improve Atkins' asthma, he was sent to live with his father in Columbus, Georgia, in 1936.
Developed a Unique Style
Atkins' move to Georgia widened his musical sphere, bringing him radio programs from Knoxville and Atlanta, Cincinnati and New York City. As a boy he listened to guitarists on a crystal radio set he had assembled by himself and tried to imitate them. Cincinnati's station WLW is where he first heard and tried to copy Merle Travis playing guitar. In doing so, Atkins developed his own style. Because he could not observe Travis, only listen to him on the radio, Atkins couldn't see that Travis played the guitar with his thumb and just one finger. So, as Atkins told Bill Milkowski in Down Beat magazine, "I started fooling around with three fingers and a thumb, which turned out to be this pseudo-classical style that I stuck with." His admiration for his hero never waned. Atkins named his daughter Merle. When he signed an autograph for Travis years later, he wrote, "My claim to fame is bragging that we're friends. People just don't pick any better." This signature thumb and finger guitar-picking style Atkins created not only influenced future musicians, but led Atkins to design guitar models, collaborating with the Gretsch Guitar Company, and later with Gibson.
Began Performing
While still in school, Atkins began performing on radio stations. At the age of 17 he quit high school to enter the music field. Atkins returned to Tennessee and landed his first job at radio station WNOX in Knoxville, fiddling for the duo of Archie Campbell and Bill Carlisle. He later played on the daily barn dance show. Atkins was also moonlighting as a jazz guitarist. Though management and other artists recognized his talent, this tendency to mix jazz with country, along with absences due to asthma, got him fired often from radio stations during the 1940s. Restless by nature, Atkins moved to Cincinnati's WLW and then to Chicago's WLS "National Barn Dance." He was there just a short time before country star and host Red Foley whisked him off for a stint at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. That same year, 1946, Atkins made his first recording, "Guitar Blues," for Bullet Records.
Atkins left Nashville again, this time for station KWTO in Springfield, Missouri, where Si Siman nicknamed him "Chet" and promoted his artistry to record companies. The station eventually fired him, thinking his sound too polished for country music audiences, but Atkins was attracting fans. About this time, a woman saw him perform in a roadhouse. She wrote: "He sat hunched in the spotlight and played and the whole room suddenly got quiet. It was a drinking and dancing crowd, but there was something about Chet Atkins that could take your breath away." While in Cincinnati, he met Leona Pearl Johnson, a singer, who with her twin sister Lois, performed on station WLW. Atkins and Leona married a year later, July 3, 1946, when Atkins was 22 years old. They would remain together for the next 50 years, until the guitarist's death in 2001.
Hired by RCA
Impressed by Atkins' talent, RCA Victor recording executive Steve Shoal set off in search of the guitarist. He finally tracked him down in Colorado and offered him a contract. From his early RCA recording sessions came attention-getting numbers like "Canned Heat," Bug Dance," and "Main Street Brakedown." He sang on some of these recordings, many of which Atkins later tried to destroy. In 1949, along with performers Homer and Jethro, Henry Haynes and Kenneth Burns, he recorded "Galloping Guitar," which became Atkins' first big success. It was this year, too, that the industry dropped the derogatory term "hillbilly" in reference to country music. Not confident about a career in recording, Atkins continued performing on radio and stage.
The 1950s brought more exposure and a big career boost when the Carter family and Homer and Jethro invited Atkins back to the Opry stage. Country music publisher Fred Rose also befriended Atkins and involved him as a session player on some of the '50s top hits. He played with country music's great singer-songwriter, Hank Williams, on such big hits as "Cold, Cold Heart," Kaw-liga," and "Jambalaya," and on "Release Me" by "the first lady of country music," Kitty Wells. After years of listening to different styles of music and experimenting with his own, Atkins helped pioneer the era of rock and roll, playing on early rock records like Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Wake Up Little Susie" by the Everly Brothers.
RCA management's decision to not only feature Atkins as a solo performer but to use his talent as a session player proved lucrative for him and the company. Recording executives noticed how Atkins' suggestions helped other performers succeed, and they put him in charge of recruiting new talent. He found and nurtured talents who became top-of-the-chart country singers, including Don Gibson, Waylon Jennings, Bobbie Bare and Dottie West. His own stardom increased with the release of two albums in 1951. His hit version of "Mr. Sandman" in 1955 showed his knack for interpreting music written by others.
Increased Country Music's Audience
Atkins played a major role in popularizing country music by finding talent and producing hits for many great names, including Don Gibson, Skeeter Davis, Jim Reeves, Roy Orbison, Charley Pride, Jerry Reed, Eddy Arnold, and many others. RCA made Atkins manager of their new Nashville recording studio that opened in 1957. As a producer with an eye for talent, Atkins succeeded in signing future stars, including singer-songwriter-musicians Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson, who both became diversified entertainers with crossover record hits and starring movie roles. Just as Atkins continued to adapt his own style to changing trends, the country music industry now needed to do the same to compete with the popularity of rock and roll. RCA named Atkins as their division vice president for country music in 1968. He helped to attract a wider audience by producing a more modern sound, using string arrangements instead of the traditional fiddles and steel guitars. He and Owen Bradley of Decca Records are credited with this style of orchestration, later called the "Nashville Sound."
During the 1960s, Atkins signed on singer-songwriter Bobby Bare and encouraged Bare's flair for "recitation" songs, which mixed singing and speaking. Results included "Detroit City" and "500 Miles Away From Home," both of which hit not only the top of country charts, but also pop music's top-ten lists. As radio, television, and Opry host Ralph Emery relates in his book, 50 Years Down a Country Road, Atkins trusted Bare's musical and recording know-how "to such an extent that Chet did the unthinkable in those days. He allowed Bare to produce his own records. That was the beginning of the so-called Outlaw Movement of the 1970s." Along with the growth of 'outlaw' music, the gap between country and pop music narrowed in the 1970s. Performers were using more electric guitars, and country music gained more urban audiences.
Career Continued to Flourish
At the age of 49 in 1973, Atkins became the youngest artist ever inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He had already performed at the White House for President Kennedy and the Newport Jazz Festival in the previous decade, and went on to perform in diverse fields when he played classical music with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra and recorded with Paul McCartney. He played with legendary guitarists Doc Watson, Les Paul, and his lifetime idol, Merle Travis; with British rock star, Mark Knopfler; and with contemporary country singer-guitarist, Suzy Bogguss. Compact discs containing Atkins' older numbers still pleased music critics, while some of his recordings aired on progressive and new age music radio stations. Appropriately dubbed "Mr. Guitar," the title of his 1960 album release, Atkins earned recognition as Country Music Association's instrumentalist of the year nine times between 1967 and 1988, and as Cash Box magazine's top guitarist many times throughout the 1960's and 1970's. Atkins remarked to Rolling Stone magazine, " … 'world's greatest guitar player' is a misnomer. I think I'm one of the best-known guitar players in the world, I'll admit to that." If a title was used, he preferred: "c.g.p" for certified guitar player.
In 1982, after more than 30 years with RCA, Atkins left the label and joined Columbia Records. He released his first album with Columbia the same year, "Work It Out With Chet Atkins." He continued recording and releasing albums during the 1980s and 1990s, touring the United States, Africa, and Europe with his music. At age 72, Atkins started doing club dates, performing with bass, drums, and even a little singing. In an interview at Caffe Milano, he said. "That's my favorite thing, I guess, to play for an audience, because it's such a challenge. … You got to get out there and do it right … I think I'm a better musician than ever because my taste has improved."
While managing to promote both country music and rock and roll, Atkins' own recordings, ranging across the musical spectrum, garnered 14 Grammy awards. The Lifetime Achievement Award presented to Atkins in 1993 by the organization that presents the Grammy awards cited his "peerless finger-style guitar technique, his extensive creative legacy documented on more than 100 albums, and his influential work on both sides of the recording console as a primary architect of the Nashville sound." A street in Music Row in Nashville is named after him, and a downtown statue of Atkins with his guitar was erected in the year 2000.
A Farewell in Nashville
Twenty years after being treated for colon cancer, Atkins underwent surgery in 1997 for a benign brain tumor and to repair damage caused by a stroke. He continued working, releasing an album of contemporary artists singing country classics the following year. However, complications from his cancer led to Atkins death at his home in Nashville on June 30, 2001. Atkins was buried at Harpeth Hills Cemetery in Nashville, leaving his wife Leona, daughter Merle, two grandchildren and a sister. His life is described in two Atkins' books, one put out near the end of his life, Just Me and My Guitars, and his 1974 autobiography, Country Gentleman.
At a memorial service held at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, original site of the Grand Ole Opry, radio host, author, and longtime friend Garrison Keillor delivered a heartfelt eulogy. To an audience of over a thousand, he described Atkins as a man who loved doing shows but liked to be alone backstage to enjoy the quiet and calm; a restless man; a musician with a mind of his own; and a great storyteller. He was an inspiration to others, but also admired other performers' works and went out of his way to tell them so. "He was the guitar player of the 20th century," Keillor continued, describing Atkins as the perfect model of a guitarist: "You could tell it whenever he picked up a guitar, the way it fit him. His upper body was shaped to it, from a lifetime of playing: his back was slightly hunched, his shoulders rounded… ."
Keillor's tribute and the picture he painted of the legendary guitarist seemed an altogether fitting image to leave with Atkins' legions of fans and for the generations of fans yet to come.
Books
Contemporary Musicians, Gale Research, 1991.
Emery, Ralph, 50 Years Down a Country Road, William Morrow, 2000.
Online
"Chet Atkins," World Music Portal, http://www.worldmusicportal.com/Artists/USA-artists/chet-atkins.htm (October 31, 2001).
Contemporary Authors Online, "Chester Burton Atkins," The Gale Group, http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC.
Flippo, Chet, "Nashville Music Legend Chet Atkins Dead at 77,"Country.com, ysiwyg://10/http://www.country.com/news/feat/catkins.obit2.063001.jhtml (October 30, 2001).
Detroit News staff, "Chet Atkins, 77, dies of cancer," Detroit News, wysiwyg://47/http://detnews.com/2001/obituaries/0107/02/a02-242409.html (October 31, 2001).
Kar, Paromita, "Legendary guitarist Chet Atkins dies," britannicaindia, wysiwyg://27/http://www.britannicaindia.com (October 31, 2001).
Keillor, Garrison, "Eulogy to Chet at his funeral," Mister Guitar, wysiwyg://6/http://www.misterguitar.com/news/eulogy.html.
Orr, Jay, "Chet Atkins Remembered as 'A Great Giant,"' wysiwyg://8/http://www.halloffame.org/news/archibe/hof-chet-atkins-funeral-0701.html (October 31, 2001).
Patterson, Jim, "No rust on Atkins," http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicArtistsA/atkins-chet.html (October 31, 2001). □
Chet Atkins
Guitar, singer, songwriter
For the Record…
Selected discography
Sources
Chet Atkins may have first made his mark in country music, but his legacy has spread far, his style influencing jazz, blues, and rock guitarists. Atkins’ jazz-tinged country guitar once got him dismissed from the Grand Ole Opry, the premier showcase for country music. His style turned out to be so influential, though, that he became the youngest person ever inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He earned the honor in part because of his work as a producer, which some say kept country music from being overrun by rock and roll in the 1950s. More important, though, was his unique style of playing, which earned him the nickname “Mr. Guitar.”
Born June 20, 1924, near Luttrell, Tennessee, Chester Burton Atkins grew up in a poor rural area amid a variety of musical influences. The son of a classically-trained gospel singer, Atkins avidly listened to the sounds around him, as he explained to Billboard magazine, “[l]f anybody came through the area playing something I didn’t know, I’d steal it, take it over, and make it my own.” His first instrument was a ukulele, which he strung with
For the Record…
Born Chester Burton Atkins, June 20, 1924, near Lutrell, TN; son of James Arley (a music teacher, piano tuner, and evangelical singer), and Ida (maiden name, Sharp) Atkins; married Leona Pearl Johnson (a singer), July 3, 1946; children: one daughter, Merle.
Played fiddle in the street for small change as a child; during the 1940s played fiddle and/or guitar for various radio stations and radio shows, including “The Jumpin’ Bill Carlisle and Archie Campbell Show” and “Midday Merry-Go-Round” at WNOX, Knoxville, TN; member of staff band, WLW, Cincinnati, OH; performed on the Grand Ole Opry, 1946; signed with RCA, 1947; recorded hit single “Main Street Breakdown,” 1949; performed again on the Grand Ole Opry during the late 1940s and 1950s with the Carter Family and Homer and Jethro; served in multiple capacities for RCA Victor Records, 1949-82; signed with Columbia, 1982.
Awards: Elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, 1973; several Grammy Award winning recordings, including Me and Jerry, 1970, Chet Atkins Picks the Best, 1971, “Snowbird,” 1971, Chester and Lester, 1976, “Cosmic Square Dance,” 1985, Neck and Neck, 1990; named top guitarist several times by Cash Box Magazine; Humanitarian Award, 1972, from National Council of Christians and Jews; received Century Award, 1997, from Billboard magazine.
Addresseses: Record company —Columbia Records, 51 West 52nd St, New York, NY 10019.
wire from a screen door. He also learned to play the fiddle, and when he was nine, he traded a gun for a guitar. Besides learning classical music from his father and gospel from his neighbors, Atkins learned other styles from listening to the radio. He taught himself guitartrying to imitate what he heard, especially the finger picking style of Merle Travis. He didn’t realize that Travis played with just his thumb and one finger, so from reading his father’s classical music magazines, Atkins learned to play with his thumb and three fingers, which became his signature style.
Atkins started playing professionally on radio stations while still in high school. He dropped out of school and played at several radio stations throughout the country during the 1940s. Although there always seemed to be work for him, he would frequently get fired for mixing in jazz with his country. He earned a brief stint with the Grand Ole Opry in 1946, and also cut his first record that same year for Bullet records. Atkins didn’t stay put in Tennessee, though, and Steve Sholes of RCA records had to track him down in Denver, Colorado to sign him to a contract in 1947. He received some attention for such songs as “Canned Heat” and “Bug Dance” from his first sessions. In 1949, though, Atkins established an audience for his style with “Main Street Breakdown.”
Atkins’ stature as a solo artist continued to grow with the release of two albums in 1951. He continued playing as a session man, though, recording with country music legend Hank Williams, among others. Atkins’ effective suggestions in the studio earned him a position as producer. In that role he specialized in recordings that relied more on string arrangements than on fiddles and steel guitars, which brought country music to a new audience. Atkins also had a keen ear for talent, and he was the first to sign such future country stars as Waylon Jennings, Dolly Parton, and Willie Nelson to recording contracts. Speaking of his success as a producer to Noel Holston of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Atkins said, “It’s not that I’m so smart or anything, it’s that I’m a square.”
Atkins’ production work didn’t keep him from recording. His hit version of “Mr. Sandman” in 1955 displayed his gift for interpreting music written by others. He also began to draw on his varied musical background in his recordings, releasing albums such as the classically influenced Chet Atkins in Three Dimensions. Atkins’ musical tastes weren’t stuck in the past, though, as he kept up with the latest musical trends, some of which he inspired. When Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles was released in 1966, it came with an endorsement in the liner notes from one of his more famous fans, Beatles guitarist George Harrison. The music industry also recognized the quality of Atkins’ work throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He was repeatedly named the top guitarist of the year by Cash Box magazine and won several Grammy awards. Some of Atkins’ most highly praised recordings were collaborations with his guitar heroes. He recorded The Atkins-Travis Travelin’Show with Travis in 1974, and his 1976 effort with Les Paul, Chester and Lester, won a Grammy. Atkins explained the appeal of such duets to Kevin Ransom of Guitar Player. “Playing with other guitarists inspires me to play better than I normally would, because it’s kind of competitive.”
Although his legend was secure, the 1980s brought changes in Atkins’ place in the music industry. In 1982 he left RCA, where he was a vice-president, to sign with Columbia. Country music was changing, too, and Atkins’ songs were more likely to be heard on New Age radio than on country stations. As always, though, Atkins successfully ranged across the musical spectrum. Two collaborations with rock guitarist Mark Knopfler won Grammies: the 1985 track “Cosmic Square Dance” and the 1990 album Neck and Neck. Throughout the 1990s, Atkins continued to record with guitarists who had learned from listening to him. The albums Read My Licks and The Day Finger Pickers Took Over the World showcased Atkins playing with such diverse performers as Knopfler, jazz guitarist George Benson, country performer Steve Wariner, and young Australian guitar phenomenon Tommy Emmanuel.
Surgery for a benign brain tumor and a stroke in 1997 slowed Atkins, but he remained active. He told Jim Patterson of the Associated Press, “I can play with feeling. But technically, I can’t hook it like I used to.” Still, he practiced daily and kept busy in the studio, putting together the 1998 album Tribute to Tradition, a collection of classic country songs performed by contemporary artists. He even played on one of the tracks, a version of “O Lonesome Me,” which was a number-one hit when he produced itfor Don Gibson in 1959. Another of Atkins’ projects was been the annual Chet Atkins’ Musician Days, a week of concerts and seminars for musicians. With all his attention to younger performers, Atkins showed that his legacy existed not only in the body of work that he has produced, but also in the knowledge and encouragement that he passed down to new generations.
Selected discography
Chet Atkins Plays Guitar, RCA, 1951.
Chet Atkins in Three Dimensions, RCA, 1951.
Hi-Fi in Focus, RCA, 1957.
At Home, RCA, 1958.
In Hollywood, RCA, 1959.
Mister Guitar, RCA, 1960.
Workshop, RCA, 1961.
Down Home, RCA, 1962.
Our Man in Nashville, RCA, 1963.
Guitar Country, RCA, 1964.
Progressive Pickin’, RCA, 1964.
My Favorite Guitars, RCA, 1965.
Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles, RCA, 1966.
From Nashville, RCA, 1966.
Guitar World, RCA, 1967.
(With Jerry Reed) Me and Jerry, RCA, 1970.
This is Chet Atkins, RCA, 1970.
For the Good Times, RCA, 1971.
Welcome to My World, RCA, 1971.
Pickin’ My Way, RCA, 1971.
Now & Then, RCA, 1972.
Chet Atkins Picks on the Hits, RCA, 1972.
(With Merle Travis) The Atkins-Travis Travelin’ Show, RCA, 1974.
Atkins String Band, RCA, 1975.
(With Les Paul) Chester and Lester, RCA, 1976.
Stay Tuned, Columbia, 1985.
Chet Atkins, C.G.P., Columbia, 1989.
(With Mark Knopfler) Neck and Neck, Columbia, 1990.
(With Jerry Reed) Sneakin’ Around, Columbia, 1992.
Read My Licks, Columbia, 1994.
The Day Finger Pickers Took Over the World, Columbia, 1997.
Sources
Books
Contemporary Musicians, vol. 5, Gale Research, Inc., 1991.
Periodicals
Billboard, December 6, 1997.
Chicago Sun-Times, October 6, 1998, p. 33.
Florida Times Union (Jacksonville), July 12, 1998, p. E3.
Guitar Player, October, 1994.
Star Tribune (Minneapolis), May 22, 1998, p. 3E.
—Lloyd Hemingway
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Welcome back to Instagram. Sign in to check out what your friends, family & interests have been capturing & sharing around the world.
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New Georgia Encyclopedia ·
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One of the finest guitar players of his generation, Chet Atkins helped to originate the Nashville Sound and played a vital role in turning Nashville, Tennessee, into the home of country music. In addition to his own performing, Atkins discovered and produced some of country musics greatest artists.
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One of the finest guitar players of his generation, Chet Atkins helped to originate the âNashville Soundâ and played a vital role in turning Nashville, Tennessee, into the home of country music. In addition to his own performing, Atkins discovered and produced some of country musicâs greatest artists.
Early Career
Chester Burton Atkins was born on June 20, 1924, near Luttrell, Tennessee. Many members of his family played musical instruments, and his father made a living by teaching piano and singing with touring evangelists. Atkinsâs parents separated when he was six; they later divorced, and his father moved to Georgia. For the next several years Atkinsâs older brother, James, a working jazz guitarist who at one time played with guitar pioneer Les Paul, served as his younger brotherâs musical inspiration. The young Atkins quickly became a proficient guitarist and fiddler, and often played at local square dances. In 1936 he went to live with his father in Harris County, Georgia, in the hopes that the drier climate would ease his asthma. As he continued to improve his guitar and fiddle playing, Atkins learned to read music from his father.
Determined to become a famous musician, Atkins began his career at age eighteen, when he landed a job with the Knoxville, Tennessee, radio station WNOX as a staff musician. Over the next several years he worked with the country music acts Homer and Jethro and the Carter Family. A few of his instrumental tunes received some airplay during this time, namely âGalloping on the Guitar,â and âMain Street Breakdown,â both from 1949, but they did not become popular enough to allow Atkins to embark on a solo career, which was his real ambition. During the late 1940s Atkins balanced the demands of an itinerant musical career with a family. He married singer Leona Johnson in 1946, and the couple had a daughter, Merle, in 1947. In 1950 the Grand Ole Opry offered the Carter Family a spot on its roster of musical acts, and Atkins settled down, making Nashville his permanent home.
Nashville Years
Prior to World War II (1941-45) the Opry dominated Nashvilleâs musical landscape, but in the late 1940s New Yorkâbased record companies, taking advantage of the growing number of country musicians who called the âMusic Cityâ home, began to establish divisions in Nashville. Atkins found steady work as a studio musician, playing on tracks by such legendary country artists as Hank Williams, the Louvin Brothers, Faron Young, and Webb Pierce. He developed a close relationship with RCA executive Steve Sholes, who quickly came to rely on Atkinsâs skills as both a musician and a session leader. By 1953 Atkins was producing recording sessions on his own.
RCA established its first Nashville recording studio in 1954 and put Atkins in charge of its daily operations. In 1956 he played on Elvis Presleyâs hugely successful RCA debut âHeartbreak Hotel,â which secured Atkinsâs place within the company. Atkins became manager of operations at RCA in 1957 and soon convinced the company to build the legendary RCA Studio B, the first permanent record company office in Nashville.
It was in Studio B that Atkins helped create what became known as âthe Nashville Sound.â Responding to changing musical tastes and the dominance of rock and roll in the youth market, Nashville artists began recording a more sophisticated country music aimed at older listeners, who usually favored such mainstream crooners as Frank Sinatra and Perry Como. Relying on a small group of musicians called the âA Team,â Atkins would often downplay or remove traditional country instruments from recording sessions, replacing them with strings and woodwinds. Although other Nashville producers were beginning to do the same thing, Atkins is credited with creating the first Nashville Sound recording, Don Gibsonâs 1958 hit, âOh Lonesome Me.â
Solo Career
The Nashville Sound proved hugely popular, and during the 1960s Atkins kept busy producing sessions for popular artists and signing new acts, including Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Dolly Parton. During this time he also embarked on a solo career, which slowly became his main pursuit after he began to remove himself from the business side of operations during the 1970s. Studio B closed in 1977, and Atkins spent the 1980s and 1990s making solo albums for Columbia Records. He died from cancer on June 30, 2001, at his home in Nashville.
During his lifetime Atkins received numerous awards and accolades. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1973 and received nine Country Music Association awards for Musician of the Year over the course of his career. He also won more than a dozen Grammy awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1993. In 1995 Atkins was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
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Marcel Dadi
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[
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"Contributors to Wikimedia projects"
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2004-06-12T03:08:17+00:00
|
en
|
/static/apple-touch/wikipedia.png
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Dadi
|
French guitarist
Marcel Dadi (French pronunciation: [maʁsɛl dadi]; 20 August 1951 – 17 July 1996) was a Tunisian-born French virtuoso guitarist known for his finger-picking style which faithfully recreated the instrumental styles of American guitarists such as Chet Atkins, Merle Travis and Jerry Reed. He became a friend of country star Chet Atkins.
Marcel Dadi was born in Sousse, Tunisia on 20 August 1951. Dadi, along with his immediate family, moved to Paris, France in 1954. In 1961, he started playing guitar at age 10. He had joined Andre Assouline, Joseph Illouz, and Maurice Levy to form a rock instrumental band by 1964. He was inspired by the music of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, He continued to expand his musical horizons with the influence of a guitarist, Bernard Photzer, who introduced him to the music of Elvis Presley and other 1950's rockers. Photzer also taught him the rudiments of flatpicking. As a soloist with French singer-songwriter and guitarist, Hugues Aufray, Dadi began to develop his own approach to flatpicking. From 1972, he wrote instructional articles for Folk Music Review, wherein he introduced his rigorous training method, which utilizes a fingering chart, in the March 1972 issue.
Dadi released several LPs and some instructional videos before his early death. His recordings featured a mix of compositions by his American heroes and original compositions of his own in a similar style. A feature of his early LPs was that they included a tablature booklet, allowing guitarists to learn the tunes for themselves. Dadi often recorded tunes dedicated to his friends, such as "Roger Chesterfield," dedicated to Roger C. Field with whom he first went to Nashville in 1975 to visit Chet Atkins.
Marcel Dadi immigrated to Eilat (Israel) on the Red Sea, in 1983, and lived there with his wife and young son for several years before moving back to France. In 1988, Eric Clapton, his longtime family friend, came to Eilat to visit Marcel Dadi.
On 17 July 1996, en route from New York City to Paris with his band and his long time friend Serge Sloimovits, Marcel Dadi died when the Boeing 747-131 operating TWA Flight 800 exploded off the coast of Long Island.[1] He was returning from the United States to France after being honored at Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame.
Marcel Dadi's body was recovered, as were those of all of the other victims. He is buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, Israel.
Marcel Dadi was honoured as one of the five "Certified Guitar Players" by Chet Atkins.[2]
|
||||||
wrong_mix_range_death_00074
|
FactBench
|
3
| 4
|
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Profile-Records-Run-This-Way-1688476
|
en
|
Profile Records: “Run This Way” | Hip-Hop, Rap, Music
|
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2001-01-12T00:00:00+00:00
|
Hip-hop was scorned by the established music industry as a novelty idiom until 1986, when Run-D.M.C. enrolled Aerosmith’s vocalist, Steven Tyler, and guitarist, Joe Perry, to take part in a revival of the hard rockers’ hit “Walk This Way” from 10 years earlier. Released on the Profile label, the
|
en
|
/favicon.png
|
Encyclopedia Britannica
|
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Profile-Records-Run-This-Way-1688476
|
Hip-hop was scorned by the established music industry as a novelty idiom until 1986, when Run-D.M.C. enrolled Aerosmith’s vocalist, Steven Tyler, and guitarist, Joe Perry, to take part in a revival of the hard rockers’ hit “Walk This Way” from 10 years earlier. Released on the Profile label, the resultant record was accepted by many radio formats and became the first rap hit to make the Top Five on the pop chart. Its video was an MTV staple, and Run-D.M.C. became a major live attraction. Multimillion album sales enabled Profile’s owner, Cory Robbins, to pay back the loan to his family that had funded the label’s beginnings and to move into bigger offices (on Broadway in New York City’s East Village neighbourhood). Although the label never found another act of stature comparable to Run-D.M.C.’s, its vital role had been to establish the commercial potential for rap, which other labels then exploited to better effect, notably Def Jam, whose cofounder Russell Simmons was a brother of Run-D.M.C.’s Joseph Simmons.
|
||||
wrong_mix_range_death_00074
|
FactBench
|
2
| 93
|
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/country-music/charlie-mccoy-biography
|
en
|
Charlie McCoy Biography
|
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2019-09-11T08:55:00-04:00
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Charlie McCoy is a Nashville studio legend. Known primarily for his harmonica playing, he is also skilled on the guitar, bass, drums, and more.
|
en
|
Country Music | Ken Burns | PBS
|
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/country-music/charlie-mccoy-biography
|
Charlie McCoy is a Nashville studio legend. Known primarily for his harmonica playing, he is also skilled on the guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, vibes, and any number of brass and wind instruments, and has worked with countless legends – Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Simon and Garfunkel, Roy Orbison, Dolly Parton, and others – throughout his six decades in Music City.
Born in small-town West Virginia, Charlie spent his formative years in Miami, Florida. He began playing the harmonica at age eight and by 16 had added mastery of the guitar, bass, and trumpet. He formed a rock & roll band – Charlie McCoy and the Agendas – and was soon gigging around the Miami area. At the urging of fellow Floridian Mel Tillis, he came to Nashville in 1959, right after graduation. Tillis’s office set up auditions for McCoy with Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley. Neither signed him to a label. “It was like, ‘Well, son, I think you’re pretty good,’” Charlie recalls, “‘but we’re just not doing that kind of music here.’”
But then Owen said to me, “I’m having a session this afternoon, would you like to come and watch?” So I went back to his studio and he said, “If you’ll sit about halfway up this stairway, you’ll get a real idea of what we’re doing here.” Pretty soon, musicians start coming in. I’m thinking, “Who are these old guys?” And then the artist came in, a thirteen-year old kid named Brenda Lee. And the other thing that struck me was there’s no music. Where the music? There’s not even music stands. But when I heard the first playback, my whole life changed because, at that moment, that’s the greatest thing I ever heard. And I said, “I don’t want to be a singer. I want to do this. This is so cool.” I mean I was spellbound. So, that was my goal then. I wanted to be a studio musician.
After less than a year back in Miami, during which McCoy couldn’t get that experience out of his mind, he returned to Nashville. His first job there was as a drummer – an instrument McCoy taught himself after landing that first gig. In 1961, he was hired by Fred Foster to play harmonica on Roy Orbison’s “Candy Man.” When the song became a million-seller, McCoy’s reputation on the harp was made. He was soon playing the harmonica in sessions for Perry Como, Ringo Starr, Joan Baez, Kris Kristofferson, and many others. At the peak of his career, he played 400 sessions per year, including New York and Nashville sessions for Bob Dylan: guitar on classics “Desolation Row” (Highway 61 Revisited, 1965) and “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” (Blonde on Blonde, 1966) and bass guitar on all tracks of John Wesley Harding (1967).
Although McCoy’s own music did not fare well in the beginning, Foster believed in him and, in 1972, released “Today I Started Loving You Again” as a single. It went to No. 16 on the country charts and sold 750,000 copies. McCoy’s subsequent albums The Real McCoy and Good Time Charlie won a GRAMMY and reached No. 1 on the Billboard country charts, respectively. For nearly 20 years, he served as the musical director for the hit television series, Hee Haw.
Charlie McCoy was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2009. His autobiography, Fifty Cents and a Boxtop, was published by West Virginia University Press in 2017.
Born: March 28, 1941, Oak Hill, West Virginia
|
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wrong_mix_range_death_00074
|
FactBench
|
2
| 1
|
https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/hall-of-fame/chet-atkins
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en
|
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
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2022-11-17T17:05:04+00:00
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en
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/images/favicon.ico
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Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
|
https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/hall-of-fame/chet-atkins
|
No other country instrumentalist has achieved the same renown and respect as Chet Atkins. His immense influence on country, rock, and jazz musicians has lasted more than half a century, and many of the hit records he produced during his days at RCA are now classics.
Radio’s Immense Influence
Chester Burton Atkins grew up in the hills near the tiny, remote East Tennessee town of Luttrell. His father, James Atkins, was an itinerant music teacher who had previously been married, and his mother, Ida Atkins, sang and played piano. After the Atkinses divorced, Ida remarried, in 1932, and Chester began to learn guitar and fiddle, often playing with his brother and sister and their stepfather, Willie Strevel.
A 1936 asthma attack forced Atkins to relocate to the improved climate at his father’s Georgia farm, where one night in the late 1930s he first heard Merle Travis playing guitar on WLW in Cincinnati. Travis’s thumb-and-finger picking style fascinated Atkins, who created his own thumb-and-two-finger variation.
After attending high school in Georgia, Atkins landed a job at WNOX in Knoxville, fiddling for the team of singer Bill Carlisle and comic Archie Campbell. WNOX executive Lowell Blanchard heard Atkins’s guitar playing and began featuring him on the station’s popular weekday multi-artist country show, Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round, and Atkins broadened his repertoire though listening sessions in the station’s music library. He briefly joined WLW in Cincinnati in 1945, then worked with Johnnie & Jack in Raleigh, North Carolina, in early 1946, before moving to Chicago, where Red Foley, having left the WLS National Barn Dance to host the Grand Ole Opry’s NBC segment, The Prince Albert Show, hired Atkins and took him to Nashville. There, Atkins made his first solo recording, “Guitar Blues,” for the local record label Bullet.
Moving on to KWTO in Springfield, Missouri, Atkins received his nickname, “Chet,” from station official Si Siman. Other officials there felt Atkins’s style was too polished for “hillbilly” music and eventually fired him, but meanwhile, Siman tried to get record companies interested in Atkins.
Making the “A-Team”
RCA Victor’s Steve Sholes signed Atkins as a singer and guitarist in 1947. As record labels stockpiled recordings in anticipation of a Musician’s Union strike, Atkins impressed Sholes with his studio skills as a player who could lead other musicians in creating commercial arrangements.
Around 1948, Atkins returned to WNOX, working first with Homer & Jethro, then joining Maybelle and the Carter Sisters as lead guitarist. They subsequently worked at KWTO before relocating to Nashville to join the Grand Ole Opry in 1950. Atkins also appeared on the Opry as a solo act.
Back in Nashville, with help from music publisher and MGM Records producer Fred Rose, Atkins became one of Nashville’s early “A-Team” of session musicians, recording with everyone from Wade Ray to Hank Williams to Webb Pierce. His first chart hit, a cover of the pop hit “Mister Sandman,” came in 1955, followed by a hit guitar duet with Hank Snow, “Silver Bell.”
Success at RCA
Atkins’s relationship with RCA Victor’s Sholes evolved throughout the 1950s into that of trusted protégé. Initially, Atkins organized sessions, and if Sholes, who was based in New York, couldn’t come to Nashville, Atkins produced the records himself, but in 1955, Sholes put Atkins in charge of RCA’s Nashville studios, first at a facility shared with the Methodist Radio, Television, and Film Commission and later at an RCA-controlled studio that would become known as RCA Studio B. Atkins eventually worked his way up to the role of RCA vice president, responsible for Nashville operations.
Only after rock & roll set back country record sales did Atkins’s production skills come into their own. Intent on increasing sales by making country records appeal to pop and country audiences, he—along with Owen Bradley at Decca, Don Law at Columbia, and Ken Nelson at Capitol—began to produce singers backed by neutral rhythm sections and replace steel guitars and fiddles with vocal choruses, a style immortalized as the Nashville Sound. Atkins transformed hard-country RCA artists Jim Reeves and Don Gibson by producing hits for both that crossed over into the pop market. Among the many acts he produced successfully were Eddy Arnold, Skeeter Davis, Bobby Bare, and Floyd Cramer.
In 1965, Atkins took a major step forward by signing Charley Pride, who was Black, to RCA. That same year, Atkins enjoyed his own biggest hit single with “Yakety Axe,” an adaptation of Nashville studio musician Boots Randolph’s hit “Yakety Sax.”
Atkins produced a constant stream of solo RCA albums during these years as well. As he hired additional producers at RCA, he cut back his own production work to focus on recording and made albums with other fine guitarists: Hank Snow, Jerry Reed, Merle Travis, and Les Paul. Atkins relinquished his RCA executive role in 1982 and left RCA to record for Columbia the following year. Frequent collaborations with younger players, such as British rock guitarist Mark Knopfler, reflected Atkins’s desire to remain contemporary.
From 1967 to 1988, Atkins won the Country Music Association’s Instrumentalist of the Year honor eleven times. In 1993, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, placing him among such musical greats as Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, Leonard Bernstein, and Paul McCartney, and in 1997, he won his fifteenth Grammy, for his 1996 recording of “Jam Man.”
Atkins was also diagnosed with brain cancer in 1997. He died of the disease in 2001.
— Rich Kienzle
Adapted from the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum’s Encyclopedia of Country Music, published by Oxford University Press
|
|||||
wrong_mix_range_death_00074
|
FactBench
|
3
| 10
|
https://researchbuzz.me/2023/02/20/reconsidering-web-search-with-contextual-boundaries-authority-interest-and-overlapping-part-iii-popularity-interest/
|
en
|
Reconsidering Web Search With Contextual Boundaries, Authority, Interest, and Overlapping (Part III: Popularity/Interest)
|
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2023-02-20T00:00:00
|
In Part I of this series, I talked about using metadata to define contextual boundaries in Web search. That approach took data germane to the subject (like birth date and location) and used it to define Web spaces for searching. In Part II, I looked at using authoritative structures/references to build Web spaces and do…
|
en
|
ResearchBuzz
|
https://researchbuzz.me/2023/02/20/reconsidering-web-search-with-contextual-boundaries-authority-interest-and-overlapping-part-iii-popularity-interest/
|
In Part I of this series, I talked about using metadata to define contextual boundaries in Web search. That approach took data germane to the subject (like birth date and location) and used it to define Web spaces for searching.
In Part II, I looked at using authoritative structures/references to build Web spaces and do Web search. That approach uses authoritative spaces (like restricted top-level domains) and authoritative expertise (like the US Department of Education) to create Web spaces that are useful and as low on misinformation/disinformation as possible.
In Part III, we’re going to look at a less formal method for focusing and enhancing your searches: popularity and interest. And please, before you run away screaming at the word popularity, give me a few paragraphs. Popularity can be useful in Web search!
What Popularity Isn’t
If you think about popularity you might think about the cool kids in high school, or the movies and TV shows you hear about in the media even though you have no interest in them personally.
When I first started thinking about popularity, cultural popularity was the kind I thought of – the national-level advertising and marketing and media Brownian motion that fills up style sections and YouTube channels. Could be great for searching current events and cultural topics, but for regular Web search? Not so much.
But when I stopped taking such a wide view and started looking at popularity on a more topical basis, I realized I wasn’t seeing it as holistically as I should. National-level popularity is an amalgam of media attention and marketing budgets. Topic-level popularity has some elements of national popularity, but it’s got additional elements as well.
What Popularity Is
Imagine you’re an American who doesn’t know much about music. If I asked you “who’s a good rock guitarist?,” you might say Jimi Hendrix or Eddie Van Halen because they are very popular and well-known in our culture. If I asked you “Who’s a good country guitarist?” you might come up blank, or, depending on where you live, you might mention Buck Owens or Chet Atkins. And if I asked you “Who’s a good flamenco guitarist?” you might wonder what my problem is.
Popularity at a national/cultural level feels pervasive enough that you might think it encompasses all things and that all popularity is noise. But of course it isn’t; as soon as you pull back to a more localized- or topic- based perspective, you realize the richness of the things around us.
Popularity is the Sustained Interest of a Knowledgeable Group
A thing is popular because at least one group of people took a sustained interest in it and gave it their attention. Sometimes that group is a marketing group, sometimes that group is an expert group, and sometimes that group is a fandom. Sometimes it’s all of the above!
(And please note that a thing’s popularity has nothing to do with its inherent goodness or value. It’s just popularity. Something isn’t better because it’s popular or worse because it’s unknown.)
A marketing group’s motive for popularity is not something useful to Web search, so let’s skip that kind. Instead, let’s look at expert groups and fandom groups. When they make something popular by giving it attention, what do they have concerning that topic that you do not? Expertise and experience.
Expertise
If an expert group recommends something within its realm of expertise, it’s because they have knowledge of it and in their assessment it’s something worth paying attention to. (If instead they’re recommending something because they’re paid to, we’re back to the attention of a marketing group.)
Consumer Reports is a good example of this. CR has an excellent reputation for testing products and providing recommendations without editorial bias. That’s valuable because you know their recommendations are based on knowledge, not hearsay, and provided without bias.
Hobbyists can be a useful mix of expert and fan, and there are hobbyist groups for everything. There are people who bond over extreme ironing. I bet they know a lot about ironing boards and outdoor sports that I don’t. Some people collect airsickness bags. I bet they’ve forgotten the names of more airlines than I ever knew. And, of course, if you ask a guitarist who their favorite guitarists are, you’ll probably hear names you never heard before.
Experience
You can learn a lot about something just by paying attention for a long time. If you do it for long enough, you can start developing an understanding of the thing and how it works in relation to other topics.
Sports fans, you already know about this. If you’ve ever expressed the opinion online that the Sippergulch So-and-Sos had a great lineup in 2012, you know you run the risk of someone pushing back with an essay about how the Sippergulch So-and-Sos of 1986 were clearly the superior team, with extensive comments about front office politics and tons of supporting evidence. It’s not a formal aggregation of knowledge but it does inform expertise! And again, it’s knowledge you don’t have if you’re not part of a group interested in the topic.
Well, all this sounds great, doesn’t it? Find out what enthusiasts are interested in and use that to make a better Web search. But how do you know what those people are looking at and looking up? You’d have to have some kind of large reference resource that covered every conceivable topic, divided them into categories, and encouraged people worldwide to contribute their own knowledge. And on top of that, this resource would have to make its pageview counts public so you could assess the popularity of each page.
Oh wait, we do have that: it’s called Wikipedia!
Wikipedia’s Secret Weapon: Pageviews
Wikimedia has a Pageviews API which allows you to get page view information for Wikipedia and other projects. It’s not extensive – the archives go back only to late 2015. But it can still be really useful.
There are some cool tools that let you graph and compare page count views across Wikipedia pages using the Pageviews API, but I’m using that page popularity information a little differently. Instead of comparing pages to each other one at a time, I made a Search Gizmo to find the most popular pages within categories, and another one to use popular pages in Wikipedia categories to make better Google searches.
Let’s look at how using popularity can make your searches easier.
Using Popularity for Topical Search: Category Cheat Sheet
Let’s go back to pretending that you’re an American with little music knowledge. But after you listened to my weird questions about guitarists and flamenco guitar, you find yourself interested in flamenco and you want to listen to music and learn about flamenco guitarists.. After some Web surfing you find yourself at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Spanish_flamenco_guitarists . It looks like this:
There are over 50 guitarists on this page. They’re listed in alphabetical order. How do you decide where to start? Do you click at random? Do you grimly start reviewing the pages in order? Or do you wish you knew someone who was into flamenco music so you could ask about Spanish guitar players?
You might not know any Spanish flamenco enthusiasts, but Wikipedia does, in a roundabout way; you can use the pageviews API to find out which of the people in this category get the most interest. Sorting the pages in a category by that interest gives you a more meaningful list and a place to start.
Category Cheat Sheet, at https://searchgizmos.com/ccs/ , will reorganize the pages in a Wikipedia category by popularity and give you brief summaries of the top 20 pages. Here’s how the Spanish flamenco guitarists category looks with it:
In addition to getting a brief description of the page topic/person and a link to the full article, you also get a count of the most recent month’s page views. That lets you tell at a glance if most of the musicians are equally popular or if the category has any superstars.
In this case Paco de Lucía is clearly the leader in the category in terms of popularity, with a pageview count almost ten times that of Pepe Romero. You might decide to start a search with his name and the terms Spanish flamenco guitar, or maybe you’ll review his full Wikipedia article and look for search terms that you can add to a Google search.
In either case you are now more informed. You know who the larger names are in this space. You know who’s probably going to have more news and multimedia resources. You even, thanks to the summaries, have an idea of which figures in a category are contemporary or historical.
Category Cheat Sheet works well for topics in addition to people. Say you’re interested in renewable energy. You know about solar and wind power, and maybe you’ve heard about hydropower. But you don’t know much beyond that. Plugging in Category:Renewable_energy shows you a list of technologies, companies, and even places relevant to renewable energy.
I call this kind of exploration surface-scratching; by sorting Wikipedia pages by popularity I can get beyond popular culture and its misconceptions and get a broader idea of what’s happening in a topic. Once I do that, and I know a little more, I can build better searches.
You can also use the popularity of Wikipedia pages to build topical searches on Google. That’s what Clumpy Bounce is all about.
Using Popularity to Inform General Web Search: Clumpy Bounce Topic Search
Clumpy Bounce, at https://searchgizmos.com/clumpy/ , lets you clump up to three Wikipedia pages into a query and then bounce them into a Google search. First you start by finding categories covering your topic of interest:
Then you choose up to three of the most popular pages in that category:
And finally, you click the button and get a Google search for those three topics (along with a little query-tinkering to eliminate as much Wikipedia-based content as possible.)
The thing I really love about Clumpy Bounce is you can quickly try lots of different searches around a single topic. Changing just one element in your Google search leads to very different results.
Clumpy Bounce is basically just a big surface-scratcher. It lets you expand your topical searches with keywords you may not immediately know but can understand in terms of popularity. And having all those keywords available allows you to attack your search in several different ways, as you can see from the results above. You get a lot of directions to choose from.
Earlier in the article I defined popularity as “the sustained interest of a knowledgeable group.” But what about when people are popular because they’re on the news, or they had a hit record, or they went viral on TikTok? That’s unsustained interest which sometimes turns into sustained interest but often doesn’t.
But even that kind of interest is useful too, because it helps you find times when something might be particularly newsworthy, even when it’s normally ubiquitous. Let’s talk about Gossip Machine.
Using Temporary Popularity to Gauge Historical Interest: Gossip Machine
You’re chatting with someone at work. They mention a news topic you haven’t heard about. Later you Google it and find that the first result is a Wikipedia page, so you click on that and enlighten yourself. Or you hear on the news that someone has died. Did you see them in that one sitcom, or was it a game show? You Google it, get Wikipedia as the first result, and click on it to refresh your memory.
Now multiply that same behavior by millions of people a day and you can immediately see how Wikipedia’s Pageviews API is a huge goldmine for what I like calling fossilized attention – discrete points in the life of a Wikipedia topic when it is particularly searchable for whatever reason. And since the reason for sudden popularity is often some kind of news consumption, why not reverse-engineer this fossilized attention and turn it into a date-focused Google News search?
That’s what Gossip Machine ( https://searchgizmos.com/gossip-machine/ ) does! It tallies Wikipedia article views over the course of a year and creates date-based Google News searches for those days which have an unusually high number of views. It works spectacularly well for people who are/were in the news constantly, helping filter out meaningful news from mentions.
Take for example Tucker Carlson. He has a news show that’s on every night so has a lot of media mentions and attention to start with. But you can filter that with Gossip Machine. You can do a keyword search for his name, select the year (Gossip Machine goes back to 2016), and choose how high the spike in page views should be before it’s noted.
Gossip Machine will present you with a list of Google News and Google Web searches, one for each date that Gossip Machine finds.
Click on a search link and it’ll open in a new tab. It’s not a perfect search and gets wonky when average page views are low, but for pages with at least 7000 views a month it can bring some very targeted news results.
And just like the Category Cheat Sheet, it works for topical searches too. A good example search is psilocybin, which has gotten a surge of news coverage in the last year.
There are only a few results but they’re great searches:
Temporary and Ongoing Popularity Are Both Powerful Search Tools
You’re not making a value judgment when you search for the most popular elements in a Wikipedia category, you’re using the interest and expertise of others to guide your Web search to what are hopefully information-rich resources. No doubt as your expertise and understanding of a topic deepens, you will find your own favorites off the beaten path!
I’ve covered a lot of philosophical ground in these first three parts of this series, but I want to do one more article looking at how you can use the ideas covered in the first three parts in conjunction with each other. Stay tuned.
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wrong_mix_range_death_00074
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https://www.tiktok.com/%40dimestoreradio/video/7382563095194930474
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Make Your Day
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FactBench
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https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/chet-atkins-dies-243017/
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en
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Chet Atkins Dies
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2001-07-02T04:00:00+00:00
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Master guitarist was one of Nashville Sound creators
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en
|
Rolling Stone
|
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/chet-atkins-dies-243017/
|
Chet Atkins, known as Mr. Guitar, died on Saturday morning (June 30th) at his home in Nashville at age seventy-seven, after battling cancer for several years. Like Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Willie, Waylon and the boys, Atkins altered the physical characteristics of country music, creating one of its most definable eras. One of the finest guitarists of the past 100 years and a producer with a distinctive vision, Atkins, for better or worse, fused country and pop together in a manner which spread the former into the reaches of America it had previously been unable to break.
Born Chester Burton Atkins on June 20, 1924 in Luttrell, a small town in East Tennessee, Atkins was raised in a musical family and was initially directed towards the fiddle. But upon hearing guitar genius Merle Travis, Atkins gave up the fiddle for the six-string, trying to learn Travis’ inimitable finger-picking style, and ultimately developing his own three-finger style.
He found sporadic work, both on guitar and fiddle through the mid-Forties, before landing a gig with Red Foley, who gave him his first chance to play the Grand Ole Opry, where he would later become a mainstay. By 1946, Atkins made his first recordings (for Bullet Records) and a year later he signed a contract with RCA. By the early Fifties, he was one of the most prolific session men in Nashville, playing with Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, Faron Young, the Louvin Brothers, Webb Pierce, Kitty Wells and numerous others.
Atkins also began to oversee album production in Music City, and became a studio manager for RCA in 1957. As country music began to display a broader national sales muscle, Atkins became a primary catalyst in the creation of the Nashville Sound, excising some of the genre’s rural attributes and adding strings and background vocal ensembles. The result was a fork in the road for country music listeners; purists found the lush, pop sensibility tainted, but the genre found more stars for a bigger, broader audience.
Trending
Editor’s picks
His relationship with RCA ran through the Seventies and included work with a number of artists who helped define mainstream country through those years, including Don Gibson and Charlie Pride. Atkins’ production work was so influential that it provided the basic sketch the sounds developed by other producers, most notably Billy Sherrill, who recorded George Jones and Tammy Wynette during the height of their popularity. Atkins jumped ship in the early Eighties when RCA balked at his desire to record a jazz-tinged album. Subsequently Work It Out With Chet Atkins was released in 1983 on Columbia. Atkins also recorded vibrant collaborations with Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler (1990’s Neck and Neck) and former disciple Jerry Reed (1991’s Sneakin’ Around). His last release was The Day the Finger Pickers Took Over the World, an inspired collaboration with Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel in 1997, one year before he took a leave from live performing due to his illness.
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https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ray-Stevens
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Ray Stevens | Biography, Hits, Awards, & Facts
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Ray Stevens is an American country and pop singer-songwriter and comedian known for his humorous topical country tunes featuring unusual sound effects.
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Encyclopedia Britannica
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https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ray-Stevens
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Ray Stevens
American singer and songwriter
Ray Stevens (born January 24, 1939, Clarkdale, Georgia, U.S.) is an American country and pop singer-songwriter and comedian known for his humorous topical country tunes often featuring unusual sound effects. His comedic nature was notably captured in his novelty songs “Gitarzan” (1969), a humorous spin on the adventures of the fictional jungle hero Tarzan, and “The Streak” (1974), which capitalized on the fad of running naked in public and reached number one on music charts in the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. Stevens also gained fame with his more sincere pop sing-along–style ballad “Everything Is Beautiful” (1970), which was noted for its emphasis on diversity and for which Stevens won a Grammy Award in 1971 for best contemporary performance by a male vocalist.
Early life
Stevens learned to play the piano at an early age and in his youth listened to a wide range of music. When he was 15, he formed a band known as the Barons, serving as both singer and pianist. The group played at local venues around Albany, Georgia. Two years later he moved to Atlanta, where he recorded a demo of the single, “Silver Bracelet”; in 1957 he traveled to Nashville to record the track at the RCA “B” studio. While there, Stevens met American country-and-western guitarist and record company executive Chet Atkins, and the two became long-lasting friends. The following year Stevens recorded additional tracks for Capitol Records. He also attended Georgia State University, where he initially studied classical piano and music theory before deciding to become a vocalist.
Number 1 hits
Britannica Quiz
Pop Culture Quiz
After limited success singing love songs, Stevens turned to writing and performing comedy tunes. In 1961 his novelty song “Jeremiah Peabody’s Poly Unsaturated Quick Dissolving Fast Acting Pleasant Tasting Green and Purple Pills” peaked at number 35 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. This success was followed by the release of “Ahab the Arab” (1962), a comedic hit that reached number 5 on the Hot 100. Both singles appeared on Stevens’ debut album, 1,837 Seconds of Humor (1962).
In the 1960s, Stevens gained experience as a music producer and wrote songs for country singers such as Dolly Parton and Skeeter Davis, while also continuing to write his own music. His next big breakthrough was “Gitarzan” (1969), released on an album of the same name; the song climbed to number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100. At times during the 1970s, Stevens turned his attention to other types of music. In 1970, while hosting for NBC’s Andy Williams Show, he wrote his first number 1 hit pop song “Everything Is Beautiful,” a sentimental work that reflected his expansion into different musical styles. He subsequently recorded the country music album Turn Your Radio On (1972) and in 1974 released “The Streak”—his second song to reach number 1 on the pop music charts. He later made an acclaimed bluegrass rendition of “Misty” (1975), a work originally written in 1954 by American jazz pianist Erroll Garner. Stevens won the 1976 Grammy Award for best arrangement accompanying vocalist for “Misty.”
Later career
Stevens continued his career as a timely parodist in the 1980s, notably with “Would Jesus Wear a Rolex on His Television Show?” (1987), written by Atkins and vocalist Margaret Archer and released during the era of scandals surrounding television evangelists. The popularity of cable television’s Nashville Network and syndicated country-music shows provided the opportunity for Stevens to create humorous visual productions to complement his tunes. He continued to record through the 1990s and into the 2020s, releasing multiple albums, among them Osama-Yo’ Mama: The Album (2002), in response to the September 11 attacks; Ray Stevens Sings Sinatra…Say What?? (2008); We the People (2010); and Ain’t Nothin’ Funny Anymore (2021).
The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.
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http://www.rickfosterguitar.com/chetmem.html
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My recollections of Chet Atkins by Rick Foster
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My recollections of Chet Atkins began with his Back Home Hymns album and continued throuout our friendship centered on the guitar
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Memories of Chet Atkins
by Rick Foster
My recollections of Chet Atkins begin in 1962 with the hearing of his album, Chet Atkins Plays Back Home Hymns. To this day I remember wondering how anything that beautiful could come from a guitar. I was playing electric guitar in a high school rock band at the time, but after hearing Chet I decided to trade my flat pick for a thumb pick and learn to play fingerstyle guitar. That first LP was the beginning of a Chet Atkins record collection that reached well over 100 albums and became my tutor, teaching me most of what I know about arranging for and playing the guitar. Chet's tone, like that of Andres Segovia, was magical.
During the early 70's I was playing dinner music at Dante's Down the Hatch (a restaurant designed like a ship in Underground Atlanta) and also at The Abbey restaurant, which was doing business in an old brick church turned dinner house. The waiters, garbed in monks robes, doled out expensive cuisine while I sat up on the altar playing classical music and occasionally sneaking in a Chet Atkins arrangement of "Amazing Grace" or "Just As I Am," which I thought appropriate for the church setting but which brought warnings from the maitre'd to "stick with the classical."
After returning to my apartment at about 11:00 P.M. I often stayed up until the traffic noise subsided around 1:00 A.M. and then used the quiet time to do some recording. I would set up a little Sony reel to reel recorder and attempt to capture on tape enough of my solo guitar arrangements to put together an album to sell at the restaurants. During the summer of 1973 my first album, That's All Right, entered the world with little fanfare. One good thing came out of it howeverit served as a passport to meet my long time heroChet Atkins.
I bundled up the album, addressed it to Chet Atkins, c/o RCA Victor, Nashville, Tennessee, and sent it off, little expecting a reply. Much to my surprise a handwritten letter from Chet arrived a few days later informing me that he would soon be appearing at Stone Mountain, Georgia, a stone's throw from Atlanta, and that he wanted to meet me. On the day of his concert the phone rang and when a voice said, "Hi Rick, This is Chet." I could scarcely believe my ears. I remember my hand shaking as I hung up the phone and being in a dream state all the way to the hotel where he was staying. When I found his room, knocked on the door, and found myself face to face with the man who, along with Segovia, had been my main inspiration for years, I wasn't sure what to say. A few minutes later, however, I began to realize that I was in the presence of one of the greatest and yet most humble and kind men I'd ever met.
We had supper together, were picked up by a long black limousine and taken to the concert, and then taken back to the hotel where we swapped tunes and arrangements until late evening. Even though Chet was the greatest fingerstyle guitarist and arranger in the world, he listened with genuine interest to my music and even wanted to learn parts of my arrangements of "Mr. Bojangles" and "Sheep My Safely Graze." That was the beginning of a friendship that lasted from August 25, 1973, until Chet's passing on the morning of June 30, 2001.
As we said goodbye that night Chet invited me to come see him anytime I was near Tennessee, so the next time I was in Nashville I called and was invited out to the house for a visit. After stopping at an IHOP for supper, I headed off for Chet's place only to be pulled over for going the wrong way on a one way street. I was ordered to park my car, and then hauled to night court in a squad car. To make a long story short, after watching several unfortunates being tried for peeing on the sidewalk, etc., I stood before the judge to plead my case. After informing him that I was on my way to the home of Chet and Leona Atkins, he immediately dismissed the case and ordered the patrolman to get me back to my car. When I finally arrived at Chet's house 5 hours later than expected, even though it was after midnight Chet and Leona were waiting up and welcomed me with famous Southern hospitality. Leona turned out to be a great woman—gracious and a perfect hostess—and also a personal friend of the police chief. She threatened to call and let him know that was no way to treat visitors.
The next morning Chet sat at the breakfast table practicing while he watched TV and Leona cooked the eggs. It seemed like there was a guitar in his hands all the time. He kept one near the phone and did finger exercises while he talked. It's been said that Chet Atkins loved the guitar so much that if he wasn't a man he'd have to be a guitar. He was always wanting to hear me play, although to this day I've never figured out why.
Between the years of 1973 and 2001 I visited Chet several times in Nashville and met him in various places across the country as he traveled about. Each visit turned out to be a memorable adventure.
In March of 1974 I happened to be in Nashville on the opening day of the new Grand Ole Opry. Chet was scheduled to appear on the show and asked me to go along. He was into photography at the time and always had his camera ready. Before the show he'd decided to get some pictures with his famous friends and asked me to be the photographer. Each star had his or her own dressing room and invited us in. Chet always introduced me like I was important, calling me a great classical guitarist or something along those lines. By the end of the evening it seemed like I'd met every living legend in country music and then some.
On another occasion I was in Nashville when Les Paul came around to do a duet album with Chet. Before Les arrived Chet had been producing some sides for Jerry Reed and other artists and hadn't practiced much. During the two days of recording that culminated in the Grammy winning Chester and Lester album, I witnessed some of the greatest guitar playing the world has ever seen. The genius of both men was unveiled before my eyes as they went flawlessly from song to song, joking with each other and acting like two young kids just having fun making music. Having played the guitar for over 40 years now and after recording a dozen albums of my own, I understand the difficulty of achieving that perfect take—and yet those two were laying down one perfect track after another with no edits or overdubs. It took me back to the early days of recording when pioneers like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington went into the first studios and recorded straight to disk those great masterpieces of jazz. The music of Chet Atkins and Les Paul will undoubtedly rank as some of the greatest music of all time.
Another time I happened to be in town when Christopher Parkening was there to perform with the Nashville Symphony at Ryman Auditorium. Chris and I had been friends for many years, so when he arrived in Nashville, we went out to visit Chet before the concert. Chris had some recording equipment at his home in Montana, but since he hadn't learned to use it yet Chet decided to teach him how to get rid of mistakes by splicing two pieces of tape together. After going down to Chet's basement studio he asked me to play something, probably because he knew I wouldn't get far without a mistake. Sure enough, after a few bars of "Yellow Bird" I goofed up and started over. At the spot where the mistake occurred, Chet skillfully cut the tape with a razor blade and spliced the two takes together, creating the illusion that I had played the section perfectly. After a few more tries I managed to get through enough good parts for Chet to put together the entire piece without any hint of an edit. Chris told Chet that he was glad to watch the splicing process, but it would be easier to just play through the piece perfectly from beginning to end.
I recall accompanying Chet to several TV appearances including the Jimmy Dean and Johnny Cash shows. As usual he was completely relaxed. The Cash show was being televised from Opryland. As we sat backstage passing time playing "Sugarfoot Rag," Chet seemed to forget he was about to appear on national TV. I noticed many times that whenever or wherever a guitar was in his hands Chet seemed to forget everything but the music of the moment.
Looking back on 27 years of priceless memories of Chet, one stands out as a reminder of what a great man he really was. I can't recall the year or the place, but I vividly remember our visit in his hotel room after a concert he'd given that night. I'd been playing solo guitar dinner music in restaurants and country clubs, and after living and traveling alone for several years was feeling very lonely. He welcomed me as usual and wanted to hear me play. Then as we were saying goodbye he must have sensed my loneliness because as I opened the door to leave he told me that he loved me and offered some encouraging words. Those words and his unfailing kindness gave me the courage to keep going. Just knowing that a great guitarist and friend like Chet believed in me increased my faith in myself. In later years after our family settled in Oregon, Chet kept in touch. He sent us tickets to his concert at the Britt festival in Jacksonville, Oregon, and invited me to play a tune at his concert at the Hult Center in Eugene, Oregon.
The last time we saw Chet in Nashville was in the spring of 1996. We were there to play a concert at a Baptist church near his home, so he invited our family out to his house before the concert. Our kids sang some hymns for him and Leona and then we played a few songs for each other. He also played the fiddle for us that day. As we were leaving, he asked if he could help set up our sound system or do anything else to help out. That evening he arrived at the concert about 45 minutes early and came back to the Sunday School room where we were eating supper. He picked up my guitar and played some tunes he had written for his Almost Alone album which was soon to be released. As we were about to enter the sanctuary he pulled out a $100. bill, gave it to me, and said, "I'll put some more in when the plate comes by so they won't think I'm cheap." We then walked into the church and sat down side by side in the front row as the pastor introduced me. I'll never forget looking down and seeing my great inspiration and friend sitting there by himself on the front row of that church in Tennessee, listening to me play the guitar.
When we last talked about a year ago, Chet was suffering from the effects of treatments for lung and brain cancer. We had a long phone conversation during which he told jokes and said he was watching too much TV but would soon be playing again—no complaints or self pity. I told him that there were three people in the music business who were so far above their competition that they really didn't have any competition—Segovia, Elvis, and Chet Atkins. He was silent for a while and then said, "You know, you're right."
Chet was one of the greatest music producers and hit makers in Nashville, but left a broad legacy of more than just music. He was the funniest, kindest, and most big hearted man I've ever met. He moved through high pressure situations with apparent ease. I still marvel at being in the presence of a truly great man. There are so many wonderful memories—like having the opportunity to open a concert for him at the Lobero theater in Santa Barbara, California, and receiving the Gibson electric classical guitar he gave me as a gift. But greater than all of the memories of his music and accomplishments is the memory of Chet himself. One of the recording engineers that worked with Chet at RCA summed up Chet's life when I asked him what it was like working day by day with Chet Atkins. He said, "Chet Atkins is a great legend, but the man himself is greater than the legend."
Since his passing from this life two days ago, I've had several people ask if Chet believed in God. I recall an incident that had happened at Opryland on opening day. As Chet and I walked past a beautiful bed of flowers I repeated the words of Jesus who said that "Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like the lilies." Chet didn't say much but later told me, "I believe in something but don't know what it is." There's one thing for sure and that is that many people were praying for Chet.
Those of us fortunate enough to have been around Chet will never forget his sense of humor. Perhaps some excerpts from letters written to me by Chet from 1973 through 1997, will give some insight into the man himself.
Rick's Thoughts
Most people my age (55) have experienced the death of a close friend or relative. Each time someone close to me passes away I re-evaluate what's important in my life and why I do what I do. When Chet died three days ago many vivid memories flooded over me. I thought about how God used Chet's playing to lead me into my life long work of arranging, recording and playing sacred music. If I had never heard Chet's Chet Atkins Plays Back Home Hymns album I may never have realized that hymns could sound so good on the guitar. After hearing Chet I thought, "Well, if he can create beautiful hymn arrangements maybe I can too." One thing is certainthe work we do for the Lord is never done in vain.
The older I get the more I come to realize that unneeded material possessions do not bring me joy. We come into this world with nothing and we leave with nothing. The only things that bring true joy to me are the love and companionship of my family, knowing that I've used my musical talents to honor God, and knowing that I have a Savior who is guiding my life and who conquered death on my behalf. Faith in Christ gives me the wonderful assurance that death is no more than a transition into a beautiful and better life. Each day I pray something like this: "Our Father in heaven, we acknowledge you as the giver of life and the source of love and truth and all of the many blessings that we enjoy. We ask that you would bless us as we serve you, that your hand would be with us in all that we do, that you would keep us from evil and harm, and that your spirit would be upon us, guiding us with wisdom and filling us with more love each day."
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wrong_mix_range_death_00074
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FactBench
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0
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Dadi
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en
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Marcel Dadi
|
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2004-06-12T03:08:17+00:00
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en
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Dadi
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French guitarist
Marcel Dadi (French pronunciation: [maʁsɛl dadi]; 20 August 1951 – 17 July 1996) was a Tunisian-born French virtuoso guitarist known for his finger-picking style which faithfully recreated the instrumental styles of American guitarists such as Chet Atkins, Merle Travis and Jerry Reed. He became a friend of country star Chet Atkins.
Marcel Dadi was born in Sousse, Tunisia on 20 August 1951. Dadi, along with his immediate family, moved to Paris, France in 1954. In 1961, he started playing guitar at age 10. He had joined Andre Assouline, Joseph Illouz, and Maurice Levy to form a rock instrumental band by 1964. He was inspired by the music of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, He continued to expand his musical horizons with the influence of a guitarist, Bernard Photzer, who introduced him to the music of Elvis Presley and other 1950's rockers. Photzer also taught him the rudiments of flatpicking. As a soloist with French singer-songwriter and guitarist, Hugues Aufray, Dadi began to develop his own approach to flatpicking. From 1972, he wrote instructional articles for Folk Music Review, wherein he introduced his rigorous training method, which utilizes a fingering chart, in the March 1972 issue.
Dadi released several LPs and some instructional videos before his early death. His recordings featured a mix of compositions by his American heroes and original compositions of his own in a similar style. A feature of his early LPs was that they included a tablature booklet, allowing guitarists to learn the tunes for themselves. Dadi often recorded tunes dedicated to his friends, such as "Roger Chesterfield," dedicated to Roger C. Field with whom he first went to Nashville in 1975 to visit Chet Atkins.
Marcel Dadi immigrated to Eilat (Israel) on the Red Sea, in 1983, and lived there with his wife and young son for several years before moving back to France. In 1988, Eric Clapton, his longtime family friend, came to Eilat to visit Marcel Dadi.
On 17 July 1996, en route from New York City to Paris with his band and his long time friend Serge Sloimovits, Marcel Dadi died when the Boeing 747-131 operating TWA Flight 800 exploded off the coast of Long Island.[1] He was returning from the United States to France after being honored at Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame.
Marcel Dadi's body was recovered, as were those of all of the other victims. He is buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, Israel.
Marcel Dadi was honoured as one of the five "Certified Guitar Players" by Chet Atkins.[2]
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wrong_mix_range_death_00074
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FactBench
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1
| 73
|
https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-bonnie-raitt-cher-chet-atkins-4d195d987d09752096e79786fcc27ebc
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en
|
‘Something to Talk About’ songwriter Shirley Eikhard dies
|
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2022-12-17T15:27:15+00:00
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Shirley Eikhard, the singer-songwriter who supplied songs for Cher, Emmylou Harris, Anne Murray, Chet Atkins and found lasting fame penning Bonnie Raitt‘s Grammy-winning 1991 hit “Something to Talk About,” has died.
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en
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AP News
|
https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-bonnie-raitt-cher-chet-atkins-4d195d987d09752096e79786fcc27ebc
|
NEW YORK (AP) — Shirley Eikhard, the singer-songwriter who supplied songs for Cher, Emmylou Harris, Anne Murray, Chet Atkins and found lasting fame penning Bonnie Raitt‘s Grammy-winning 1991 hit “Something to Talk About,” has died. She was 67.
Eikhard died Thursday at Headwaters Health Care Centre in Orangeville, Ontario, due to complications from cancer, said publicist Eric Alper.
The blues-rock smash hit “Something to Talk About” was written in 1985 and Eikhard had offered it to Murray and other artists, who all declined to record it. Then years later Raitt left a message on Eikhard’s phone saying she she’d just recorded it. Raitt said later she’d discovered the song on a demo Eikhard had sent and admired it.
The song was the first single from Raitt’s 1991 album “Luck of the Draw” and spent 20 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 5. It would win Raitt the best pop vocal performance at the 1992 Grammy Awards and was also nominated in the record of the year category.
On Grammy night, Raitt made sure to thank Eikhard and she turned to Twitter after Eikhard’s death to say she was “deeply saddened,” writing “I will be forever grateful for our beautiful connection and friendship.”
Eikhard earned Juno Awards in 1973 and 1974 for best country female artist and she won several BMI Awards. She was inducted into the Canadian Songwriter’s Hall of Fame in October 2020. Her most recent album was 2021’s “On My Way to You.”
During her career, Eikhard released 18 full-length albums between 1972 to 2021 and taught herself to play guitar, piano, bass, drums, percussion, chromatic harmonica, sax, banjo and mandolin.
At age 15, Eikhard’s song “It Takes Time” was recorded by country singer Murray in 1971, and later became a hit in her native Canada. Eikhard released her self-titled debut album the following year in 1972. The title track for Atkins’ 41st studio album, “Pickin’ My Way” was one of Eikhard’s earliest successes.
She also crafted with Cher the frenetic dance track “Lovers Forever” for the 1994 film “Interview with the Vampire,” but it didn’t make the final soundtrack cut. They collaborated again on “Born With the Hunger,” from Cher’s 2000 album, “Not.com.mercial.”
Eikhard sang the theme song for Stanley Kramer’s 1976 movie “The Domino Principle” starring Gene Hackman and Candice Bergen, as well as the theme song for “The Passion of Ayn Rand” in 2000.
___
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wrong_mix_range_death_00074
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FactBench
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2
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https://www.angelfire.com/tn2/bobloyce/garlandbio.html
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en
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Hank Garland Biography
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The following Hank Garland biography and interview are extracted from the January 1981 issue of Guitar Player magazine. The biography was written by Rich Kienzle.
* * *
"NASHVILLE CATS", John Sebastian admiringly sang in his 1967 composition, "play clean as country water, play wild as mountain dew, been playin' since they's babies," and "get work before they're two."' Allowing for artistic license on the last phrase, those descriptions fit Hank Garland particularly well. Along with Chet Atkins, Harold Bradley, and Grady Martin, Hank was among the first true guitar virtuosos to emerge from the Nashville studios a player who helped define the standards by which other Nashville session guitarists are judged.
Garland epitomized the image of the Nashville picker: the guitarist able to walk into a studio, tune up, hear a run-through of the songs to be recorded, and invent a creative and sympathetic backing on the spot; the consummate musician who would leave the last session of the day for a night of jamming in a Printer's Alley night-club; the inveterate experimenter interested in the latest guitar model and addicted to trying out new sounds, licks, and devices; the person for whom the instrument was not just an end in itself, but a means to the end of creating music.
Hank's influence extended far beyond the studios of Nashville. His 1960 Jazz Winds From A New Direction had a considerable effect on players throughout the country. A young Pittsburgh R&B guitarist named George Benson was taken by it, as was another. young musician from Mississippi who was into rock and blues, Bucky Barrett. Above all, the LP gave Nashville musicians new admiration and stature in the jazz world. It was almost as if Garland had smothered the "hillbilly" stereotypes with chorus upon chorus of brilliant, bop-flavoured jazz. Before Hank Garland, the very idea of a steel guitarist such as Buddy Emmons recording with a jazz group as he did in 1963 with his Steel Guitar Jazz album - or of mainstream jazz bassist Ray Brown and drummer Shelley Manne working with country mandolinists Jethro Burns and Tiny Moore, would have been all but unthinkable.
Hank Garland's professional career spanned only 15 years, less than a third of his life. In 1961, at the age of 30, his dream of becoming "the best guitar player in the world" was shattered in a violent auto accident near Nashville. After lingering near death, he began to recover, but the price paid was devastatingly high. Severe brain damage claimed most of his motor functions and co-ordination, and his dreams of greater music to come seemed to have evaporated. Shortly thereafter he left Nashville, never to return to the studios where he made his reputation as a country and jazz sideman on, recordings by Elvis Presley, Rusty Draper, Jim Reeves, Don Gibson, Webb Pierce, Patsy Cline, Brenda Lee, Charlie Rich, Patti Page, Jerry Lee Lewis, and numerous others.
This wasn't the-end of the Hank Garland legend. Drawing upon vast determination and courage he began relearning the guitar from scratch, encouraged by his family, particularly his brother Bill. It would be two, years after the accident until he regained any command of the instrument, and 13 more before he returned to Nashville for a brief appearance at the 1976 Fan Fair Reunion Show - where his rendition of his 1949 composition "Sugarfoot Rag" left moist eyes among performers and audience members. They could see and hear that while Hank Garland might not be returning to the Nashville studios, he had certainly returned from one of the most uncertain and harrowing journeys any musician could ever make.
* * *
Walter Louis Garland was born November 11, 1930 in Cowpens, South Carolina, a small town just north east of Spartanburg, not far from the North Carolina border. It was an area dominated by hard-core country music, which had quite an impact upon young Hank. Chet Atkins, who worked closely with Garland through the years, recalls that "Hank said his first inspiration was, the Carter Family [GP, Mar. '791. He heard Maybelle picking the 'Wildwood Flower' when he was a little kid, and he dreamed that night he was playing it and he couldn't wait, of course, to get a guitar." Garland's father-bought him a used Encore steel-string when Hank was six, and young Garland began taking lessons from one Mr. Fowler, who taught him basic chords and positions.
Early on, Hank was attracted to another young guitarist, who was beginning to make his mark as a musician. Arthur Smith was just 17 when he began playing over radio station WSBA in Spartanburg, and Hank listened closely to him. Smith's electric lines captivated Garland to the point that the younger musician attempted to electrify his acoustic. Atkins remembers Hank's account of this event: "He told me he hooked an electric cord to the strings and plugged it in the wall and almost burned the guitar up."
As World War 2 began, Hank was heading into adolescence as a true guitar addict. By the time he was in his teens he was proficient enough to join Shorty Painter's band, a local group that gave him his first taste of performing experience. Garland remembers getting his first electric guitar during this time, although he isn't sure if it was an archtop Gibson or Epiphone. He did, however, have a De Armond pickup on it, and ran it through a small Gibson amplifier.
His first real break as a professional musician came quite by chance. He had gone downtown to Alexander's Music Store in Spartanburg to buy a string, and while there he was introduced to Grand Ole Opry member Paul Howard. Howard was passing through with his western swing-styled Georgia Cotton Pickers group, and after handshakes were exchanged someone quickly produced a guitar and amp. Garland picked a little, and Howard, who played a major role in ending the Opry's long-standing ban on electric guitars, was impressed. He offered Garland a job with the Cotton Pickers in Nashville, and told him he would call in two weeks to finalize the deal. It was 1945, and Hank was only 15 years old.
Garland went home ecstatic and explained it all to his parents, who had some initial reservations because of their son's age and the fact that he would have to leave school. But Hank's pleading over the next two weeks softened them, and when Howard finally called telling him to come to Nashville's Tulane Hotel, they reluctantly assented. When Hank arrived at the Tulane, however, Howard didn't remember him. Hank was crushed, but went on to ask Howard if he could play on the Opry that night anyhow. The bandleader agreed, and that evening Garland was featured on a boogie woogie instrumental that brought the audience at the Ryman Auditorium to its feet. Backstage after the performance Howard dubbed Hank the "Baby Cotton Picker" and, told him, "Kid, you have a job here as long as I got one".
For the next eight weeks he worked on the road and on the Opry with the Cotton Pickers, but because of extraneous circumstances his initial stay with the group was cut short. At 15 Garland wasn't old enough to join the Musicians Union, and child-labour laws banned anyone that age from working full time. Crestfallen, Hank returned home to Cowpens, his only consolation being Howard's promise to recall him to Nashville when Garland turned 16. On November 11, 1946, Hank got his call, from Howard, and a short time later he was back in Nashville with the Cotton Pickers.
Chet Atkins was in Nashville for the, first time in 1946, working as a sideman with Red Foley on the Opry. He recalls with laughter and great affection his first meeting Garland there: "He was a little old, fat, red-faced punk, and he hadn't gotten all of his height yet. He was playing choruses that he heard on Bob Wills records done by Jimmy Wyble, the fellow who played like Charlie Christian. And he rushed an awful lot; he'd pick up tempo". Veteran Nashville session guitarist Harold Bradley, who met Garland around the same time through Ernest Tubb's lead player Billy Byrd, has a similar recollection. "Hank was very fast", he says. He was rough, but very fast, and he had a lot of phenomenal technique.
Garland's association with Billy Byrd subsequently changed Hank's entire musical direction. Though he played spare, simple leads behind Tubb, Byrd was also a fine jazz guitarist who had grown up jamming Charlie Christian tunes with Bradley. Hank moved into an apartment in Byrd's home and spent his spare moments learning the rudiments of jazz. "Billy showed me how to use my little finger," Garland says, "He'd say, 'Use the damn thing; stick it up on the string there and use it!"' Bradley, who also sat in on many of those sessions, adds, "We taught him songs and jazz licks and just a whole bunch of improvisations. We showed him a lot of the things we knew, and he just went on by us just got into the jazz thing real heavy".
But one didn't make a living playing jazz guitar in those days around Nashville, so early in 1947 Hank left Howard and the Cotton Pickers when steel guitarist Bob Foster recruited him for a new band being led by singer Cowboy Copas. Copas had just departed from Pee Wee King's Golden West Cowboys after scoring successes with King recordings such as "Filipino Baby". Hank' gained experience doing some of Copas' earliest sessions. According to Dr. Charles K. Wolfe, a professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University at Murfreesboro who is currently working on a bibliography of country music for the Smithsonian, recording session books during the late '40s and '50s are very unclear as to just who worked on what songs, but all the available data points to Hank playing on Copas tunes such as "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down," "Honky Tonkin'," and "Down In Nashville Tennessee."
Another tune which Hank almost certainly worked on was singer Autry Inman's 1948 recording of "You Better Leave Them Guys Alone," where his guitar solo echoes both Les Paul and Django Reinhardt. "I started listening to Django," Hank says, "after Chet told me he was the greatest guitar player in the world." Atkins also remembers hearing Garland on a record for the first time in the late '40s: "I was in Knoxville, and I heard this chorus. I don't recall the artist now, but I remember then that I thought it was the greatest guitar chorus I'd ever heard, so I checked around and found out it was Hank who played it."
It's little wonder that Hank had so much Django in his early guitar work. For a time, he and his friend Bob Moore, who is a longtime Nashville studio bassist, roomed together in a boarding house while Garland was playing with Copas. Moore remembers, "I used to get up every morning to go do a radio show at 5:30 with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. When my alarm would go off, Hank would get up and be practising even before I finished my breakfast. I'd go do the show and another at noon, then I'd come home. There was Hank, still listening to Django Reinhardt."
Garland spent nearly three years with the Copas band. gaining a reputation for his increasingly masterful guitar work. "He was one of those guys who you could play a lick for and he'd come back like an echo," says Atkins. "He had such a good ear. Sometimes I'd pick something with fingers that he couldn't just to irritate him. He didn't play fingerstyle, but he could have if he'd wanted." Hank today recalls that episode with `laughter, admitting that "whatever anybody else played, if they played it through one time, 1 had it." Photos show that throughout his tenure with Copas, Garland primarily used a blond Epiphone Zephyr Deluxe, but by the end of the decade he had switched over to Gibson guitars,
Nashville, too, was undergoing some radical changes at the time. Until then the Opry was its sole connection with country music. Most country recording sessions were usually done in other cities or with portable equipment in Nashville, and a few were held in radio station studios. Then in 1947 Castle Studios opened in the Tulane Hotel, signalling the beginning of the recording industry there. It also created a new role for local musicians. Although many singers preferred either to use their touring groups or to borrow someone else's group, there was a small enclave of players who made themselves available for sessions something that until then hadn't been done much in country music. But it was an inevitable by-product of the studio industry, one that became increasingly important in Nashville.
Sometime during 1949 Garland left Copas and began freelancing in the studios. Just how this took place isn't certain. Harold Bradley remembers Hank coming into a Decca session he was working on with his brother Owen and producer Paul Cohen. "Hank entered the studio," Bradley says, "and since Cohen and my brother liked him, they put him on the session." Cohen also favoured a song Hank had written as a fingering exercise, "Sugarfoot Rag." Cohen thought enough of it to record an instrumental version by Garland. Later, lyrics were added by one George Vaughan, and Red Foley recorded this version on November 10, 1949 with Hank doing the now-famous guitar intro and solo. Two days prior to that date, Foley had cut "Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy," and the two tunes were paired on a single released early in 1950. Garland got label credit for "Sugarfoot," something quite rare for a sideman, and since "Chatta'noogie", became a million-seller, many listeners also heard "Sugarfoot Rag" which itself was #5 on the Cash Box country charts for a time. The song earned Garland the nickname "Sugarfoot," and got him a series recordings.
By the late '40s and early'50s, Hank, Grady Martin, Harold Bradley, and Chet Atkin's were the main guitarists in Nashville. During those days the studios were loose, and the musicians free to contribute their own ideas to songs. Bradley remembers Garland going even further than that: "He had a very good imagination for not only coming up with ideas, but also with arrangements." And Chet Atkins says that this ability was typical for Hank throughout, his studio career: "Hank was very outspoken and he had a lot of ideas. He didn't take any talk from any producer. If they said something smart to him, his face would get real red and he'd say something back. But he was such a good musician that everyone had a terrible amount of respect for him, so nobody stepped on his toes. He could only help you: He was so good, he could never hurt you." Garland did a number of early Nashville sessions, including a notable one with singer Eddie Hill in 1952. The song, "The Hot Guitar," featured Hank, Chet, and Jerry Byrd imitating other guitarists as well as themselves. The flipside cut "Steamboat Stomp," was done with just Hank, a steel guitarist, and a rhythm section. Having begun as a routine western swing number,' the song found Garland taking an incredible bebop guitar break in the middle which turned the tune inside out. Hank's jazz talents were crystallizing. Having already assimilated elements of Django, Christian and Barney Kessel, he now showed signs of Barry Galbraith and Tal Farlow influences in his playing.
In the early '50s Hank began working with singer Eddy Arnold, who was doing an ABC radio series that summer. The gig involved travelling to different cities, and Garland got the chance to go to New York where he finally heard and met some of the jazz guitarists he long admired among them Barry Galbraith, who subsequently taught him jazz rhythm playing. Garland's obsession with jazz also began rubbing off onto his fellow Nashville guitarists. "Hank was the first guy to turn me on to Tal Farlow and Wes Montgomery," says Bradley. After a brief period with Arnold, Garland returned to the studios of Nashville.
Sessions were plentiful by 1953, and Hank spent a lot of time in the studios picking a variety of country music. He worked on Tommy Jackson's square dance series for Dot Records, playing both guitar and mandolin behind Jackson's fiddle. He also played on many of Jim Reeves' RCA sessions.
In 1955, Garland along with Billy Byrd helped design Gibson's Byrdland (Byrd + Garland) guitar, and Hank began using it on session work. Like Chet Atkins and other Nashville pickers, he soon became an inveterate experimenter, constantly trying out new guitars, pickups and amplifiers. He also experimented with an early echo device that he used to play the memorable guitar intro on Patsy Cline's 1961 hit, "I Fall To Pieces." Chet often loaned Hank different pickups to try out, and Harold Bradley says that on occasion Garland worked in odd tunings: "He would use a wound G as his first string and play chords, for instance, because he had heard someone in Chicago do it and liked the sound."
Hank was also obsessed with developing technique. Bob Moore remembers it well: "Hank used to sit around and show me how he was developing the muscle in his right thumb. He'd take a pick and hold it in all these different positions between the, forefinger and thumb and just work it as fast as he could without a guitar. He'd sit around and do that to develop strength, and that's one of the things that helped him because none of the other guitarists could get around with a pick like he could. It seemed like everything he did with it was just so easy. It looked like he wasn't doing anything., With his left hand he'd do all these finger exercises from one end of the guitar to the other, and he would play on the low E string as high as he could and learn any jazz run. He would sit and play it from one fret to the next, learning it in every position."
Garland would try different guitars as well. He bought a Gibson ES- 150 from a cab driver in Nashville, according to Harold Bradley, and also got a Gibson L-7 with a "Charlie Christian" pickup. All of this, of course, was in between sessions. Hank worked on a number of hits during 1954 and 1955, including Jim Reeves' "Yonder Comes A Sucker" where Garland and steel guitarist Bobby Garrett did some impressive twin guitar ensemble playing, and on the Grady Martin Dance-O-Rama LP which found Grady and Hank picking some flaming improvisational runs on "Pork Chop Stomp," "Woolly Boogie," and "Cornstalk Hop," backed by pedal steeler Bud Isaacs.
In 1955, Elvis Presley's Sun recordings began stirring up the South. Changes were on the way as rockabilly began grabbing a surprisingly large audience. One of the harbingers of change was in a September 1955 Decca recording where Garland did a session with boogie-woogie pianist and singer Roy Hall. At the time of the recording, rockabilly wasn't terribly compatible with jazz guitar playing, and Garland knew it. "Hank told me what he did to get ready for that," Bradley says. "He turned on radio station WLAC, which back then was playing R&B, to get a lot of ideas before he came in to do that one. He knew it was going to be a funkier style of music than we were accustomed to playing."At that September 15 session Hank and Hall recorded a tune titled "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" [Rare Rockabilly], and Hank's blues licks were good. It would be nearly two years before pianist Jerry Lee Lewis transformed the same song into a rock and roll classic.
But even those sporadic sessions didn't prepare Nashville for the onslaught that followed Elvis' burst upon the national scene after his first RCA records were released in 1956. Though some of his singles sound country by today's standards, they weren't originally perceived that way. As rock and roll spread across America many radio stations turned away from country, causing some young country singers to drop their fiddlers and steel guitarists in favour of the loudest drummer they could find. Finally, country record sales and personal appearances by artists began to slip, and Nashville was in trouble. "They ran the fiddle players and the steel players back into the woods," says Bradley. "Some of them were not able to survive a wait of two to three years before they would get hired again."
Hank Garland, however, was one of the lucky musicians. After the initial trauma wore off, some Nashville producers started to persuade as many country singers as possible to record rock and roll flavoured records. Everyone from Carl Smith and Red Foley to Little Jimmy Dickens, Webb Pierce, Johnny Horton, and Marty Robbins jumped on the bandwagon some of them reluctantly. The musicians, obviously, also had to adapt. Garland recalls having to use lighter gauge strings, and adds, "I had to turn another knob on the amplifier to make the sound more tinny." These records varied in quality and reached their peak in 1957 and 1958.
Hank's guitar work, however, played an important role in many of the better cuts. He picked some searing guitar on Wayne Walker's Bo-Bo Ska Diddle Daddle", Red Foley's "Crazy Little Guitar Man", Bill Brown's "Flip Out" and Webb Pierce's "Bye Bye Love." Hank also added a bone-jarring solo to Jimmy Dickens' 1958 hit 1 Got A Hole In My Pocket" as well as hot lines to Jerry Lee Lewis' "What'd I Say", Ronnie Self's rendition of "Bop-A-Lena" and Eddie Bond's early rockabilly recordings for Mercury Records. Hank also played on nearly all of Brenda Lee's Decca sessions, and picked a superb country-jazz solo on Patti Page's version of "Just Because".
By the late '50s the pop-influenced "Nashville Sound" began to coalesce, and once again Hank Garland was one of its prime movers, able to add nearly any type of accompaniment. While the vocal choruses and softer sounds received some criticism from country purists, these changes nevertheless helped country music recover from the mid-'50s rock and roll barrage. Hank, Harold, and Grady often worked together on sessions, each taking solos according to their respective specialties: Grady doing funkier tunes, Harold playing pop-oriented material, and Hank handling fast numbers. Garland played on a number of hit records during this time, including Ferlin Husky's "Gone," Jim Reeves' "He'll Have To Go", Don Gibson's "Sea Of Heartbreak" and "Just One Time" (both with Chet Atkins), the Wilburn Brothers "A Woman's Intuition," Kitty Wells' "Jealousy," and Webb Pierce's "I Ain't Never" and "Tupelo County Jail" the latter featuring Hank picking some gutsy, bass-string runs.
Garland versatility and ability to work up song arrangements may have helped to bring him and Elvis Presley together in the studio for the first time on June 10 and 11, 1958, while Elvis was on, leave from the Army. Although Scotty Moore had played regularly with Elvis since 1954, he was now working with him on a per-job basis. Elvis was beginning to expand his musical range, adding more pop-oriented numbers to his repertoire. Though most of his tunes still rocked, it was obvious that he was trying to appeal to a wider audience. So Garland got the call on a number of sessions with Elvis from 1958 to 1961, playing on songs such as "I Got Stung," "A Fool Such As l," "Big Hunk Of Love, " "Stuck On You" (which had Hank on 6-string bass), "It's Now Or Never," "Are You Lonesome Tonight," "Surrender," I Feel So Bad," and "Little Sister." He also picked guitar on Elvis' "His Hand In Mine" LP. Harold Bradley remembers Hank using an early Gibson ES-355-TD-SV with "the first Vari-tone switch we'd ever seen" on many of the rock and roll sessions, deviating from his Gibsons only on the "Little Sister cut. Bradley comments: "I started advertising Fender, and Hank borrowed my Jazzmaster to play on the song because he didn't have a guitar with the sound he wanted to get."
Hank also did some concerts with PresIey, among them Elvis' March 25, 1961, Benefit show in Honolulu, which was Presley's last live performance for eight years. Garland was featured prominently, and when Elvis introduced the band, everyone got a routine intro while Hank was referred to as "one of the finest guitar players anywhere in the country today." In addition, Garland continued flexing his country-jazz muscles. This is clearly evident in his work with jazz great Johnny Smith and Harold Bradley on Don Gibson's "Gibson, Guitars, And Girls" LP, which was recorded around 1960.
Besides the studios, the Carousel Club in Nashville's Printer's Alley proved to be another important locale in Hank's musical life. After a day's session, it was common for him to go there and jam the night away. He appeared regularly with other jazz-minded musicians, including Bob Moore, drummer Buddy Harman, pianist Floyd Cramer, saxophonist Boots Randolph, and others. After hearing Garland play, many jazz musicians who visited Nashville left praising him. Billy Byrd recounted a session with Hank and some of Stan Kenton's group for Country Music Magazine: "I remember they were playing 'Back Home Again In Indiana.' Hank flew in there, and their eyes got as big as quarters. They just couldn't believe what they were hearing."
In 1960, Garland and some of his Carousel Club band-mates, plus Chet Atkins and then 17-year-old vibraphonist Gary Burton, were invited to the Newport Jazz Festival where RCA was to record their performance for an LP. Rioting cancelled the show, so the musicians recorded on the back porch of a house they rented during the festival. The resulting After The Riot At Newport was a loose jam session which captured some of Garland's most awesome jazz guitar licks, especially on "Relaxin"" and the Garland/Randolph tune "Riot-Chous."
Hank, Gary Burton, Bob Moore, and some other Nashville musicians recorded another album around the same time for SESAC [a musical licensing organization similar to ASCAP and BMI], which was later issued by Columbia as The Unforgettable Guitar Of Hank Garland. From there, through the efforts of Columbia's Nashville producer Don Law, Garland was signed to the label as an artist. His first solo LP, Velvet Guitar, was a bit tame and pop-flavoured. Harold Bradley recalls that Hank "got a little upset and said that he was just going to totally do his own thing on his next album."
On August 23, 1960, with Grady Martin sitting in the producer's chair subbing for Law, Hank recorded Jazz Winds From A New Direction with Burton, Dave Brubeck drummer Joe Morello and bassist Joe Benjamin. They played six songs that day, including bop standards such as "Move," as well as "Riot-Chous," "Relaxin'," and "Always." The LP turned many heads, including those of jazz aficionados who couldn't believe that such a great guitarist could come from Nashville. All during this time Hank was still picking up direction, listening intently to Wes Montgomery and others. His finger-style chops were improving, and it looked like Garland was finally entering the world of jazz guitar on his own terms.
Unfortunately, this was not to be. In the autumn of 1961 while travelling in his car near Springfield, Tennessee, Garland was involved in an auto accident. When he regained consciousness at the hospital, the doctors attending him had determined that he had sustained severe brain damage. With his talents thus impaired and lacking the ability to co-ordinate his hands, it seemed indeed that Hank Garland's career was over.
The loss of ability to play would have sent most guitarists into a deep depression, but Hank decided to fight back. He practiced for two years after the accident, studying and working scales and arpeggios while fighting to regain control over his instrument. After two more years he'd gotten some of his command back, and his advice to similarly afflicted guitarists is succinct: "Don't give up".
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American country music guitarist (1924–2001)
"Chester Atkins" redirects here. For the former U.S. congressman, see Chester G. Atkins.
"Mr. Guitar" redirects here. For the album by Charlie Byrd, see Mr. Guitar (album).
Musical artist
Chester Burton Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001), also known as "Mister Guitar" and "the Country Gentleman", was an American musician who, along with Owen Bradley and Bob Ferguson, helped create the Nashville sound, the country music style which expanded its appeal to adult pop music fans. He was primarily a guitarist, but he also played the mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and ukulele, and occasionally sang.
Atkins's signature picking style was inspired by Merle Travis. Other major guitar influences were Django Reinhardt, George Barnes, Les Paul, and, later, Jerry Reed.[1] His distinctive picking style and musicianship brought him admirers inside and outside the country scene, both in the United States and abroad. Atkins spent most of his career at RCA Victor and produced records for the Browns, Hank Snow, Porter Wagoner, Norma Jean, Dolly Parton, Dottie West, Perry Como, Floyd Cramer, Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Eddy Arnold, Don Gibson, Jim Reeves, Jerry Reed, Skeeter Davis, Waylon Jennings, Roger Whittaker, Ann-Margret and many others.
Rolling Stone credited Atkins with inventing the "popwise 'Nashville sound' that rescued country music from a commercial slump" and ranked him number 21 on their list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".[2] In 2023, Atkins was named the 39th best guitarist of all time.[3] Among many other honors, Atkins received 14 Grammy Awards and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He also received nine Country Music Association awards for Instrumentalist of the Year. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum. George Harrison was also inspired by Chet Atkins; early Beatles songs such as "All My Loving" show the influence.
Biography
[edit]
Childhood and early life
[edit]
Atkins was born on June 20, 1924, in Luttrell, Tennessee, near Clinch Mountain. His parents divorced when he was six years old, after which he was raised by his mother. He was the youngest of three boys and a girl. He started out on the ukulele, later moving on to the fiddle, but he made a swap with his brother Lowell when he was nine: an old pistol and some chores for a guitar.[4] He stated in his 1974 autobiography, "We were so poor and everybody around us was so poor that it was the forties before anyone even knew there had been a depression." Forced to relocate to Fortson, Georgia, outside of Columbus to live with his father because of a critical asthma condition, Atkins was a sensitive youth who became obsessed with music. Because of his illness, he was forced to sleep in a straight-back chair to breathe comfortably. On those nights, he played his guitar until he fell asleep holding it, a habit that lasted his whole life.[5] While living in Fortson, Atkins attended the historic[citation needed] Mountain Hill School. He returned in the 1990s to play a series of charity concerts to save the school from demolition.[6] Stories have been told about the very young Chet who, when a friend or relative would come to visit and play guitar, crowded the musician and put his ear so close to the instrument that it became difficult for the visitor to play.[5]
Atkins became an accomplished guitarist while he was in high school.[4] He used the restroom in the school to practice because it had good acoustics.[7][8] His first guitar had a nail for a nut and was so bowed that only the first few frets could be used.[9] He later purchased a semi-acoustic electric guitar and amp, but he had to travel many miles to find an electrical outlet, since his home didn't have electricity.[10]
Later in life, he lightheartedly gave himself (along with John Knowles, Tommy Emmanuel, Steve Wariner, and Jerry Reed[11]) the honorary degree CGP ("Certified Guitar Player").[9] In 2011, his daughter Merle Atkins Russell bestowed the CGP degree on his longtime sideman Paul Yandell. She then declared no more CGPs would be allowed by the Atkins estate.[12]
His half-brother Jim was a successful guitarist who worked with the Les Paul Trio in New York.[5]
Atkins did not have a strong style of his own until 1939 when (while still living in Georgia) he heard Merle Travis picking over WLW radio.[5][13] This early influence dramatically shaped his unique playing style.[1] Whereas Travis used his index finger on his right hand for the melody and his thumb for the bass notes, Atkins expanded his right-hand style to include picking with his first three fingers, with the thumb on bass. He also listened closely to the single-string playing of George Barnes and Les Paul.
Chet Atkins was an amateur radio general class licensee. Formerly using the call sign WA4CZD, he obtained the vanity call sign W4CGP in 1998 to include the CGP designation, which supposedly stood for "Certified Guitar Picker". He was a member of the American Radio Relay League.[14]
Early musical career
[edit]
After dropping out of high school in 1942, Atkins landed a job at WNOX (AM) (now WNML) radio in Knoxville, where he played fiddle and guitar with the singer Bill Carlisle and the comic Archie Campbell and became a member of the station's Dixieland Swingsters, a small swing instrumental combo. After three years, he moved to WLW-AM in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Merle Travis had formerly worked.
After six months, he moved to Raleigh and worked with Johnnie and Jack before heading for Richmond, Virginia, where he performed with Sunshine Sue Workman. Atkins's shy personality worked against him, as did the fact that his sophisticated style led many to doubt he was truly "country". He was fired often but was soon able to land another job at another radio station on account of his unique playing ability.[5]
Atkins and Jethro Burns (of Homer and Jethro) married twin sisters Leona and Lois Johnson, who sang as Laverne and Fern Johnson, the Johnson Sisters. Leona Atkins outlived her husband by eight years, dying in 2009 at the age of 85.[15]
Travelling to Chicago, Atkins auditioned for Red Foley, who was leaving his star position on WLS-AM's National Barn Dance to join the Grand Ole Opry.[16] Atkins made his first appearance at the Opry in 1946 as a member of Foley's band. He also recorded a single for Nashville-based Bullet Records that year. That single, "Guitar Blues", was fairly progressive, including a clarinet solo by the Nashville dance band musician Dutch McMillan and produced by Owen Bradley. He had a solo spot on the Opry, but when that was cut, Atkins moved on to KWTO in Springfield, Missouri. Despite the support of executive Si Siman, however, he soon was fired for not sounding "country enough".[5]
Signing with RCA Victor
[edit]
While working with a Western band in Denver, Colorado, Atkins came to the attention of RCA Victor. Siman had been encouraging Steve Sholes to sign Atkins, as his style (with the success of Merle Travis as a hit recording artist) was suddenly in vogue. Sholes, A&R director of country music at RCA, tracked Atkins down in Denver.
He made his first RCA Victor recordings in Chicago in 1947, but they did not sell. He did some studio work for RCA that year, but had relocated to Knoxville again where he worked with Homer and Jethro on WNOX's new Saturday night radio show The Tennessee Barn Dance and the popular Midday Merry Go Round.
In 1949, he left WNOX to join June Carter with Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters on KWTO. This incarnation of the Carter Family featured Maybelle Carter and daughters June, Helen, and Anita. Their work soon attracted attention from the Grand Ole Opry. The group relocated to Nashville in the mid-1950s. Atkins began working on recording sessions and performing on WSM-AM and the Opry.[5] Atkins became a member of the Opry in the 1950s.[17]
While he had not yet had a hit record for RCA Victor, his stature was growing. He began assisting Sholes as a session leader when the New York–based producer needed help organizing Nashville sessions for RCA Victor artists. Atkins's first hit single was "Mr. Sandman", followed by "Silver Bell", which he recorded as a duet with Hank Snow. His albums also became more popular. He was featured on ABC-TV's The Eddy Arnold Show in the summer of 1956 and on Country Music Jubilee in 1957 and 1958 (by then renamed Jubilee USA).
In addition to recording, Atkins was a design consultant for Gretsch, which manufactured a popular Chet Atkins line of electric guitars from 1955 to 1980. He became manager of RCA Victor's Nashville studios, eventually inspiring and seeing the completion of the legendary RCA Studio B, the first studio built specifically for the purpose of recording on the now-famous Music Row. Also later on, Chet and Owen Bradley would become instrumental in the creation of studio B's adjacent building RCA Studio A as well.[9]
Performer and producer
[edit]
When Sholes took over pop production in 1957—a result of his success with Elvis Presley—he put Atkins in charge of RCA Victor's Nashville division. With country music record sales declining as rock and roll became more popular, Atkins took his cue from Owen Bradley and eliminated fiddles and steel guitar from many recordings, though not all, as a means of making country singers appeal to pop fans, many of whom disliked the "twang" elements of country. This became known as the Nashville Sound, which Atkins said was a label created by the media for a style of recording during that period intended to keep country (and their jobs) viable.
Atkins used the Jordanaires and a rhythm section on hits such as Jim Reeves's "Four Walls" and "He'll Have to Go"[18] and Don Gibson's "Oh Lonesome Me" and "Blue Blue Day".[19] The once-rare phenomenon of having a country hit cross over to pop success became more common. He and Bradley had essentially put the producer in the driver's seat, guiding an artist's choice of material and the musical background. Other Nashville producers quickly copied this successful formula, which resulted in certain country hits "crossing over" to find success in the pop field.
Atkins made his own records, which usually visited pop standards and jazz, in a sophisticated home studio, often recording the rhythm tracks at RCA and adding his solo parts at home, refining the tracks until the results satisfied him.[9] Guitarists of all styles came to admire various Atkins albums for their unique musical ideas and in some cases experimental electronic ideas. In this period, he became known internationally as "Mister Guitar", inspiring an album, Mister Guitar, engineered by both Bob Ferris and Bill Porter, Ferris's replacement.
At the end of March 1959, Porter took over as chief engineer at what was at the time RCA Victor's only Nashville studio, in the space that would become known as Studio B after the opening of a second studio in 1960. (At the time, RCA's sole Nashville studio had no letter designation.) Porter soon helped Atkins get a better reverberation sound from the studio's German effects device, an EMT plate reverb. With his golden ear, Porter found the studio's acoustics to be problematic, and he devised a set of acoustic baffles to hang from the ceiling, then selected positions for microphones based on resonant room modes. The sound of the recordings improved significantly, and the studio achieved a string of successes. The Nashville sound became more dynamic.[20] In later years, when Bradley asked how he achieved his sound, Atkins told him "it was Porter."[21] Porter described Atkins as respectful of musicians when recording—if someone was out of tune, he would not single that person out by name. Instead, he would say something like, "we got a little tuning problem ... Everybody check and see what's going on."[21] If that did not work, Atkins would instruct Porter to turn the offending player down in the mix. When Porter left RCA in late-1964, Atkins said, "the sound was never the same, never as great."[21]
Atkins's trademark "Atkins style" of playing uses the thumb and first two or sometimes three fingers of the right hand. He developed this style from listening to Merle Travis,[1] occasionally on a primitive radio. He was sure no one could play that articulately with just the thumb and index finger (which was exactly how Travis played), and he assumed it required the thumb and two fingers—and that was the style he pioneered and mastered.
He enjoyed jamming with fellow studio musicians, and they were asked to perform at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960. That performance was cancelled because of rioting, but a live recording of the group (After the Riot at Newport) was released. Atkins performed by invitation at the White House for every U.S. president from John F. Kennedy through to George H. W. Bush. Atkins was a member of the Million Dollar Band during the 1980s. He is also well known for his song "Yankee Doodle Dixie", in which he played "Yankee Doodle" and "Dixie" simultaneously, on the same guitar.
Before his mentor Sholes died in 1968, Atkins had become vice president of RCA's country division. In 1987, he told Nine-O-One Network magazine that he was "ashamed" of his promotion: "I wanted to be known as a guitarist and I know, too, that they give you titles like that in lieu of money. So beware when they want to make you vice president."[22] He had brought Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Connie Smith, Bobby Bare, Dolly Parton, Jerry Reed, and John Hartford to the label in the 1960s and inspired and helped countless others.[23] He took a considerable risk during the mid-1960s, when the civil rights movement sparked violence throughout the South, by signing country music's first African-American singer, Charley Pride, who sang rawer country than the smoother music Atkins had pioneered.
Atkins's biggest hit single came in 1965, with "Yakety Axe", an adaptation of "Yakety Sax", by his friend, the saxophonist Boots Randolph. He rarely performed in those days and eventually hired other RCA producers, such as Bob Ferguson and Felton Jarvis, to lessen his workload.[9]
Later career
[edit]
In the 1970s, Atkins became increasingly stressed by his executive duties. He produced fewer records, but could still turn out hits such as Perry Como's 1973 pop hit "And I Love You So". He recorded extensively with close friend and fellow picker Jerry Reed, who had become a hit artist in his own right. A 1973 diagnosis of colon cancer, however, led Atkins to redefine his role at RCA Records, to allow others to handle administration while he went back to his first love, the guitar, often recording with Reed or even Jethro Burns from Homer and Jethro (his brother-in-law) after Homer died in 1971.[9] Atkins would turn over his administrative duties to Jerry Bradley, son of Owen, in 1973 at RCA.
Atkins did little production work at RCA after stepping down and in fact, had hired producers at the label in the 1960s, among them Bob Ferguson and Felton Jarvis. As a recording artist, Atkins grew disillusioned with RCA in the late 1970s. He felt stifled because the record company would not let him branch into jazz. He had also produced late '60s jazz recordings by Canadian guitarist Lenny Breau, a friend and protege. His mid-1970s collaborations with one of his influences, Les Paul, Chester & Lester and Guitar Monsters, had already reflected that interest; Chester & Lester was one of the best-selling recordings of Atkins's career. At the same time, he grew dissatisfied with the direction Gretsch (no longer family-owned) was going and withdrew his authorization for them to use his name and began designing guitars with Gibson. In 1982, Atkins ended his 35-year association with RCA Records and signed with rival Columbia Records. He produced his first album for Columbia in 1983.[16]
Atkins had always been an ardent lover of jazz and throughout his career he was often criticized by "pure" country musicians for his jazz influences. He also said on many occasions that he did not like being referred to as a "country guitarist", insisting that he was "a guitarist, period." Although he played by ear and was a masterful improviser, he was able to read music and even performed some classical guitar pieces. When Roger C. Field, a friend, suggested to him in 1991 that he record and perform with a female singer, he did so with Suzy Bogguss.[9]
Atkins returned to his country roots for albums he recorded with Mark Knopfler and Jerry Reed.[9] Knopfler had long mentioned Atkins as one of his earliest influences. Atkins also collaborated with Australian guitar legend Tommy Emmanuel. On being asked to name the ten most influential guitarists of the twentieth century, he named Django Reinhardt to the first position, and also placed himself on the list.[24]
In later years, he returned to radio, appearing on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion program, on American Public Media radio, even picking up a fiddle from time to time,[9] and performing songs such as Bob Wills's "Corrina, Corrina" and Willie Nelson's "Seven Spanish Angels" with Nelson on a 1985 broadcast of the show at the Bridges Auditorium on the campus of Pomona College.
Death and legacy
[edit]
Atkins received numerous awards, including 14 Grammy awards and nine Country Music Association awards for Instrumentalist of the Year.[16] In 1993, he was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Billboard magazine awarded him its Century Award, its "highest honor for distinguished creative achievement", in December 1997.[25] In 2002, Atkins was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[23] His award was presented by Marty Stuart and Brian Setzer and accepted by Atkins's grandson, Jonathan Russell. The following year, Atkins ranked number 28 in Country Music Television's "40 Greatest Men of Country Music". In November 2011, Rolling Stone ranked Atkins number 21 on their list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".[2]
Atkins is notable for his broad influence. His love for numerous styles of music can be traced from his early recording of the stride pianist James P. Johnson's "Johnson Rag", all the way to the rock stylings of Eric Johnson, an invited guest on Atkins's recording sessions, who, when Atkins attempted to copy his influential rocker "Cliffs of Dover", led to Atkins's creation of a unique arrangement of "Londonderry Air (Danny Boy)".
The classical guitar selections included on almost all his albums were, for many American artists working in the field today, the first classical guitar they ever heard. He recorded smooth jazz guitar still played on American airwaves.
Atkins continued performing in the 1990s, but his health declined after he was again diagnosed with colon cancer in 1996. He died on June 30, 2001, at his home in Nashville, Tennessee, at age 77.[26] His memorial service was held at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.[27] He was buried at Harpeth Hills Memory Gardens in Nashville.
A stretch of Interstate 185 in southwest Georgia (between LaGrange and Columbus) is named "Chet Atkins Parkway".[28] This stretch of interstate runs through Fortson, where Atkins spent much of his childhood.
At the age of 13, the future jazz guitarist Earl Klugh was captivated watching Atkins perform on The Perry Como Show.[29] He was also a big influence on Doyle Dykes,[30] and inspired Tommy Emmanuel.[31] Johnny Winter's thumb-picking style came from Atkins' playing.[32] Steve Howe called Atkins his favorite "all round guitarist", adding that "there are those in different areas of music who are better than him, but nobody had the same ability when it comes to being across the board. For me, it was an education to listen to what he did."[33]
Clint Black's album Nothin' but the Taillights includes the song "Ode to Chet", which includes the lyrics "'Cause I can win her over like Romeo did Juliet, if I can only show her I can almost pick that legato lick like Chet" and "It'll take more than Mel Bay 1, 2, & 3 if I'm ever gonna play like CGP." Atkins played guitar on the track. At the end of the song, Black and Atkins had a brief conversation.
Atkins' song "Jam Man" is currently[when?] used in commercials for Esurance.
In 1967, a tribute song, "Chet's Tune", was produced for Atkins' birthday, with contributions by a long list of RCA Victor artists, including Eddy Arnold, Connie Smith, Jerry Reed, Willie Nelson, Hank Snow, and others. The song was written by the Nashville songwriter Cy Coben, a friend of Atkins. The single reached number 38 on the country charts.[34][35][36]
In 2009, Steve Wariner released an album titled My Tribute to Chet Atkins. One song from that record, "Producer's Medley", featured Wariner's recreation of several famous songs that Atkins both produced and performed. "Producer's Medley" won the Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance in 2010.
Discography
[edit]
Further information: Chet Atkins discography
Industry awards
[edit]
Country Music Association
1967 Instrumentalist of the Year
1968 Instrumentalist of the Year
1969 Instrumentalist of the Year
1981 Instrumentalist of the Year
1982 Instrumentalist of the Year
1983 Instrumentalist of the Year
1984 Instrumentalist of the Year
1985 Instrumentalist of the Year
1988 Musician of the Year
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Inducted in 1973
Grammy Awards
Award Year Work/s Won 1971 Best Country Instrumental Performance with Jerry Reed – 1972 Me and Jerry Won Best Country Instrumental Performance 1972 "Snowbird" Won Best Country Instrumental Performance with Merle Travis – 1973 The Atkins-Travis Traveling Show Won Best Country Instrumental Performance 1976 "The Entertainer" Won Best Country Instrumental Performance with Les Paul 1977 Chester and Lester Won Best Country Instrumental Performance 1982 Country After All These Years Won Best Country Instrumental Performance with Mark Knopfler 1986 "Cosmic Square Dance" Won Best Country Instrumental Performance with Mark Knopfler 1991 "So Soft, Your Goodbye" Won 1991 Best Country Vocal Collaboration with Mark Knopfler 1991 "Poor Boy Blues" Won Best Country Instrumental Performance with Jerry Reed 1993 Sneakin' Around Won 1993 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award' 1993 Honoured Best Country Instrumental Performance with Asleep at the Wheel, Eldon Shamblin, Johnny Gimble, Marty Stuart, Reuben "Lucky Oceans" Gosfield & Vince Gill 1994 "Red Wing" Won Best Country Instrumental Performance 1995 "Young Thing" Won Best Country Instrumental Performance 1996 "Jam Man" Won
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Inductees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
References
[edit]
Further reading
[edit]
Kienzle, Rich (1998). "Chet Atkins". The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, ed. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 26–27.
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https://www.ebay.com/itm/235588002935
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NEW YORK CITY EDDIE COCHRAN CHET ATKINS GUITAR DEAD ROCKER Hard Rock Cafe PIN
|
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Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for NEW YORK CITY EDDIE COCHRAN CHET ATKINS GUITAR DEAD ROCKER Hard Rock Cafe PIN at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!
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en
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eBay
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https://www.ebay.com/itm/235588002935
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$2.00 shipping for each additional eligible item you buy from phlexster.US $9.99GermanyEconomy International ShippingEstimated between Thu, Aug 1 and Fri, Aug 16 to 60323
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https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/the-12-most-influential-guitarists-of-all-timeand-their-signature-styles
|
en
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The 12 Most Influential Guitarists of All Time—and Their Signature Styles
|
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2020-04-14T10:29:42+00:00
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These dozen guitarists shaped music in the 20th century and forever changed the guitar's role.
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en
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Guitar Player
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https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/the-12-most-influential-guitarists-of-all-timeand-their-signature-styles
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Anytime you draw up a list of the “greatest” guitarists of all time—or in this case “most influential”—passions are bound to be ignited one way or the other.
After all, we each have our own favorites, whether it be a particular player, style or era. However, that doesn’t mean such a list can’t be based on some element of objective reasoning. To some extent, the proof is in all of us: anyone who picks up the instrument borrows at least a handful of techniques and stylistic tendencies that someone else brought to the table. The key is determining which guitarists have had the most impact among the larger number of players—in other words, who has contributed most across the board to the way we approach the instrument.
One thing is for certain: if the following musicians are not the 12 most influential guitarists of all time, they are certainly 12 of the most influential.
Regardless of their respective styles, all are players who have excited the imagination and kindled the flame to pick up the instrument in countless individuals. By singling them out, we honor their contributions and, at the same time, bring to mind great guitar music we have treasured.
ROBERT JOHNSON
Robert Johnson is the greatest blues guitarist of all time and one of rock’s founding fathers from the pre-World War II Delta blues era. While his haunting and suggestive lyrics have inspired singers in all genres, it’s his virtuoso and innovative solo guitar playing that places him on this list.
Three recording sessions between 1936 and 1937 produced 29 songs, including the verifiable classics “(I Believe I’ll) Dust My Broom,” “Sweet Home Chicago,’” “Walkin’ Blues,” “Love in Vain” and “Crossroad Blues.” His popularization of cut boogie patterns presaged electric Chicago blues and rock and roll, while his fretted and slide guitar licks are so timeless that they still show up in contemporary music.
The first guitar hero, Johnson had the attitude to go with the chops. His tragic death in 1938 at the age of 27 has made him an icon for those who also mourn Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison.
In the style of Robert Johnson:
CHARLIE CHRISTIAN
When Charlie Christian got on the bandstand with Benny Goodman in 1939, he single-handedly propelled the electric guitar into the mainstream. Though he wasn’t the first guitarist to plug in and play electrified, Christian’s performances as a soloist on Goodman tracks like “Flying Home” and “Honeysuckle Rose” document the first instances that the electric guitar was used effectively as a lead instrument in a Big Band setting.
The increased volume and sustain that amplification offered put the guitar on a level playing field with customary soloing instruments like the trumpet and saxophone, and Christian’s participation in early bebop jam sessions alongside such luminaries as Thelonius Monk and Dizzy Gillespie also makes him one of the founding fathers of the genre.
Sadly, Christian died from tuberculosis at 26. HIs body of work inspired a generation of jazz guitar giants, including Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis, Wes Montgomery, Tal Farlow and Jim Hall.
In the style of Charlie Christian:
B.B. KING
Every guitarist who bends or vibratoes a string to make it sing owes a debt to B.B. King. With influences as diverse as T-Bone Walker, Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt, the late guitarist turned the blues world upside down in 1952 with “3 O’Clock Blues.” Almost overnight, the harmonica was supplanted as the primary solo instrument in blues, as guitarists scrambled to imitate B.B.’s soloing style, especially in Chicago.
In 1970, B.B. crossed over to the white rock audience with “The Thrill Is Gone.” In 1988, he virtually repeated the trick when he recorded “When Love Comes to Town” with U2. Always the humble student of the instrument, B.B. King became jazzier and better than ever as his life and career continued well into the new century. His loss earlier this year was deeply felt by the music community and, particularly, by the guitarist he influenced.
In the style of B.B. King:
CHET ATKINS
Chet Atkins made countless recordings as a studio musician and solo artist, beginning in the Forties. In fact, much of the session work he recorded and/or produced in Nashville with artists like Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and the Everly Brothers laid the foundation for early rock and roll.
Though comfortable playing many styles, Atkins was most often associated with country music and the acoustic guitar. By using a combination of his fingers and a thumb pick, he created his signature “fingerpicking” sound—a style somewhat inspired by fellow guitarist Merle Travis. Atkins even recorded a duo album with Travis, as well as with other respected guitarist like Doc Watson, Les Paul, Jerry Reed and Mark Knopfler.
A guitar legend, Atkins was elected to the Country Music Hal of Fame in 1973. His musical contributions inspired artists ranging from Eric Johnson to the late Lenny Breau. In virtually any high-end music store, you can still find Chet Atkins signature model guitars, which Gibson and Gretsch designed to his specifications.
In the style of Chet Atkins:
CHUCK BERRY
The first popular performer to sing, play and write his own material, Chuck Berry roared into rock and roll in 1955 with the country two-beat rhythms of “Maybellene” and claimed the genre for his own. His influences were similar to those of B.B. King but also include jump blues and country-and-western music.
It was Berry’s songs from the late Fifties with cut boogie patterns—like “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Johnny B. Goode” and “Carol”—that realized electrically the guitar ambitions first dreamt by Robert Johnson. Berry’s tone—courtesy of a hollow-body Gibson through a tweed Fender amp—was raw and loud. This, along with his duckwalk, ringing double-stops and songs about cars and girls, grabbed the youth market. Tall and handsome, he brought the guitar as the “cool” instruments to a ready audience via appearances on TV and in movies, in a way that the Beatles would repeat in the early Sixties.
In the style of Chuck Berry:
WES MONTGOMERY
John Leslie “Wes” Montgomery first picked up the guitar in 1943, at the relatively late age of 19. He honed his chops by emulating his hero, Charlie Christian, and got his first paying gig by playing Christian’s solos note for note.
Unlike Christian, however, Montgomery used his thumb instead of a pick to create the percussive-yet-warm tone associated with his style. (According to interviews, Wes learned to play with his thumb because it created a softer sound, appeasing his neighbors.) With his phenomenal ear, Wes quickly grew beyond his influences and developed a style all his own. His knack for melody, groundbreaking use of octaves in a soloing context and intricate chord solos—as demonstrated in his devastating interpretations of standards like “Round Midnight” and “Days of Wine and Roses”—broadened the range of guitar, pushing the instrument into unchartered territory.
Montgomery died in 1968 at the pinnacle of his career. his musicality has inspired a broad range of jazz guitarists, including George Benson, Joe Diorio and Pat Metheny.
In the style of Wes Montgomery:
ERIC CLAPTON
Bluesy British bloke Eric Clapton has been a household name since his recording debut with the Yardbirds in 1963. During the mid Sixties, his legendary performances with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and Cream established him as a pioneer of the modern electric blues and rock guitar.
In the Seventies, Clapton’s work with Derek and the Dominos and his first solo albums added a slew of masterpieces like “Layla” and “Lay Down Sally” to classic rock’s repertoire. The Eighties also saw Clapton’s music featured in movies (The Hit in 1984 and Lethal Weapon in 1987) and commercials (“After Midnight” for Michelob in 1987), while a string of albums produced by Phil Collins established Clapton as a pop/rock icon.
After championing the “unplugged” phenomenon in the early Nineties with his MTV Unplugged concert, Clapton returned to his roots with From the Cradle. He has since helped keep the blues alive with his annual three-day Crossroads festival, which features both Clapton and a host of established and upcoming blues guitarists.
Regardless of the musical format, Eric Clapton has always kept his brilliant blues-inspired guitar playing in the forefront, influencing the likes of Eddie Van Halen, Steve Lukather, Joe Satriani, Jonny Lang and countless others.
In the style of Eric Clapton:
JIMI HENDRIX
In his early days, Jimmy James, as he was then known, played in rhythm sections, backing artists like Little Richard, B.B. King and Ike and Tina Turner. It isn’t until 1966, when he moved to London and formed the Experience, that Jimi Hendrix was able to cut loose and start getting the attention he deserved for his magnificent guitar work. Alarmingly, Hendrix was virtually unknown in the U.S. until he played at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967—the legendary performance in which he doused his Fender Stratocaster with lighter fluid and set it on fire.
Though he was influenced by everyone from B.B. King to Muddy Waters to Chuck Berry and Bob Dylan, Hendrix’s complete artistic vision included elements of blues, funk, rock, psychedelia and utter chaos. His frequent use of effects like the wah and Octavia pedal, pioneering studio effects like “backward” guitar and flanging, and use of controlled feedback and the tremolo bar added another dimension to his music.
Hendrix also had a beautifully subtle side, as depicted in tracks like “Little Wing,” “Bold As Love” and “Castles Made of Sand.” He died on September 18, 1970. During his brief stay on this planet, he had a profound impact on musicians ranging from Miles Davis to Eric Johnson to Stevie Ray Vaughan.
In the style of Jimi Hendrix:
JIMMY PAGE
Jimmy Page is one of rock music’s ultimate riff masters, guitar orchestrators and studio revolutionaries. His vast body of work with the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin exhibits the type of wild abandon often associated with Jimi Hendrix, the passion and grit of a seasoned bluesman, and the sensitivity of a folk musician.
Extremely eclectic, Page has a diverse array of guitaristic influences, which includes blues guitarists Otis Rush, Buddy Guy and Hubert Sumlin as well as early rockabilly guitarists Cliff Gallup and Scotty Moore. He combined these influences with a strong interest in the occult and plenty of his own studio savvy to paint a musical landscape within every Led Zeppelin song. Page’s landmark use of echo effects in tracks like “How Many More Times” and “You Shook Me,” bizarre tunings in cuts like “Friends” and “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp,” and excursions with a violin bow in songs like “Dazed and Confused” yielded textures that were unparalleled at the time.
Although Led Zeppelin disbanded in 1980 after drummer John Bonham’s death, they have reunited on a few occasions, most recently in 2007 for a tribute concert in memory of Ahmet Ertegun, who had signed them to Atlantic and launched their career. Page continues to go strong. After reissuing the band’s catalog in 2014 and 2015, he’s promised a new project to come in 2016. We couldn’t be happier, and more eager to hear what he has.
In the style of Jimmy Page:
EDDIE VAN HALEN
Believe it or not, Eddie Van Halen hadn’t even heard rock music until he and his family moved from the Netherlands to Pasadena California in 1967. After hearing Cream, he quickly abandoned piano and drums for the guitar, learning the instrument by picking licks off records by Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. These influences were merely a springboard, though. Eddie was quickly able to put his own mark on everything he played.
Today, Van Halen is one of rock’s most influential and imitated innovators. As unpredictable and flamboyant as Hendrix, Van Halen has had an unmeasurable impact on the guitar community. By the mid Eighties, his self-described “brown” sound, over-the-top techniques (including two-handed tapping), and revolutionary trem-bar effects inspired a generation of aspiring guitarists who bought the one-pickup, one-volume-knob, Floyd Rose–equipped Strat-style guitars that Van Halen made famous.
For a taste of Ed at his most smoking, check out “Eruption,” “Spanish Fly,” “Cathedral” and the intros to “Mean Street” and “Little Guitars.”
In the style of Eddie Van Halen:
STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN
Stevie Ray Vaughan played blues like a man possessed. The perfect combination of chops, taste, conviction, tone and showmanship, Vaughan and his ’59 Fender Stratocaster exposed a whole new generation of listeners to the blues and, in turn, Stevie’s own influences: Albert King, Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, Otis Rush and Buddy Guy.
Initially inspired by his older brother Jimmie, Stevie picked up the guitar at an early age and was playing in bands by the time he was 12. By the time he formed his legendary trio Double Trouble in 1980, Stevie Ray Vaughan was already a legend in his adopted hometown of Austin, Texas. After hearing and seeing Vaughan playing at Switzerland’s Montreux Jazz Festival, pop icon David Bowie invited Stevie to play on his Let’s Dance album. Vaughan’s career took off form there.
His first solo album, Texas Flood, was released in 1983 and featured blistering renditions of “Testify” and “Texas Flood” as well as now-classic originals like “Pride and Joy” and “Lenny.” Several other successful solo albums followed. On August 27, 190, Vaughan perished in a helicopter crash while returning form a gig he shared with Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan and Robert Cray.
In the style of Stevie Ray Vaughan:
YNGWIE J. MALMSTEEN
An import from Sweden, Yngwie J. Malmsteen specializes in what many regard as “Bach and Roll,” or neoclassical rock—a style of music that features furiously fast scalar and arpeggiated sequences reminiscent of the Bach and Paganini virtuoso organ and violin works written in the 18th century.
After moving to the U.S. for brief stints with the group’s Steeler and Alcatrazz, Malmsteen flew his old Swedish bandmates out to the states and reformed Yngwie J. Malmsteen’s Rising Force, releasing the band’s self-titled debut in 1984.
Yngwie’s staggering virtuosity, as exemplified on the track “Far Beyond the Sun,” inspired countless guitarists to refine their alternate-picking and sweep-picking chops. Some even went as far as to scallop their fretboards, carving out the wood between the frets in a crescent, as Malmsteen does, to facilitate playing with a lighter touch.
The mass appeal that Yngwie achieved among guitarists in the mid-to-late Eighties opened up the market for other burning shredders like Vinnie Moore, Tony MacAlpine, Paul Gilbert and Jason Becker, among others.
In the style of Yngwie Malmsteen:
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https://kids.kiddle.co/Chet_Atkins
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Chet Atkins facts for kids
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Learn Chet Atkins facts for kids
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/images/wk/favicon-16x16.png
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https://kids.kiddle.co/Chet_Atkins
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"Chester Atkins" redirects here. For the former U.S. congressman, see Chester G. Atkins.
"Mr. Guitar" redirects here. For the album by Charlie Byrd, see Mr. Guitar (album).
Chester Burton Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001), known as "Mr. Guitar" and "The Country Gentleman", was an American musician who, along with Owen Bradley and Bob Ferguson, helped create the Nashville sound, the country music style which expanded its appeal to adult pop music fans. He was primarily a guitarist, but he also played the mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and ukulele, and occasionally sang.
Atkins's signature picking style was inspired by Merle Travis. Other major guitar influences were Django Reinhardt, George Barnes, Les Paul, and, later, Jerry Reed. His distinctive picking style and musicianship brought him admirers inside and outside the country scene, both in the United States and abroad. Atkins spent most of his career at RCA Victor and produced records for the Browns, Hank Snow, Porter Wagoner, Norma Jean, Dolly Parton, Dottie West, Perry Como, Floyd Cramer, Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Eddy Arnold, Don Gibson, Jim Reeves, Jerry Reed, Skeeter Davis, Waylon Jennings, Roger Whittaker, and many others.
Rolling Stone credited Atkins with inventing the "popwise 'Nashville sound' that rescued country music from a commercial slump" and ranked him number 21 on their list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Among many other honors, Atkins received 14 Grammy Awards and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He also received nine Country Music Association awards for Instrumentalist of the Year. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum. George Harrison was also inspired by Chet Atkins; early Beatles songs such as "All My Loving" show the influence.
Biography
Childhood and early life
Atkins was born on June 20, 1924, in Luttrell, Tennessee, near Clinch Mountain. His parents divorced when he was six years old, after which he was raised by his mother. He was the youngest of three boys and a girl. He started out on the ukulele, later moving on to the fiddle, but he made a swap with his brother Lowell when he was nine: an old pistol and some chores for a guitar. He stated in his 1974 autobiography, "We were so poor and everybody around us was so poor that it was the forties before anyone even knew there had been a depression." Forced to relocate to Fortson, Georgia, outside of Columbus to live with his father because of a critical asthma condition, Atkins was a sensitive youth who became obsessed with music. Because of his illness, he was forced to sleep in a straight-back chair to breathe comfortably. On those nights, he played his guitar until he fell asleep holding it, a habit that lasted his whole life. While living in Fortson, Atkins attended the historic Mountain Hill School. He returned in the 1990s to play a series of charity concerts to save the school from demolition. Stories have been told about the very young Chet who, when a friend or relative would come to visit and play guitar, crowded the musician and put his ear so close to the instrument that it became difficult for the visitor to play.
Atkins became an accomplished guitarist while he was in high school. He used the restroom in the school to practice because it had good acoustics. His first guitar had a nail for a nut and was so bowed that only the first few frets could be used. He later purchased a semi-acoustic electric guitar and amp, but he had to travel many miles to find an electrical outlet, since his home didn't have electricity.
Later in life, he lightheartedly gave himself (along with John Knowles, Tommy Emmanuel, Steve Wariner, and Jerry Reed) the honorary degree CGP ("Certified Guitar Player"). In 2011, his daughter Merle Atkins Russell bestowed the CGP degree on his longtime sideman Paul Yandell. She then declared no more CGPs would be allowed by the Atkins estate.
His half-brother Jim was a successful guitarist who worked with the Les Paul Trio in New York.
Atkins did not have a strong style of his own until 1939 when (while still living in Georgia) he heard Merle Travis picking over WLW radio. This early influence dramatically shaped his unique playing style. Whereas Travis used his index finger on his right hand for the melody and his thumb for the bass notes, Atkins expanded his right-hand style to include picking with his first three fingers, with the thumb on bass.
Chet Atkins was an amateur radio general class licensee. Formerly using the call sign WA4CZD, he obtained the vanity call sign W4CGP in 1998 to include the CGP designation, which supposedly stood for "Certified Guitar Picker". He was a member of the American Radio Relay League.
Early musical career
After dropping out of high school in 1942, Atkins landed a job at WNOX (AM) (now WNML) radio in Knoxville, where he played fiddle and guitar with the singer Bill Carlisle and the comic Archie Campbell and became a member of the station's Dixieland Swingsters, a small swing instrumental combo. After three years, he moved to WLW-AM in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Merle Travis had formerly worked.
After six months, he moved to Raleigh and worked with Johnnie and Jack before heading for Richmond, Virginia, where he performed with Sunshine Sue Workman. Atkins's shy personality worked against him, as did the fact that his sophisticated style led many to doubt he was truly "country". He was fired often but was soon able to land another job at another radio station on account of his unique playing ability.
Atkins and Jethro Burns (of Homer and Jethro) married twin sisters Leona and Lois Johnson, who sang as Laverne and Fern Johnson, the Johnson Sisters. Leona Atkins outlived her husband by eight years, dying in 2009 at the age of 85.
Travelling to Chicago, Atkins auditioned for Red Foley, who was leaving his star position on WLS-AM's National Barn Dance to join the Grand Ole Opry. Atkins made his first appearance at the Opry in 1946 as a member of Foley's band. He also recorded a single for Nashville-based Bullet Records that year. That single, "Guitar Blues", was fairly progressive, including a clarinet solo by the Nashville dance band musician Dutch McMillan, with Owen Bradley on piano. He had a solo spot on the Opry, but when that was cut, Atkins moved on to KWTO in Springfield, Missouri. Despite the support of executive Si Siman, however, he soon was fired for not sounding "country enough".
Signing with RCA Victor
While working with a Western band in Denver, Colorado, Atkins came to the attention of RCA Victor. Siman had been encouraging Steve Sholes to sign Atkins, as his style (with the success of Merle Travis as a hit recording artist) was suddenly in vogue. Sholes, A&R director of country music at RCA, tracked Atkins down in Denver.
He made his first RCA Victor recordings in Chicago in 1947, but they did not sell. He did some studio work for RCA that year, but had relocated to Knoxville again where he worked with Homer and Jethro on WNOX's new Saturday night radio show The Tennessee Barn Dance and the popular Midday Merry Go Round.
In 1949, he left WNOX to join June Carter with Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters on KWTO. This incarnation of the Carter Family featured Maybelle Carter and daughters June, Helen, and Anita. Their work soon attracted attention from the Grand Ole Opry. The group relocated to Nashville in the mid-1950s. Atkins began working on recording sessions and performing on WSM-AM and the Opry. Atkins became a member of the Opry in the 1950s.
While he had not yet had a hit record for RCA Victor, his stature was growing. He began assisting Sholes as a session leader when the New York–based producer needed help organizing Nashville sessions for RCA Victor artists. Atkins's first hit single was "Mr. Sandman", followed by "Silver Bell", which he recorded as a duet with Hank Snow. His albums also became more popular. He was featured on ABC-TV's The Eddy Arnold Show in the summer of 1956 and on Country Music Jubilee in 1957 and 1958 (by then renamed Jubilee USA).
In addition to recording, Atkins was a design consultant for Gretsch, which manufactured a popular Chet Atkins line of electric guitars from 1955 to 1980. He became manager of RCA Victor's Nashville studios, eventually inspiring and seeing the completion of the legendary RCA Studio B, the first studio built specifically for the purpose of recording on the now-famous Music Row. Also later on, Chet and Owen Bradley would become instrumental in the creation of studio B's adjacent building RCA Studio A as well.
Performer and producer
When Sholes took over pop production in 1957—a result of his success with Elvis Presley—he put Atkins in charge of RCA Victor's Nashville division. With country music record sales declining as rock and roll became more popular, Atkins and Bob Ferguson took their cue from Owen Bradley and eliminated fiddles and steel guitar as a means of making country singers appeal to pop fans. This became known as the Nashville sound, which Atkins said was a label created by the media for a style of recording during that period intended to keep country (and their jobs) viable.
Atkins used the Jordanaires and a rhythm section on hits such as Jim Reeves's "Four Walls" and "He'll Have to Go" and Don Gibson's "Oh Lonesome Me" and "Blue Blue Day". The once-rare phenomenon of having a country hit cross over to pop success became more common. He and Bradley had essentially put the producer in the driver's seat, guiding an artist's choice of material and the musical background.
Atkins made his own records, which usually visited pop standards and jazz, in a sophisticated home studio, often recording the rhythm tracks at RCA and adding his solo parts at home, refining the tracks until the results satisfied him. Guitarists of all styles came to admire various Atkins albums for their unique musical ideas and in some cases experimental electronic ideas. In this period, he became known internationally as "Mister Guitar", inspiring an album, Mister Guitar, engineered by both Bob Ferris and Bill Porter, Ferris's replacement.
At the end of March 1959, Porter took over as chief engineer at RCA's Nashville studio, in the space eventually known as Studio B after the facility expanded with a second studio in 1960. (At the time, RCA's sole Nashville studio had no letter designation.) Porter soon helped Atkins get a better reverberation sound from the studio's German effects device, an EMT plate reverb. With his golden ear, Porter found the studio's acoustics to be problematic, and he devised a set of acoustic baffles to hang from the ceiling, then selected positions for microphones based on resonant room modes. The sound of the recordings improved significantly, and the studio achieved a string of successes. The Nashville sound became more dynamic. In later years, when Bradley asked how he achieved his sound, Atkins told him "it was Porter." Porter described Atkins as respectful of musicians when recording—if someone was out of tune, he would not single that person out by name. Instead, he would say something like, "we got a little tuning problem ... Everybody check and see what's going on." If that did not work, Atkins would instruct Porter to turn the offending player down in the mix. When Porter left RCA in late-1964, Atkins said, "the sound was never the same, never as great."
Atkins's trademark "Atkins style" of playing uses the thumb and first two or sometimes three fingers of the right hand. He developed this style from listening to Merle Travis, occasionally on a primitive radio. He was sure no one could play that articulately with just the thumb and index finger (which was exactly how Travis played), and he assumed it required the thumb and two fingers—and that was the style he pioneered and mastered.
He enjoyed jamming with fellow studio musicians, and they were asked to perform at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960. That performance was cancelled because of rioting, but a live recording of the group (After the Riot at Newport) was released. Atkins performed by invitation at the White House for every U.S. president from John F. Kennedy through to George H. W. Bush. Atkins was a member of the Million Dollar Band during the 1980s. He is also well known for his song "Yankee Doodle Dixie", in which he played "Yankee Doodle" and "Dixie" simultaneously, on the same guitar.
Before his mentor Sholes died in 1968, Atkins had become vice president of RCA's country division. In 1987, he told Nine-O-One Network magazine that he was "ashamed" of his promotion: "I wanted to be known as a guitarist and I know, too, that they give you titles like that in lieu of money. So beware when they want to make you vice president." He had brought Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Connie Smith, Bobby Bare, Dolly Parton, Jerry Reed, and John Hartford to the label in the 1960s and inspired and helped countless others. He took a considerable risk during the mid-1960s, when the civil rights movement sparked violence throughout the South, by signing country music's first African-American singer, Charley Pride, who sang rawer country than the smoother music Atkins had pioneered.
Atkins's biggest hit single came in 1965, with "Yakety Axe", an adaptation of "Yakety Sax", by his friend, the saxophonist Boots Randolph. He rarely performed in those days and eventually hired other RCA producers, such as Bob Ferguson and Felton Jarvis, to lessen his workload.
Later career
In the 1970s, Atkins became increasingly stressed by his executive duties. He produced fewer records, but could still turn out hits such as Perry Como's 1973 pop hit "And I Love You So". He recorded extensively with close friend and fellow picker Jerry Reed, who had become a hit artist in his own right. A 1973 diagnosis of colon cancer, however, led Atkins to redefine his role at RCA Records, to allow others to handle administration while he went back to his first love, the guitar, often recording with Reed or even Jethro Burns from Homer and Jethro (his brother-in-law) after Homer died in 1971. Atkins would turn over his administrative duties to Jerry Bradley, son of Owen, in 1973 at RCA.
Atkins did little production work at RCA after stepping down and in fact, had hired producers at the label in the 1960s, among them Bob Ferguson and Felton Jarvis. As a recording artist, Atkins grew disillusioned with RCA in the late 1970s. He felt stifled because the record company would not let him branch into jazz. He had also produced late '60s jazz recordings by Canadian guitarist Lenny Breau, a friend and protege. His mid-1970s collaborations with one of his influences, Les Paul, Chester & Lester and Guitar Monsters, had already reflected that interest; Chester & Lester was one of the best-selling recordings of Atkins's career. At the same time, he grew dissatisfied with the direction Gretsch (no longer family-owned) was going and withdrew his authorization for them to use his name and began designing guitars with Gibson. Atkins ended his 35-year association with RCA Records in 1982 and signed with Columbia Records, for whom he produced a debut album in 1983.
Jazz had always been a strong love of his, and often in his career he was criticized by "pure" country musicians for his jazz influences. He also said on many occasions that he did not like being called a "country guitarist", insisting that he was "a guitarist, period." Although he played by ear and was a masterful improviser, he was able to read music and even performed some classical guitar pieces. When Roger C. Field, a friend, suggested to him in 1991 that he record and perform with a female singer, he did so with Suzy Bogguss.
He returned to his country roots for albums he recorded with Mark Knopfler and Jerry Reed. Knopfler had long mentioned Atkins as one of his earliest influences. Atkins also collaborated with Australian guitar legend Tommy Emmanuel. On being asked to name the ten most influential guitarists of the twentieth century, he named Django Reinhardt to the first position, and also placed himself on the list.
In later years, he even went back to radio, appearing on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion radio program, on American Public Media radio, even picking up a fiddle from time to time, and performing songs such as Bob Wills's "Corrina, Corrina" and Willie Nelson's "Seven Spanish Angels" with Nelson on a 1985 broadcast of the show at the Bridges Auditorium on the campus of Pomona College.
Death and legacy
Atkins received numerous awards, including 14 Grammy awards and nine Country Music Association awards for Instrumentalist of the Year. In 1993, he was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Billboard magazine awarded him its Century Award, its "highest honor for distinguished creative achievement", in December 1997.
Atkins is notable for his broad influence. His love for numerous styles of music can be traced from his early recording of the stride pianist James P. Johnson's "Johnson Rag", all the way to the rock stylings of Eric Johnson, an invited guest on Atkins's recording sessions, who, when Atkins attempted to copy his influential rocker "Cliffs of Dover", led to Atkins's creation of a unique arrangement of "Londonderry Air (Danny Boy)".
The classical guitar selections included on almost all his albums were, for many American artists working in the field today, the first classical guitar they ever heard. He recorded smooth jazz guitar still played on American airwaves today.
Atkins continued performing in the 1990s, but his health declined after he was diagnosed again with colon cancer in 1996. He died on June 30, 2001, at his home in Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 77. His memorial service was held at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. He was buried at Harpeth Hills Memory Gardens in Nashville.
A stretch of Interstate 185 in southwest Georgia (between LaGrange and Columbus) is named "Chet Atkins Parkway". This stretch of interstate runs through Fortson, where Atkins spent much of his childhood.
In 2002, Atkins was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His award was presented by Marty Stuart and Brian Setzer and accepted by Atkins's grandson, Jonathan Russell. The following year, Atkins ranked number 28 in Country Music Television's "40 Greatest Men of Country Music".
At the age of 13, the future jazz guitarist Earl Klugh was captivated watching Atkins's guitar playing on The Perry Como Show. Similarly, he was a big influence on Doyle Dykes. Atkins also inspired Drexl Jonez and Tommy Emmanuel.
Johnny Winter's thumb-picking style came from Atkin's playing.
Clint Black's album Nothin' but the Taillights includes the song "Ode to Chet", which includes the lyrics "'Cause I can win her over like Romeo did Juliet, if I can only show her I can almost pick that legato lick like Chet" and "It'll take more than Mel Bay 1, 2, & 3 if I'm ever gonna play like CGP." Atkins played guitar on the track. At the end of the song, Black and Atkins had a brief conversation.
Atkins' song "Jam Man" is currently used in commercials for Esurance.
In 1967, a tribute song, "Chet's Tune", was produced for Atkins' birthday, with contributions by a long list of RCA Victor artists, including Eddy Arnold, Connie Smith, Jerry Reed, Willie Nelson, Hank Snow, and others. The song was written by the Nashville songwriter Cy Coben, a friend of Atkins. The single reached number 38 on the country charts.
In 2009, Steve Wariner released an album titled My Tribute to Chet Atkins. One song from that record, "Producer's Medley", featured Wariner's recreation of several famous songs that Atkins both produced and performed. "Producer's Medley" won the Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance in 2010.
In November 2011, Rolling Stone ranked Atkins number 21 on their list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
Discography
For more details, see Chet Atkins discography
Industry awards
Country Music Association
1967 Instrumentalist of the Year
1968 Instrumentalist of the Year
1969 Instrumentalist of the Year
1981 Instrumentalist of the Year
1982 Instrumentalist of the Year
1983 Instrumentalist of the Year
1984 Instrumentalist of the Year
1985 Instrumentalist of the Year
1988 Musician of the Year
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Inducted in 1973
Grammy Awards
Award Year Work/s Won 1971 Best Country Instrumental Performance with Jerry Reed – 1972 Me and Jerry Won Best Country Instrumental Performance 1972 "Snowbird" Won Best Country Instrumental Performance with Merle Travis – 1973 The Atkins-Travis Traveling Show Won Best Country Instrumental Performance 1976 "The Entertainer" Won Best Country Instrumental Performance with Les Paul 1977 Chester and Lester Won Best Country Instrumental Performance 1982 Country After All These Years Won Best Country Instrumental Performance with Mark Knopfler 1986 "Cosmic Square Dance" Won Best Country Instrumental Performance with Mark Knopfler 1991 "So Soft, Your Goodbye" Won 1991 Best Country Vocal Collaboration with Mark Knopfler 1991 "Poor Boy Blues" Won Best Country Instrumental Performance with Jerry Reed 1993 Sneakin' Around Won 1993 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award' 1993 Honoured Best Country Instrumental Performance with Asleep at the Wheel, Eldon Shamblin, Johnny Gimble, Marty Stuart, Reuben "Lucky Oceans" Gosfield & Vince Gill 1994 "Red Wing" Won Best Country Instrumental Performance 1995 "Young Thing" Won Best Country Instrumental Performance 1996 "Jam Man" Won
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Inductees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
See also
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https://www.npr.org/2011/12/17/143837702/chet-atkins-the-lasting-influence-of-mr-guitar
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en
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Chet Atkins: The Lasting Influence Of 'Mr. Guitar'
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[
"Craig Havighurst"
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2011-12-17T00:00:00
|
Atkins climbed from humble beginnings to become a major record producer and one of the most famous guitarists of his era. Ten years after his death, he's the subject of continued adoration — and a new exhibition at Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
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en
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NPR
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https://www.npr.org/2011/12/17/143837702/chet-atkins-the-lasting-influence-of-mr-guitar
|
Chet Atkins is no longer the household name he was in the 1960s, when he was all over TV and radio with his guitar. But every year, the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society packs a Nashville hotel. This year's gathering was the 27th.
"I saw the list of countries this year, and it's like New Zealand, Japan, Poland," says Pat Kirtley. "And the common bond is the music of Chet Atkins."
Kirtley has performed at Chet Atkins Days for 22 years. He's a veteran finger-style guitarist who attributes the very possibility of his career to Atkins.
"Chet made it OK to be a solo guitar player," he says. "It's not that there weren't solo guitar players before him — but there weren't that many. Chet took solo guitar to everybody."
Even to this day, young devotees are embracing Atkins' style. Ben Hall, a 22-year-old from Okolona, Miss., showcased at this year's convention. Hall uses the tricky right-hand technique that Atkins adopted from Kentuckian Merle Travis and refined in the 1940s and '50s.
"It revolves around a bass note," Hall says. "The fingers ... Merle used one, Chet thought Merle was using two. So he used two and three and sometimes a handful of fingers. They play the melody. And there's famous stories of so many great guitar players along the way who play other styles listening to this and saying, 'I had no idea that's one instrument.' "
Atkins made his first solo recordings in the mid-1940s, but it would take him until 1955 to land his first hit, "Mr. Sandman." He was 31 by then, and more than a decade into his professional career. Born in the Appalachian town of Luttrell, Tenn., he'd acquired a hard-to-play Sears Silvertone acoustic guitar when he was about 10 years old.
Inspired by Travis and jazz guitarists George Barnes and Django Reinhardt, Atkins practiced obsessively in high school and then sought work. Carolyn Tate, chief curator of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum exhibition, says it was a struggle at first.
"He knocked around on the radio circuit for a good long while," Tate says. "Your radio popularity in those days was based on the number of cards and letters that you got in. And he was just so shy, nobody was writing in for him — and so when times got tough, they would get rid of Chet."
Then, a connection with one of the seminal early country-music groups changed everything. Atkins began backing up The Carter Family (then known as The Carter Sisters) at the end of the 1940s. When the Carters were asked to join the Grand Ole Opry in 1950, Atkins came with them and quickly established himself in Nashville's new recording scene. He backed Hank Williams in "Cold, Cold Heart" and Elvis in "Heartbreak Hotel." And on records like Jazz from the Hills in 1952, Atkins and his fellow Music Row pickers breached the limits of country sessions and swung with the best of them.
"He'd launch into some kind of brand-new jazz style of playing or something that nobody had ever heard before, all because of all the things that had entered his head up to that point," Hall says.
Hall says Atkins was open to all the great music of his era, and cites a letter Atkins wrote to his sister from New York City.
"He said, 'I've heard some great music since I've been here. I even heard a guy named Art Tatum — you know, the fellow who plays such fine piano.' That tells you all you need to know about how curious Chet's ears were," Hall says.
Atkins would bring the city to the hills and the hills to the city for the rest of his career. As a recording artist, he made nearly 90 studio albums and released more than 100 singles, featuring intricate arrangements of everything from old fiddle tunes to calypso music to Beatles covers.
Atkins also enjoyed a long, influential career as a music executive. As head of RCA Records in Nashville, he became one of the architects of the so-called Nashville Sound. That fusion of country with string-laden pop rankled some traditional music fans, but it opened up new markets and helped Music City thrive in the 1960s.
Tate, the Hall of Fame curator, says the exhibition aims to tell those stories, while also letting visitors glimpse the private Chet Atkins.
"Folks that knew him and went to the house spoke of him being the consummate tinkerer," Tate says. "There were very few of his guitars he hasn't put a drill to or a saw to or put a big hole in it, or just made it his own."
The museum reconstructed Atkins' home workbench and filled it with the voltage testers, vacuum tubes and other things that were on it when he died in 2001. Country star Steve Wariner, a longtime Atkins friend and protege, says it's the perfect unifying symbol.
"I had goose bumps," Wariner says. "It's exactly the way it looked at his house when you walked into his control room."
Wariner recalls bringing over an electrified classical guitar whose bridge had become separated in a hot car. He'd hoped for advice about where to get it fixed.
"And he lays it up on his workbench, loosens the strings and pulls them apart. And he reaches over, and he's grabbing tools," Wariner says. "He takes the bridge off it, and I'm like, 'Oh my god, he took my bridge off.' And he says, 'Just leave it with me.' So Chet fixed it for me. Didn't charge me a penny, of course. And I'm thinking, 'How cool is that? Chet Atkins working on this guitar?' "
Over the last decades of his life, Atkins stepped back from the business and made more time to record and perform — with symphony orchestras, at the White House and at home. When he appeared on Johnny Cash's short-lived variety show in 1970, Cash introduced the legend with a poem he'd written just for the occasion:
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https://www.chetsociety.com/aboutcaas
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About — Chet Atkins Appreciation Society
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Chet Atkins Appreciation Society
|
https://www.chetsociety.com/aboutcaas
|
About…
The original Chet Atkins Fan Club was created in 1951 by Margaret Fields. The group helped promote Chet when he was just starting to get popular, and continued until 1962. From 1962 until 1983, Chet's fanbase around the world continued to grow, but there was no gathering point for his followers. In 1983, Jim Ferron and Mark Pritcher, with Chet's personal cooperation, started a new group with a different focus. Instead of a traditional fan club, they envisioned a society to honor Chet which would focus on his musical technique and body of work, and also his career legacy. As well, the concept would include Chet's guitar mentors and collaborators, such as Jerry Reed, Merle Travis, Lenny Breau, and Django Reinhart. With these ideas in mind, the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society was launched. The society's membership now includes many astute people from the music world - guitarists, both amateur and professional, songwriters, authors, performers, historians, producers, engineers, designers, sidemen, guitar makers, and just plain folks - brought together through Chet Atkins and his diverse interests and accomplishments.
Through 2000, Chet himself participated at the annual conventions, and his presence was welcomed and appreciated by all. Since his passing, we continue to keep his music alive and appreciate the many contributions he made to the guitar and the music of America. The society's president Dr. Mark Pritcher, along with a staff of dedicated volunteers, work to keep it running and growing. There are currently over 1000 worldwide members, and each summer, the CAAS welcomes attendees from all over the world to its annual convention at the Sheraton Music City Hotel in Nashville.
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https://wgna.com/ixp/623/p/chet-atkins-death/
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22 Years Ago: Chet Atkins Dies
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"Gayle Thompson"
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2023-06-30T06:00:40-04:00
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On June 30, 2001, Chet Atkins passed away in his home, after a lengthy battle with cancer.
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en
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107.7 GNA
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https://theboot.com/chet-atkins-death/
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Twenty-two years ago today (June 30, 2001) was a sad day for country music: It was on that date that guitarist, singer, producer and music industry executive Chet Atkins passed away. He was 77 years old at the time of his death.
Atkins grew up with a love of music and, due to his chronic asthma, spent much of his time indoors honing his craft. The Tennessee native dropped out of high school in 1942 and landed a job at WNOX-AM in Knoxville, playing guitar and fiddle; he also became a member of the station's Dixieland Swingsters.
Atkins went through a series of jobs in various states, impressing people with his unprecedented guitar skills but frequently getting fired for not sounding country enough. But while working in Denver, Colo., he caught the ear of Steve Sholes, then the head of RCA Victor's country division, who convinced Atkins to record for them.
Atkins' first project, recorded in Chicago and released in 1947, did not sell, and he returned to Knoxville, working with June Carter and Mother Maybelle & the Carter Sisters. Together, they moved to Nashville in the mid-1950s, and Atkins found work as a session player and performing on WSM-AM and at the Grand Ole Opry. (He later became a member of the Opry as part of the Carter Family.)
Atkins' debut album, Chet Atkins' Gallopin' Guitar, was released in 1953, but RCA Victor's Sholes recognized his talent in other areas as well, and soon, Atkins was doing session work for other RCA artists in addition to recording his own records. He became known for his own unique style -- a fusion of country, pop and rock -- later dubbed the "Nashville Sound."
As Atkins' albums gained in popularity, so did his reputation as a producer and session player, and he became first the manager of RCA Victor's Nashville studio, then the head of the label's Nashville division in the late 1950s. He remained at RCA throughout the next few decades and is credited with helping discover several legendary artists, including Dolly Parton, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Roy Orbison and Charley Pride, among others.
Atkins officially left RCA in 1982, although he continued playing and making records. He was a frequent guest at the White House, performing for every president from John F. Kennedy through George H.W. Bush, and collaborated with numerous artists from multiple genres.
In 1996, Atkins was diagnosed with cancer; he had a brain tumor removed in 1997, but his health saw a marked decline throughout his remaining years. He died at his home in Nashville, survived by his wife Leona, who passed away in 2009, and son Merle. Atkins' funeral service was held at the Ryman Auditorium, with stars and fans filling the pews to pay homage to the musical icon.
“I’ve lost a friend, a cohort and a fellow artist in Chet Atkins," Eddy Arnold said. "We won’t ever see the like, the talent, in one man. If you ever heard of any man, anywhere, who had it all, it was this man.”
''He changed my life,'' Pride added. ''Everything that ever happened to me started with him.''
Throughout his illustrious career, Atkins won dozens of awards, including numerous Grammy Awards, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.
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https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/lenny-breau
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Lenny Breau
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Leonard Harold Breau, guitarist, singer, composer (born 5 August 1941 in Auburn, ME; died 12 August 1984 in Los Angeles, CA). ...
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en
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https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/lenny-breau
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Leonard Harold Breau, guitarist, singer, composer (born 5 August 1941 in Auburn, ME; died 12 August 1984 in Los Angeles, CA). A revered cult figure in the world of jazz guitar, and a member of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Lenny Breau was a technical genius with a delicate, idiosyncratic style. He was renowned for his comprehensive musical vocabulary — which included jazz, country, flamenco, folk and classical — and his ability to play the guitar like a piano, using fingers or pairs of fingers on his right hand independently of each other to juggle bass, melody and chords, thus playing multiple voices simultaneously. He recorded infrequently and was as notorious for his substance abuse and self-destructive tendencies as he was for his musical abilities. The legend surrounding him grew after his death in 1984, which remains an unsolved homicide.
Early Years and Career
Breau was born in Maine to Acadian parents — the country singer Hal “Lone Pine” Breau and the yodeler Betty Cody — who performed widely in concert and on radio. Lone Pine also recorded for the Banff and RCA labels, and composed such songs as “I Hear the Prairies Calling” and “Prince Edward Island is Heaven to Me.” When Breau was seven his family moved to the Maritimes, where his parents were heard locally on CKCW Moncton, CFBC Saint John, and nationally on the CBC.
Breau showed a facility for music as early as age three. He started playing guitar at age eight, was performing with his parents at 12, and by 15 was a star attraction in their band, going by the name “Lone Pine Junior.” He taught himself to play Chet Atkins’ thumb-pick and finger-style technique after hearing it on the radio, devoting himself so single-mindedly to the guitar that he dropped out of school and was by some reports barely literate.
In 1957, Breau’s family moved to Winnipeg, where his parents took a job hosting a daily half-hour show on radio station CKY. He performed regularly with his parents, received informal guidance from jazz pianist Bob Erlendson and offered the same to a young Randy Bachman, who befriended Breau at one of his shows. (Bachman has said that Breau “taught me everything about guitar” and has cited Breau’s influence on such songs as The Guess Who hit “Undun.”)
By age 20, Breau had developed a widely-admired facility in jazz, country, flamenco and folk styles. He showed a particular interest in jazz — his father once slapped him after a show for improvising a jazz part in the middle of a song — and became focused on emulating the style of jazz pianist Bill Evans.
Adult Career
Breau’s youthful virtuosity, eclecticism and technical innovation drew the attention of a manager who brought him to Torontoin 1961. Breau turned down an offer to play in Tony Bennett’s band in order to play with Don Francks and Ian Henstridge, with whom he appeared as the trio Three in the NFB documentary Toronto Jazz (1962). The trio subsequently released the live album At the Purple Onion (1963) and performed on American network television shows hosted by Jackie Gleason and Joey Bishop.
Breau's adult life was nomadic, his career interrupted repeatedly by his battle with drug addiction and depression. After stints in New York and Toronto, where he performed in nightclubs and coffeehouses such as George's Spaghetti House and the Riverboat, he returned to Winnipeg and appeared on local CBC television shows Teenbeat, Music Hop and his own The Lenny Breau Show. He was also featured in the CBC profile One More Take (1968).
In 1967, Breau met his idol Chet Atkins and turned down an offer to record for RCA before finally agreeing to record an album in Nashville with Atkins as producer. His first two albums — Guitar Sounds from Lenny Breau (1968) and The Velvet Touch of Lenny Breau – Live! (1969) — were unsuccessful commercially, but made Breau something of a legend among musicians.
Active in both pop music and jazz, Breau accompanied Peter Appleyard, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, George Hamilton IV, Gene MacLellan, Malka, Anne Murray and others. His own jazz groups were completed by such bass/drum teams as Ron Halldorson and Reg Kelln, Don Thompson and Terry Clarke, Billy Meryll and Dave Lewis, and Michel Donato and Claude Ranger.
Breau recorded several of his own compositions, some of them very casually conceived, including “Taranta,” “Spanjazz,” “Lone Pine,” “Five O'Clock Bells” and a variety of blues themes. He released 10 albums in his lifetime, but never really rose above the status of underground phenomenon. The Legendary Lenny Breau (1979), often regarded as his finest recording, was released by an obscure label that only sold it through mail order.
Between 1975 and 1981, Breau stayed out of Canada after being charged with trafficking marijuana in Toronto. (the charge was eventually reduced to simple possession and a $1,000 fine.) During this time, Breau lived in Nashville, Maine, New York and Los Angeles, where he eventually settled. He recorded intermittently, usually in country or solo settings, and also taught and performed. He returned on occasion to Canada; a recording of his performances with bassist Dave Young at the Toronto club Bourbon Street was issued posthumously in 1995. He also appeared in the US television documentary Talmadge Farlow (1981) and wrote a column for Guitar Player magazine.
Death
On 12 August 1984, Breau was found dead in the roof-top swimming pool of his apartment building in Los Angeles. The autopsy report concluded that he had been strangled and his death was ruled a homicide. No charges were laid and the case remains unsolved.
Playing Style and Technique
Breau’s unique and innovative finger-style technique opened up melodic and harmonic possibilities not previously explored by jazz guitarists. Later in his career, he began playing a custom seven-string guitar equipped with a high A tuned two octaves above the fifth string, which allowed him to replicate on guitar a pianist's capacity for simultaneous linear and chordal development.
For all of its technical clarity and facility, his playing had an impressionistic drift and an underlying lyricism. He was known to carry a Renoir print in his guitar case for inspiration, and once described himself as “a colorist, adding different colours and shades by using different techniques and touching the guitar in different ways.” He added that his goal was “to play sounds you can see if you’ve got your eyes closed.” His mastery and refinement of chime-like harmonics have been emulated by many other guitarists.
Influence and Legacy
Chet Atkins once called Breau the greatest guitarist in the world, adding, “If Chopin had played the guitar, he would have sounded like Lenny Breau.” Guitarist Danny Gatton once said, “Lenny Breau played more great stuff at one time than anybody on the planet, with feeling and tone. He was the best that ever lived, bar none.” Pat Metheny has cited Breau as a major influence and once stated that “he came up with a way of addressing the instrument technically that nobody had done before and actually no one has done since.”
Randy Bachman founded the independent label Guitarchives in 1995 specifically to reissue some of Breau’s albums, such as Cabin Fever, Live at Bourbon Street, Chance Meeting, Boy Wonder, Mosaic and the video Master Class. Other albums have been released posthumously by Art of Life Records, including Swingin' on a Seven String (2005), At the Purple Onion (2004) and The Hallmark Sessions. Breau was the subject of a feature documentary, The Genius of Lenny Breau, produced by his daughter, Emily Hughes, in 1999.
Awards
Inductee, Canadian Music Hall of Fame (1997)
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[
"Thalia Capos",
"ThaliaCapos.com"
] |
2020-07-16T00:00:00
|
Thalia Capos are exceptional guitar capos that are designed to compliment your favorite guitars. Designed for use with the fretting hand.
|
en
|
//www.thaliacapos.com/cdn/shop/files/favicon_32x32.png?v=1613772074
|
ThaliaCapos.com
|
https://www.thaliacapos.com/blogs/blog/the-quotable-chet-atkins
|
When I was a kid, I had quotes from famous guitarists stuck all over my bedroom wall.
It was a motivation tactic.
On the days when I didn’t feel the urge to pick up and play (rare, admittedly, especially when I was a teenager), those quotes reminded me of why I was strumming in the first place.
My heroes at the time were guys like Hendrix, Slash and Jimmy Page. Chet Atkins did not feature.
Today, though, it would be a different story. Not only was Chet a fantastic guitar player; his sage wisdom on the subject of pickin’ was most definitely bedroom wall worthy.
So, with that in mind, I’ve compiled a selection of my favorite Chet Atkins quotes for your reading pleasure. If these speak to you, then I’d heartily recommend printing some of them out and putting them up in your practice space. They’ve been motivating me these past few weeks; hopefully they’ll do the same for you.
On developing your sound:
“Everyone has their own sound, and if you're heard enough, folks will come to recognize it. Style however, is a different thing. Try to express your own ideas. It's much more difficult to do, but the rewards are there if you're good enough to pull it off.”
“Do it again on the next verse and people will think you meant it”
“Copying one person is stealing. Copying ten is research.”
“It took me 20 years to learn I couldn't tune too well. And by that time I was too rich to care.”
On Music as a career:
“When I was a little boy, I told my dad, 'When I grow up, I want to be a musician.' My dad said: 'You can't do both, Son'.”
“If you hear something you like, and you're halfway like the public, chances are they'll like it too.”
“A long apprenticeship is the most logical way to success. The only alternative is overnight stardom, but I can't give you a formula for that.”
On practice:
“Approach your guitar intelligently, and if there are limits, don't deny them. Work within your restrictions. Some things you can do better than others, some things you can't do as well. So accentuate the positive.”
“Everything I’ve ever done was out of fear of being mediocre.”
“It takes a lot of devotion and work, or maybe I should say play, because if you love it, that's what it amounts to. I haven't found any shortcuts, and I've been looking for a long time.”
On legacy:
“Years from now, after I'm gone, someone will listen to what I've done and know I was here. They may not know or care who I was, but they'll hear my guitars speaking for me.”
What is your favourite Chet Atkins moment of all time? Do you have a favourite guitarist quote? And, on those rare “off” days, what motivates you to pick up your guitar and play? As always, share your stories in the comments section.
|
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wrong_mix_range_death_00074
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FactBench
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2
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https://www.lubbockonline.com/story/news/2018/11/15/strongroy-clark-country-guitar-virtuoso-hee-haw-star-has-diedstrong/8364512007/
|
en
|
Roy Clark, country guitar virtuoso, 'Hee Haw' star, has died
|
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"KRISTIN M. HALLAssociated Press, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal"
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2018-11-15T00:00:00
|
Country star Roy Clark, the guitar virtuoso and singer who headlined the cornpone TV show \
|
en
|
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
|
https://www.lubbockonline.com/story/news/2018/11/15/strongroy-clark-country-guitar-virtuoso-hee-haw-star-has-diedstrong/8364512007/
|
Country star Roy Clark, the guitar virtuoso and singer who headlined the cornpone TV show "Hee Haw" for nearly a quarter century and was known for such hits as "Yesterday When I was Young" and "Honeymoon Feeling," has died. He was 85.
Publicist Jeremy Westby said Clark died Thursday due to complications from pneumonia at home in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Clark was "Hee Haw" host or co-host for its entire 24-year run, with Buck Owens his best known co-host. Started in 1969, the show featured the top stars in country music, including Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Charley Pride, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, as well as other musical greats including Ray Charles, Chet Atkins and Boots Randolph. The country music and comedy show's last episode aired in 1993, though reruns continued for a few years thereafter.
"'Hee Haw' won't go away. It brings a smile to too many faces," he said in 2004, when the show was distributed on VHS and DVD for the first time.
"I've known him for 60 years and he was a fine musician and entertainer," Charlie Daniels tweeted on Thursday. "Rest In peace Buddy, you will be remembered."
Keith Urban, who won entertainer of the year Wednesday night from the Country Music Association, also honored Clark on Thursday. "My first CMA memory is sitting on my living room floor watching Roy Clark tear it up," Urban tweeted. "Sending all my love and respect to him and his family for all he did."
Clark played the guitar, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, harmonica and other instruments. His skills brought him gigs as guest performer with many top orchestras, including the Boston Pops. In 1976 he headlined a tour of the Soviet Union, breaking boundaries that were usually closed to Americans.
And of course, he also was a member of the Grand Ole Opry.
His hits included "The Tips of My Fingers" (1963), "Yesterday When I Was Young" (1969), "Come Live With Me" (1973) and "Honeymoon Feeling" (1974). He was also known for his instrumental versions of "Malaguena," on 12-string guitar, and "Ghost Riders in the Sky."
He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2009, and emotionally told the crowd how moving it was "just to be associated yourself with the members of the Country Music Hall of Fame and imagine that your name will be said right along with all the list."
Clark won a Grammy Award for best country instrumental performance for the song "Alabama Jubilee" and earned seven Country Music Association awards including entertainer of the year and comedian of the year.
In his 1994 autobiography, "My Life in Spite of Myself," he said "Yesterday, When I Was Young" had "opened a lot of people's eyes not only to what I could do but to the whole fertile and still largely untapped field of country music, from the Glen Campbells and the Kenny Rogerses, right on through to the Garth Brookses and Vince Gills."
Clark was guest host on "The Tonight Show" several times in the 1960s and 1970s when it was rare for a country performer to land such a role. His fans included not just musicians, but baseball great Mickey Mantle. The Yankees outfielder was moved to tears by "Yesterday When I Was Young" and for years made Clark promise to sing it at his memorial — a request granted after Mantle died in 1995.
Beginning in 1983, Clark operated the Roy Clark Celebrity Theatre in Branson, Missouri, and was one of the first country entertainers to open a theater there. Dozens followed him.
He was a touring artist as late as the 2000s. Over the years, he played at venues around the world: Carnegie Hall in New York, the Sporting Club in Monte Carlo, the Grand Palace in Brussels and the Rossiya Theatre in Moscow.
Clark was born in Meherrin, Virginia, and received his first guitar on his 14th Christmas. He was playing in his father's square dance band at age 15.
In the 1950s, Clark played in bands in the Washington, D.C., area. In 1960, he got the chance to front the band of country singer Wanda Jackson. He also performed regularly in Las Vegas. He got his first recording contract, with Capitol Records, in 1962.
He appeared on Jimmy Dean's TV show "Town and Country Time" and took over the show when Dean left.
Clark and Owens worked together for years, but they had very different feelings about "Hee Haw." Owens, who left the show in 1986, later referred to it as a "cartoon donkey," one he endured for "that big paycheck." Clark told The Associated Press in 2004 that "Hee Haw" was like a family reunion.
"We became a part of the family. The viewers were sort of part owners of the show. They identified with these clowns, and we had good music."
Clark said the hour-long program of country music and corny jokes capped off his career.
"This was the icing on the cake. This put my face and name together."
Former AP writer Joe Edwards contributed to this report.
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wrong_mix_range_death_00074
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FactBench
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1
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https://www.misterguitar.us/news/solorelease.html
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en
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Chet Atkins: Solo Sessions
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Tribute to history's greatest guitar player, Chet Atkins. Includes the most complete discography on the web, photos, stories and information on CAAS.
| null |
Chet Atkins recorded much of his work over the years in his home studio located in the basement of his Nashville home. After his death, family and friends found an astounding new collection of 28 solo guitar arrangements, which now form the basis for Chet Atkins: Solo Session (2003 CGP Records).
Atkins’ engineer, Mike Poston, tells the story:
“About 6 months after his death, the executrix of the Chet Atkins estate and members of the Atkins family asked guitarist Paul Yandell, Chet’s grandson Jonathan Russell, and me to come out to Chet’s basement studio to begin the process of going through all the tapes down there. You have to understand that Chet had lived in this home since the early 50’s and soon after moving into his house, Chet put up some studio walls, sound glass and wired the place. Before long, he had a studio/workshop where he could work on his recordings whenever he wanted to. Since Chet went to bed early, he got up sometimes in the real early morning hours to work in the ‘magic of the moment.’ This was Chet’s routine for many years.”
“I had met Chet in the mid ‘70s when I installed his first 24-track machine while working for the audio supply company that provided a lot of his equipment in his studio. I was already a fan of his, because as a child my mother just idolized him and his playing. I became especially fond of the Chet Atkins in Three Dimensions album, and would sit for hours listening to him, wondering how he could play so well without making any mistakes. I could easily pick out the mistakes of other artists and musicians, but not so with Chet.”
“As a recording engineer, I first worked with Chet on his last RCA album, Great Hits of the Past. Randy Goodrum was playing piano with Chet at the time, and I was engineering all of Randy’s song demos. Because of the new direction Chet wanted to take, Randy thought that Chet and I would work well together. From that time until the recording of Almost Alone, Chet and I worked on many projects together. Some projects I did not do, because Chet just did them himself.”
“Because of my technical abilities, I also did most of the maintenance and wiring in Chet’s home studio. I set up a permanent direct input for Chet to use whenever he wanted. He could plug into it, raise that fader to ‘0’, the preamp was preset, no EQ, and assign to the mix buss or to a multitrack input. I wanted to keep it simple so that the technical aspects wouldn’t get in the way of the creative aspects. At any time, Chet could plug in and start recording to 2-track or the multitrack.”
“Many days I would come in and thread the 24 track and hit play expecting to hear a performance of something we had put down the previous afternoon, but then suddenly I would be surprised - it wasn’t the same performance as yesterday! Chet had gotten up early again, not completely satisfied with previous day’s work, and so was inspired to do something totally different. He just recorded himself solo again, all alone. That was just the way Chet worked.”
“Chet would sit in the control room or studio for countless hours playing, practicing, or working on a different arrangement of a song for yet another surprise overdub, or just maybe he’d be practicing for an upcoming live performance. I would be in the control room doing technical work, mixing, or editing, and I’d listen to Chet play these classic standards solo. I was so taken by the intimate sound of his playing just a few feet from me. Often I would suggest to Chet that we put together a solo; album with just him playing these classics because they we so mesmerizing. And he would always say, ‘Ah, no one wants to listen to that stuff.’ I disagreed, but Chet was the boss.”
“So, while Jonathan, Paul and I were going through a rack of DAT tapes, we find these tapes that are just labeled Chet Solos. Some have titles, some don’t. Most have dates or date ranges. We started listening and the comments started coming : ‘Wow, That’s really good, This is great stuff, How did he know to play that? There’ll never be anyone to ever play like that.’ It was tough for Jonathan to listen, because he missed his Grand Dad. Like I told Jonathan, how many people get the opportunity to listen to their grandfather continue to talk to them long after he’s gone? It was tough for all of us, but we all knew that he was there with us. For me, it was like listening to him play in front of me all over again. I felt like he was in the room with me again.”
|
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wrong_mix_range_death_00074
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https://www.rhino.com/article/chet-atkins
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en
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Chet Atkins
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Inductee: Chet Atkins (guitar; born June 20, 1924, died June 30, 2001) Few guitarists have had more influence on the instrument than Chet Atkins. In Atkins case, his influence extends from the country-music realm into rock and roll. As a studio musician, he appeared on records by Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, and countless country musicians. Atkins thumb-and-fingerpicking style influenced George Harrison, Duane Eddy, the Ventures, Eddie Cochran, Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler, as well as innumerable country pickers.
|
en
|
/sites/g/files/g2000012691/files/rhino_r.png
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Rhino
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https://www.rhino.com/article/chet-atkins
|
Inductee: Chet Atkins (guitar; born June 20, 1924, died June 30, 2001) Few guitarists have had more influence on the instrument than Chet Atkins. In Atkins case, his influence extends from the country-music realm into rock and roll. As a studio musician, he appeared on records by Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, and countless country musicians. Atkins thumb-and-fingerpicking style influenced George Harrison, Duane Eddy, the Ventures, Eddie Cochran, Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler, as well as innumerable country pickers. Even the likes of Ted Nugent has credited Atkins with inspiring him to take up the instrument. ''I think he influenced everybody who picked up a guitar,'' said Duane Eddy.Atkins was a key architect of the "Nashville sound," which opened up traditional country music to pop influences, allowing it to remain commercially viable in the Fifties and Sixties. His multiple roles in the music industry included recording artist, record-company executive, producer, guitar designer and sideman. Although inducted into the Hall of Fame as a sideman, his versatility and impact could have made him a viable candidate as a performer, early influence or nonperformer, too. Atkins won 14 Grammys (including the Lifetime Achievement Award). Guitar Player magazine proclaimed him Popular Music's Most Influential Stylist. In 1973, he became the youngest person ever inducted to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Two decades later, Atkins was one of the oldest musicians (he was 77 when he died of cancer in 2001) inducted into the Rock and Roll of Fame.Atkins was a virtuoso guitarist whose smooth, clean-sounding style belied his intricate mastery. His style was a tasteful blend of country, jazz and pop, informed by such early influences as Merle Travis, Les Paul and Django Reinhardt. Atkins would pick a bass line with his thumb on the lower strings and fingerpick melodies and harmonies with his other four fingers. He played Gretsch and Gibson guitars, and he helped design numerous models by both instrument makers. These include the Chet Atkins Country Gentleman and the Chet Atkins Tennessean.Born and raised in rural east Tennessee, Atkins debuted as a sessionman in 1945, backing up a group that would eventually become the Oak Ridge Boys. He moved to Nashville and cut his first solo album, Chet Atkins' Gallopin Guitar, and later recorded 1966's Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles. He has collaborated with such fellow guitarists as Les Paul, Jerry Reed and Merle Travis.In 1954, Atkins persuaded the Everly Brothers to move from their small Kentucky hometown to Nashville. There, he became their adviser, sideman and friend. He played electric guitar on many of the duo's early classics, including "Bye Bye Love," "All I Have to Do Is Dream," "Wake Up Little Susie" and "When Will I Be Loved." ''Chet Atkins was the reason we came to Nashville,'' Phil Everly has said. "He was always our mentor."In 1957, Atkins was appointed RCA's Manager of Operations in Nashville. With Atkins help, Nashville became known around the world as Music City. He produced and signed not only pop-country crossover stars like Eddy Arnold, Jim Reeves and Charlie Pride, but also mold-breaking rebels such as Willie Nelson, Hank Snow, Dolly Parton, Guy Clark, Charlie Rich, Skeeter Davis, Bobby Bare, Gary Stewart and Waylon Jennings all of whom have considerable followings among rock and roll fans. Atkins also convinced RCA to build an office and studio, the legendary Studio B (a.k.a. The House That Chet Built) on Music Row. Elvis Presley alone wound up cutting 250 songs between 1957 and 1977 at Studio B. More hits were recorded at Studio B than any other studio in Nashville history.In 1974, longtime admirer Paul McCartney visited Nashville to record a track with Atkins. In 1994, Atkins and New Orleans R&B great Allen Toussaint collaborated on a track, "Southern Nights," for the album Rhythm Country & Blues. Atkins and Mark Knopfler released an album of guitar duets, Neck and Neck, in 1990. No doubt speaking for many rock guitarists, Knopfler said, "When I was coming up, I made a religion of the Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley, and a lot of the sessions that Chet produced and played on. My whole sensitivity, my whole approach, my whole way of listening to music stems from all that."In the end, Atkins viewed what he played not as rock and roll, country or pop but an amalgam that he referred to, simply as American music. "I just try and play things that give me chills, to express myself from the heart through my music," said Atkins. A musician who came to epitomize the term country gentleman, Atkins offered his own epitaph to writer Alanna Nash back in 1981: "I'd like for people to say that I played in tune, that I played in good taste, and that I was nice to people. That's about it."Atkins died of lung cancer at age 77 in 2001.
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Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
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2022-11-17T17:05:04+00:00
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en
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/images/favicon.ico
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Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
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https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/hall-of-fame/chet-atkins
|
No other country instrumentalist has achieved the same renown and respect as Chet Atkins. His immense influence on country, rock, and jazz musicians has lasted more than half a century, and many of the hit records he produced during his days at RCA are now classics.
Radio’s Immense Influence
Chester Burton Atkins grew up in the hills near the tiny, remote East Tennessee town of Luttrell. His father, James Atkins, was an itinerant music teacher who had previously been married, and his mother, Ida Atkins, sang and played piano. After the Atkinses divorced, Ida remarried, in 1932, and Chester began to learn guitar and fiddle, often playing with his brother and sister and their stepfather, Willie Strevel.
A 1936 asthma attack forced Atkins to relocate to the improved climate at his father’s Georgia farm, where one night in the late 1930s he first heard Merle Travis playing guitar on WLW in Cincinnati. Travis’s thumb-and-finger picking style fascinated Atkins, who created his own thumb-and-two-finger variation.
After attending high school in Georgia, Atkins landed a job at WNOX in Knoxville, fiddling for the team of singer Bill Carlisle and comic Archie Campbell. WNOX executive Lowell Blanchard heard Atkins’s guitar playing and began featuring him on the station’s popular weekday multi-artist country show, Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round, and Atkins broadened his repertoire though listening sessions in the station’s music library. He briefly joined WLW in Cincinnati in 1945, then worked with Johnnie & Jack in Raleigh, North Carolina, in early 1946, before moving to Chicago, where Red Foley, having left the WLS National Barn Dance to host the Grand Ole Opry’s NBC segment, The Prince Albert Show, hired Atkins and took him to Nashville. There, Atkins made his first solo recording, “Guitar Blues,” for the local record label Bullet.
Moving on to KWTO in Springfield, Missouri, Atkins received his nickname, “Chet,” from station official Si Siman. Other officials there felt Atkins’s style was too polished for “hillbilly” music and eventually fired him, but meanwhile, Siman tried to get record companies interested in Atkins.
Making the “A-Team”
RCA Victor’s Steve Sholes signed Atkins as a singer and guitarist in 1947. As record labels stockpiled recordings in anticipation of a Musician’s Union strike, Atkins impressed Sholes with his studio skills as a player who could lead other musicians in creating commercial arrangements.
Around 1948, Atkins returned to WNOX, working first with Homer & Jethro, then joining Maybelle and the Carter Sisters as lead guitarist. They subsequently worked at KWTO before relocating to Nashville to join the Grand Ole Opry in 1950. Atkins also appeared on the Opry as a solo act.
Back in Nashville, with help from music publisher and MGM Records producer Fred Rose, Atkins became one of Nashville’s early “A-Team” of session musicians, recording with everyone from Wade Ray to Hank Williams to Webb Pierce. His first chart hit, a cover of the pop hit “Mister Sandman,” came in 1955, followed by a hit guitar duet with Hank Snow, “Silver Bell.”
Success at RCA
Atkins’s relationship with RCA Victor’s Sholes evolved throughout the 1950s into that of trusted protégé. Initially, Atkins organized sessions, and if Sholes, who was based in New York, couldn’t come to Nashville, Atkins produced the records himself, but in 1955, Sholes put Atkins in charge of RCA’s Nashville studios, first at a facility shared with the Methodist Radio, Television, and Film Commission and later at an RCA-controlled studio that would become known as RCA Studio B. Atkins eventually worked his way up to the role of RCA vice president, responsible for Nashville operations.
Only after rock & roll set back country record sales did Atkins’s production skills come into their own. Intent on increasing sales by making country records appeal to pop and country audiences, he—along with Owen Bradley at Decca, Don Law at Columbia, and Ken Nelson at Capitol—began to produce singers backed by neutral rhythm sections and replace steel guitars and fiddles with vocal choruses, a style immortalized as the Nashville Sound. Atkins transformed hard-country RCA artists Jim Reeves and Don Gibson by producing hits for both that crossed over into the pop market. Among the many acts he produced successfully were Eddy Arnold, Skeeter Davis, Bobby Bare, and Floyd Cramer.
In 1965, Atkins took a major step forward by signing Charley Pride, who was Black, to RCA. That same year, Atkins enjoyed his own biggest hit single with “Yakety Axe,” an adaptation of Nashville studio musician Boots Randolph’s hit “Yakety Sax.”
Atkins produced a constant stream of solo RCA albums during these years as well. As he hired additional producers at RCA, he cut back his own production work to focus on recording and made albums with other fine guitarists: Hank Snow, Jerry Reed, Merle Travis, and Les Paul. Atkins relinquished his RCA executive role in 1982 and left RCA to record for Columbia the following year. Frequent collaborations with younger players, such as British rock guitarist Mark Knopfler, reflected Atkins’s desire to remain contemporary.
From 1967 to 1988, Atkins won the Country Music Association’s Instrumentalist of the Year honor eleven times. In 1993, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, placing him among such musical greats as Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, Leonard Bernstein, and Paul McCartney, and in 1997, he won his fifteenth Grammy, for his 1996 recording of “Jam Man.”
Atkins was also diagnosed with brain cancer in 1997. He died of the disease in 2001.
— Rich Kienzle
Adapted from the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum’s Encyclopedia of Country Music, published by Oxford University Press
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FactBench
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2
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https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-country-artists-of-all-time-195775/
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en
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100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time
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[
""
] | null |
[
"David Browne",
"Jon Dolan",
"Jon Freeman",
"Chris Parton",
"Stephen L. Betts",
"Andrew Leahey",
"Joseph Hudak",
"Kory Grow",
"Marissa R. Moss",
"Maura Johnston"
] |
2017-06-15T17:49:00+00:00
|
The 100 greatest country artists and singers of all time, including Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, Shania Twain, Garth Brooks and Merle Haggard.
|
en
|
Rolling Stone
|
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-country-artists-of-all-time-195775/
|
When putting together this ranking of country music’s all-time greats, we looked to movie criticism for inspiration. For decades Citizen Kane topped nearly every list as the greatest film ever made, but with time, some started to realize that, hey, just maybe The Godfather is the better picture. Likewise, we reevaluated exactly where Hank Williams fits into country music, the true influence of Merle Haggard, and if an artist as clearly in the pop realm as Taylor Swift deserves inclusion. (Spoiler alert: She does.)
Of course, while 100 artists is a lengthy list, there isn’t room for everyone. We didn’t include those who were primarily songwriters, like Hank Cochran and Harlan Howard. We respectfully skipped past Chet Atkins, who, though an architect of the Nashville Sound and a solo artist, was chiefly a sideman and producer. And we omitted both Elvis Presley and Ray Charles, whose admittedly important contributions to country music took a backseat to their work in rock & roll and soul.
For those who made the cut, we considered their lasting impact on the genre, their recorded output and even their legacy as an entertainer. Some of the contemporary artists we included – all of them already trailblazers – also benefited from our speculation that their best work may in fact be ahead of them.
But in the end, the common denominator for both legends and today’s stars was that they are all one-of-a-kind.
|
|||||
wrong_mix_range_death_00074
|
FactBench
|
0
| 84
|
http://www.cnn.com/2001/SHOWBIZ/Music/07/02/obit.chet.atkins/index.html
|
en
|
Chet Atkins: The gentleman guitar player
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(CNN) -- There is a guitar, manufactured now by Gibson, called the Country Gentleman. It is a stately instrument, with a rich, slightly echoey tone, a guitar content to stay in the background but capable of producing quicksilver runs of harmonic beauty.
It was a guitar made for Chet Atkins, and it reflected him perfectly.
Atkins, a guitarist, producer and RCA Records executive who played a key role in the careers of musicians ranging from Elvis Presley to Dolly Parton, died Saturday. He was 77 and had battled cancer for several years. He is survived by his wife of more than 50 years, singer Leona Johnson, whom he had said was the only woman he ever dated. They named their daughter, Merle, after Merle Travis.
Atkins was one of the most powerful people in Nashville during the 1960s, when he worked at RCA, producing such stars as Eddy Arnold, Don Gibson and Jim Reeves. He was dubbed "the King of Music Row," a reference to the Nashville strip where the labels were headquartered. To his death, he maintained an unassuming office on Music Row. He also owned prime real estate in the area.
His creation of the "Nashville Sound," with string sections and echo, helped popularize country music among mainstream listeners.
"I realized that what I liked, the public would like, too," Atkins told The Associated Press in 1996, "'cause I'm kind of square."
A gun for a guitar
Chester Burton Atkins was born June 20, 1924, on a farm near Luttrell, Tennessee, about 20 miles northeast of Knoxville. Though his first instrument was a violin, at the age of 9 -- so the story goes -- he traded a pistol for a guitar. By the time he left high school, he was a player in demand, and quickly lined up jobs at various radio stations. In 1946 he made his first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry.
In 1949, he was signed by legendary RCA country music executive Steve Sholes, who quickly made him the label's house guitarist. Atkins' finger-picking style proved influential to a generation of axemen, including George Harrison, who wrote the liner notes for Atkins' 1966 record "Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles."
As performer, Atkins' licks can be heard on countless hit records. He was a regular sideman on Elvis Presley's sessions, and gave a number of Everly Brothers' hits a distinctive twang. He also worked with a variety of country musicians, including Jim Reeves, Jerry Reed, Charley Pride, Waylon Jennings and Don Gibson -- the last three Atkins discoveries.
When Sholes was promoted to head of pop A&R by RCA in 1957, Atkins filled his shoes in Nashville. There, he helped country music survive the challenge of rock 'n' roll with the Nashville Sound, which he created with Patsy Cline producer Owen Bradley.
"We took the twang out of it, Owen and I," Atkins told author Nicholas Dawidoff in the 1997 book "In The Country of Country." "In my case it went more uptown. I'd take out the steel guitar and the fiddle, which branded a song as strictly country. I tried to make songs for both markets."
While the strategy helped country get back on its feet after being laid waste by the resurgence of rock 'n' roll, it also softened the genre for mass consumption, providing careers for the well-coifed, telegenic artists who dominate country music today.
Atkins acknowledged that country risked losing its identity at times, but was always heartened by neo-traditional performers such as Ricky Skaggs, Randy Travis or Suzy Bogguss.
He also never apologized for the new style. At the time, his goal was simply "to keep my job," he told The AP.
Picking out notes
Atkins remained an RCA executive until 1982, when he signed with Columbia Records. But even while pushing paper in a Nashville office, he spent plenty of time playing and performing.
Other guitarists revered him, and many played with him on record. His duet partners included Reed, Les Paul, Mark Knopfler (on the Grammy-winning "Neck and Neck") and Australian prodigy Tommy Emmanuel.
His mark was all over Nashville, and not just in the city's trademark music. In January 2000, he was honored with a statue at a Bank of America branch downtown. In the rendering, he's sitting on a stool, one knee balancing a Country Gentleman, picking out a note or two. When the statue was dedicated, an overflow crowd showed up, including Tennessee governor Don Sundquist.
The modest Atkins told the group that he hoped many of his friends would be honored in the same way, "so that we can have a series of these things all the way down to the Opry."
That comment was typical of Atkins. At the time he became ill, in 1996, he had begun Monday night performances at a Nashville club.
"If I know I've got to go do a show, I practice quite a bit, because you can't get out there and embarrass yourself," Atkins told The AP.
Chet Atkins, a gentleman to the last, never did.
|
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wrong_mix_range_death_00074
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FactBench
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3
| 86
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https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/twa-the-writers-almanac-for-august-24-2020/
|
en
|
The Writer's Almanac for Monday, August 24, 2020 - Garrison Keillor
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http://www.garrisonkeillor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/GK-signature-square1.png
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2020-08-24T05:00:02+00:00
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It was on this day in the year 410 that Rome was sacked by the Visigoths. It was the first time in 800 years that Rome was successfully invaded.
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en
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Garrison Keillor
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https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/twa-the-writers-almanac-for-august-24-2020/
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Memories from Staff and Performers
BILL KLING, PRESIDENT EMERITUS OF MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO AND AMERICAN PUBLIC MEDIA
The beginnings of a “live” Keillor show occurred at 6:30 a.m. one weekday in the early 1970s, broadcast on classical music station KSJN. I remember waking up to somebody singing “Old Shep,” followed by the ear-piercing sound of a “glass harmonica” (someone rubbing wine glasses). Bad morning.
Garrison and I had talked about a time slot when the show might work (6:30 a.m. wasn’t the answer). We settled on Saturdays at 5 p.m., allowing a live audience, already out and about, to come and see it. It was also a time of the week when public radio had a very small listenership so there wouldn’t be an uproar if classical music was interrupted. And we further limited the damage by broadcasting only once a week.
I recall early regular broadcasts of what became A Prairie Home Companion, when the show performed in an abandoned (at least I think it was) skyway between the Mears Park building in Saint Paul and the building next door. That space accommodated about 50 people. And thanks in no small part to producer Margaret Moos’s vision of the possibilities, the show kept going. Amazing.
After a nomadic tour of available, rentable auditoriums, the show made a deal with the Dworsky family to rent the World Theater, a movie house that had long been closed. Volunteers drained water out of the basement and scraped the gum off the seats. The rent was paid by the sale of popcorn and a sub-rental to a group that wanted to show Asian-language films on weeknights.
Once the show had matured and was airing locally every week, I got a call from my friend Don Forsling — who ran WOI radio, a powerhouse FM station in Ames, Iowa — asking if they could get tapes of the show and broadcast them in Iowa. We agreed and mailed them a tape each week. That was the beginning of Prairie Home’s “network.” By 1980, I had managed the plan to connect public stations by satellite and secured an “uplink” for MPR. APHC was then able to be transmitted live to stations across the country.
The problem with the national broadcasts was, as always, “cost.” I asked Frank Mankiewicz — then president of NPR — to fund APHC for national broadcast. He was very clear: “No.” And so we formed American Public Radio, a competing network, whose marquee program was A Prairie Home Companion, which had become an obvious success.
The 10th anniversary celebration show was held at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Saint Paul, largely because the World Theater had been closed due to falling plaster and a variety of other infractions that the city felt were safety issues — and they probably were. Forty years later, that show — one of the very first for which we have video — still rings in my head. It was an amazing leap forward. Garrison outdid himself with the dancing salsa bottle and a group of similar characters onstage. The Orpheum was full, holding at least twice what the World Theater held in those days. Greg Brown summed it up: “It’s a fine thing you have done, Garrison Keillor.”
The Disney Channel shows added a whole new level of attention and complexity. They were televised with pretty basic production values. There really was no actual “set” and the World Theater’s stage looked bleak on television. But Disney loved it. Their ratings went way up. They marshaled their marketing department to bring media people to town and asked Garrison to talk with various reporters and writers — which he occasionally did.
The Disney broadcasts ended when Garrison decided to move to Denmark, and the “last show” broke all the rules. The program had never run beyond its two-hour time limit. Many public radio stations had skeleton staffs on Saturday nights and were unable to change their schedule, yet the show went on and on and on. The King Kamehameha Choir from Hawaii swayed onstage with flowered leis for everyone. The entire cast stood on the stage singing with the audience, which stood in a standing tribute and remained standing for the next 45 minutes. Seven p.m. came and went. At 7:10 the tech staff scrambled to get more satellite time and extended it until 7:30. At 7:30, the show continued. By that time Garrison was into “Good Night, Irene” and “Bye Bye, Love” and other farewell songs. The audience continued its standing ovation. Via teletype, the stations were advised that the broadcast would end at 7:30, and we ordered the playing of the American Public Radio audio logo signaling that the show was over. Except that on the Disney Channel it wasn’t over. They continued the broadcast for an additional 10 to 15 minutes. On Sunday morning, angry radio stations all around the country demanded that the Sunday rebroadcast include the extra time. And in some cases, a special feed of the additional segment was sent out to be patched onto the end of the rerun. It was clear that nobody — Garrison included — wanted the show to end.
And as we all now know, it shouldn’t have ended.
Over the summer that followed, I spent a lot of time at a lake house in northern Minnesota where the nights were warm and the loons were calling. I would often email Garrison, setting the scene as nostalgically as possible, making every attempt to make him homesick. I later learned that I didn’t have to try that hard. He wasn’t funny in Danish and was already homesick. Finally he responded, saying, “Maybe we could do it again,”
Garrison returned to the U.S., but to New York, where he worked out of his small office in the New Yorker building. I went to visit him one day and talked about a return, doing a big show, bigger than anything we had tried before, and he liked the idea. We were walking along Sixth Avenue talking about venues for a big, big show. We found ourselves standing under the marquee of Radio City Music Hall, and it hit like bolt of lightning: That was the answer.
We explored Radio City with the theater manager, who explained to us how the stage could rise up from the basement and rotate like a railroad roundhouse. And he described a variety of other incredible special effects.
Garrison scheduled three shows at the storied 6,000-seat venue: Friday, a Saturday matinee, and Saturday night, with Saturday night being a national APR radio broadcast. The Disney Channel was back on board too.
The Everly Brothers came as did Chet Atkins and a host of other great talent. We hired a Hollywood production crew. And true to form, Garrison embraced it all, with the Everly Brothers singing while rising up on the rotating stage in a 1957 Chevrolet convertible. Three sold-out shows. Some 18,000 ticket holders. A smashingly successful “return” for Garrison and a big boost for public radio and the Disney Channel.
Of course it wasn’t always that simple. Back in the early days, Garrison and I argued incessantly, each of us taking a polar opposite position. If I said black, he’d say white. (In fact, it was probably neither.) But we were a good team. What he did I could not do; what I did he could not do. And often in between us was Margret Moos, the diplomat facing two immovable objects.
As the nascent radio show grew in popularity so did its live audience. I loved the ticketing system that Margaret and Marge Ostroushko and others developed at the beginning (long before Ticketmaster existed). The World Theater seated about 900 people at best and in those early days even fewer. People from all across the country wanted to come to the shows. If you mailed in a ticket request, you got a blue card back telling you that you couldn’t get a seat — but the next time you wanted to come, use the blue card and it would give you a higher priority. And people did and then they got a red card, and finally on the third try a green card that gave them a seat. But some didn’t wait for that process to play out: they simply drove, flew, hitchhiked to Saint Paul and stood in line outside the theater hoping to grab a last-minute seat. I felt so bad that people had come from everywhere to stand in line for a show that they could not get into. And in a few cases, where I thought it was absolutely unacceptable not to get them in, I would invite them into the theater and find a place where they could stand or sit on a stairstep. They were so incredibly grateful. I’ll never forget it.
LINDA WILLIAMS, SINGER, SONGWRITER, PERFORMER (ROBIN AND LINDA WILLIAMS)
We were sitting on the front porch at GK’s house after a show and hanging around for the show a weekend later. He came up with the idea of our doing a record pitch commercial — fast hard-hitting bluegrass snippets of Broadway songs that were not in any way connected with common themes from country or bluegrass. He said to do songs from West Side Story or other musicals but nothing from, say, Oklahoma, shows that leaned country. We’d do them as fast as we could, playing and singing harmony. That led to Marvin and Mavis Smiley and the Manhattan Valley Boys.
Smiley is a big name in Augusta County, Virginia, where we live, so we used that last name, and he most likely added the first names and the Manhattan Valley Boys. We continued to be asked to bring back Marvin and Mavis many times over the years, sometimes with other themes, like Down Home Diva with bluegrass snippets of familiar opera arias.
It was always very hard to get through a Marvin and Mavis segment without us breaking into laughter. We used to get lots of requests to do that in concert, which was impossible to do without the band, especially the drummer.
TOM LIEBERMAN, GUITARIST, SINGER, SONGWRITER
A few of my more lucid memories of my years on APHC, for the record:
1976
My good fortune to meet Garrison Keillor was due to my good fortune of having been a part of the vibrant music scene of the Minneapolis West Bank neighborhood in the mid-’70s. I had started playing my original songs at the Coffeehouse Extempore while still in high school, and there found myself in the orbit of such mentors as Sean Blackburn, Dakota Dave Hull, Bob Douglas, Bill Hinkley, Judy Larson, Mary DuShane, Charlie Maguire, Pop Wagner, Bob Bovee, Stevie Beck, Scott Alarik, Maureen McElderry, Tim Hennessy, Peter Ostroushko, Jerry Rau, and countless others. In the mid 1970s, many or most of these folks had found their way onto Garrison’s nascent radio program as performers, and eventually, he got around to meeting me.
I was invited to meet Garrison in 1976 at the old MPR offices in the Park Square Court Building in Lowertown Saint Paul. His “office” was a converted closet wedged under a stairway. It had no window, of course, but I do remember that it had the smell of disinfectant and a sense of dread. As I entered, I perceived a large figure seated deep in the murky darkness behind a Luxo lamp, which was aimed squarely at me, and I extended my hand toward it. The silhouette extended its hand and shook mine. It then introduced itself as Garrison Keillor.
Coming from a “radio family,” I already had a pretty deep understanding and appreciation for the program and story world that Garrison was building. My father’s mother, Julia, had been a juvenile “sweet” singer in the ’20s. She partnered with a young man named Julian to become “Julie and Julie,” who were singing sweethearts on the early airwaves of KSTP and WCCO. So, although I was a 19-year-old upstart, much of what Garrison and I discussed in that first meeting made a lot of sense to me.
He invited me onto the show to sing some of my original songs, and that turned into several years of semi-regular appearances on APHC as a solo artist, a member of the vocal trio Rio Nido (with Tim Sparks and Prudence Johnson), and as a utility guitarist/vocalist/voice actor wherever needed. I was particularly proud to be the voice of the eponymous “El Muchacho Alegre” of “El Muchacho Alegre (Happy Boy) Hot Sauce.” Over these years, I was also invited to develop special material and segments for the show, and I had the opportunity to work on the production staff, as the show’s cultural footprint expanded.
Early ’80s
After leaving Rio Nido in 1979, I spent most of 1980 traveling abroad, looking for a new city and a new scene. However, when I returned to Minnesota in the later part of that year, Garrison had ousted one house band, and brought on another — The Butch Thompson Trio. This was somewhat fortuitous for me as a singer and guitarist, since I was a natural fourth for Butch’s trio. Butch and I had been friends and frequent collaborators, and I was friendly with his bassist, Bill Evans, and drummer, Red Maddock, from the traditional New Orleans music scene at the Hall Brothers Emporium of Jazz. Our styles of music meshed well with one another, and I was happy to receive a call to be on the show most weeks in 1981. Of course, I understood that the show was booked one week at a time, and I knew better than to ever expect that the call would keep coming. But I was always happy to get it when it came.
As impressed as I was by Garrison’s talent, I was equally impressed by the support system that had been built around him and the show. His producer, Margaret Moos, ran the show with a firm hand, and by watching her work, I began to develop an understanding of what a producer actually does. I recall one particular Friday rehearsal when I was behaving particularly squirrely, and Margaret impressed upon me that a rehearsal was every bit as important as a show and should be taken as seriously. Margaret, Garrison, and the rest of the staff and crew taught me a lot about what it means to be a professional.
Even though the show now had a national audience, it was still a pretty low-rent touring operation. I remember one road trip where we were playing shows in the towns of Marshall and Minneota in western Minnesota. Garrison drove the Winnebago full of musicians, and there was an equipment van being driven by the crew. We’d pull up to the high school auditorium and load in the gear for the show. I specifically remember Garrison putting a pot roast into the oven of the motor home prior to one of the shows, and us returning to the motor home to enjoy it afterward. We then played a little bit of poker, before retiring to our shared rooms in the local motel. My roomie was Tom Keith (aka Jim Ed Poole), and he appreciated none of my inebriated hijinks. Go figure.
Tenth Anniversary
When the 10th Anniversary show rolled around, I appeared on that show with the vocal trio “Lieberman, Fogel, and Bey” (with Arne Fogel and Turhan Bey), singing the song “100 Years from Today.” I recall that we also performed a commercial for bananas, while wearing flouncy banana sleeves that did nothing to improve my guitar playing. The post-show celebration was held outdoors on the grounds of the State Capitol on a portable stage, and I had the honor of serving as the MC of that show. It was a true celebration and a blast.
Chet
Ultimately, my best AND worst moments as a professional guitarist happened at the same time when, while tuning up before a show (and feeling perhaps a bit too secure in my position), I was tapped on the shoulder by associate producer Marge Ostroushko, who “asked” if I could please get up so that “Chet could sit down.” I looked up, slowly, and there he was, the Country Gentleman himself. Chet, understanding the gravity of the moment, seemed apologetic, but I simply offered him my chair, and asked if I could get him a cold drink or something. I understood, of course, that the highest compliment any guitarist could receive was to be replaced by “Mr. Guitar,” Chet Atkins, and that it would never get any better than that for me, so I dedicated myself to cobbling together a livelihood in the creative and production industries.
PHILIP BRUNELLE, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND FOUNDER OF VOCALESSENCE, AND INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED CONDUCTOR
My first show
Garrison called me and said he was going to start a radio program and wanted someone to play piano — someone who could play classical music and hymns. I told him that I could do that; he asked if I knew a lot of hymns. I told him that every hymn he knew … I knew. And the question would be: who knew more verses? (The answer was me.) So I showed up for the first show, playing on an upright piano. I stayed with the show for a while but knew that with my work at Minnesota Opera and VocalEssence, I couldn’t be there every week, and so Butch Thompson took over.
The Thanksgiving Cantatas
When GK decided to have Vern [Sutton}, Janis [Hardy], and me create these cantatas (improvised from audience suggestions), we knew we could do it because all three of us could wing it. We got all the slips of paper from the audience and went to the basement, which in those days WAS FREEZING! We separated all the suggestions into categories and decided on themes for what would become “I am thankful.” I typed up our lists (we were under a BIG time crunch since the cantata was on the final half hour of the show) and we performed. Not sure how many years this happened.
Rudolphus rubrinasus
On one December show, I was standing backstage and GK came off and said we were two minutes shy and did anyone have a short holiday song. I told him I could sing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in Latin, and he said GO! I went out and sang it, accompanying myself, and dedicated it to my high school Latin teacher, Evangeline Peterson. (She was not listening that day but heard about it later and was THRILLED that her name was mentioned on public radio!)
Freckles
The only time that I saw GK lose it was when Janis Hardy came onstage with her dog Freckles and sang “Indian Love Call.” Janis walked out with Freckles, the audience exploded in laughter, of course. Janis knelt down next to the dog and started singing “When I’m calling you.” Freckles liked to howl when he heard Janis singing, and the combination of hearing Janis sing and Freckles howl caused GK to start laughing. He had to leave the stage.
VocalEssence
Among the many, many appearances of the VocalEssence Ensemble Singers on PHC, one of the most memorable was when the Ensemble Singers sang “El Hambo,” a song by the Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi that is in nonsense syllables. GK decided that, rather than singing it straight through, we would sing a few measures and then he (or Jim Ed Poole) would give a made-up translation, which brought the audience into hysterics.
JANIS HARDY, SOPRANO
Like Garrison, I can’t remember a lot of specifics about those early days — more impressions than complete scenes. For instance, it seemed to me that every time I performed on a show in the tiny theater of the Arts and Science Center in Saint Paul, there was always a baby crying or child yelling! I also remember, with Philip and Vern, frantically trying to put together the Thanksgiving Oratorio based upon suggestions from the audience — downstairs at the Fitz with pieces of paper flying everywhere — doing it all in under half an hour, as I recall. It was also not unusual for Garrison to throw an improv scenario at us (Vern, Philip, and me) and we’d take it from there — singing an opera scene at the drop of a hat! Scary but fun!
There was a period in my life where I inherited a bakery and spent most of my waking hours there. So I often came to the show dressed in flour-covered overalls. And I’m not exaggerating! Garrison would take that opportunity to describe to the radio audience the beautiful gown I was wearing, much to the amusement of the theater audience. And yes, I’m sure Philip can regale you with the story of Vern and me singing a duet with my dog Freckles. Pretty hysterical.
We loved standing in the wings watching Garrison and Tom and Sue and Tim do their magic — priceless! It was a magical time and I’ll be forever grateful.
CHARLIE MAGUIRE, SINGER-SONGWRITER
Spaghetti in Saint Paul, 1974
Returning to Minneapolis from 14 months doing national service (VISTA/Western Nebraska) in the fall of 1974, I got a call from fellow performers Bill Hinkley and Judy Larson that a writer and radio DJ named Garrison Keillor had just started a variety radio show, based in part on the Grand Ole Opry. They both knew my music — like “Getting in the Cows” and “Winter on the Farm.” The songs had a rural theme that Garrison was after at the time, and Bill and Judy pitched me to Garrison thinking I might be a good fit. He invited me and my wife to dinner at his house for spaghetti, and afterward, hearing a few of my songs clinched the deal. I was a featured guest on the second or third broadcast, and a fairly regular performer for years after.
Sweeping up and eating up … together
When performers remember APHC, it’s the early years they seem to recall with the most warmth. It was community in the truest sense. We’d all — Garrison included — sweep up the theaters after a show, then adjourn to La Cucaracha, the local Mexican restaurant, for a late dinner together.
Born-in-a-trunk daughter makes APHC appearance at 11 months
During the early shows, the “green room” was simply backstage behind a curtain. Local performers brought their children (who could afford a babysitter?) who mingled like an extended family. On one show, Garrison invited the Persuasions who happened to be on tour through town. The quartet — too long on the road — were missing their own families. One of the members scooped up my 11-month-old daughter, Elsie, into his arms and took her out in front of the audience for the finale. Elsie put her little arm around the singer’s neck as if he was a long-lost uncle, and quietly sucked her thumb as the Persuasions smiled and laughed at her and went into their final song.
The Morning Show — APHC incubator
People may not know that Garrison was on the air not only on Saturdays but also worked Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. on Minnesota Public Radio in Saint Paul. I loved being on the show in the mornings, since it was just Garrison, engineer Tom Keith, Bob Potter, who read the news, and me. I often used that time to work up new material for my tours and used APHC and The Morning Show to test things out. If Garrison heard a new song he really liked, he’d ask me to come on the show the following Saturday and sing it. That’s how a lot of my songs came into being. “DM&IR” is about a railroad on the Iron Range of Minnesota; “Talking Home Improvement,” about the perils of making your own home repairs; “Oh Cold & Misery,” about starting your car on a cold Minnesota winter morning; and lots and lots of others.
Spontaneous, no rehearsal necessary
One time on The Morning Show, a retired guy who loved to write poetry about his childhood, sent in a piece to Garrison titled “The Evening Train.” In it he painted a picture of his days as a kid going down to the railroad station to see who was getting on and off in his little town of Cokato, Minnesota. So Garrison, Tom, and I, were sitting there at the mics in the MPR Studio, and during one of Bob’s newscasts (when we could talk without being heard on air), Garrison turned to me and said, “Tell you what, I think this poem would make a good song this week on the show. Why don’t you go into the hallway and set it to music, and then try it out in the 8:30 segment?” I have always been fast with the music to a song having studied Woody Guthrie, and Carlton Lee’s poem was so songlike, I had it ready in 15 minutes flat.
On a book tour with guitar, spoons, and new friends
Sometimes there was “APHC” work to be had without actually being on the air. Out of APHC’s “Department of Folk Song” came a book by Jon and Marcia Pankake titled A Prairie Home Companion Folk Song Book. It was a full-sized hardcover published by Viking Press with a foreword by Garrison — released in the fall of 1988. Viking hired me to go out on the road with the authors and we sang songs from the book at store signings. We had a ton of stops all over the place. There were a lot more independent bookstores in those days, and as we wore into tour, I taught Marcia how to play wooden spoons in rhythmic accompaniment to the songs we sang. It was the beginning of a friendship that lasts to this day.
On experiencing Vietnam via Omaha
I credit Garrison and APHC for my start in Minnesota as a songwriter/performer. Getting on the show on a regular basis often led to other well-paying gigs around the region for anyone who wanted to travel to an audience that wanted a bit of the show in their own backyard. A request for me came in from a law firm in Nebraska. The day before Thanksgiving that year, I flew down to Omaha with my little Martin Terz guitar that fit easily in the overhead compartment of the airplane, and upon landing was promptly chauffeured to a holiday party. I had a great time with that little guitar in the law library, surrounded by people who loved the songs they had heard me sing on the show. Between sets, one of the lawyers came up to me with a request I thought unusual for his line of work: it was for traditional folksongs Joan Baez had recorded. I sang as many of the old ballads as I could remember, and this guy filled in beautifully with a soft voice right on key. He introduced himself as William Holland and then proceeded to tell me that he would listen to Baez while piloting a Huey helicopter in Vietnam. Holland told me story after story about the war, and later put many of them into a novel titled, Let A Soldier Die (Delacorte Press). The longer I was on the show, I realized that APHC was not only entertainment for many, but also a way for some to find peace in their lives. Music, as they say, is medicine. And as the show endeared itself to more and more listeners, I think that many were eased by Garrison’s stories — and the way a good song can go straight to the heart.
“It Seems We Met Somewhere Before …”
Looking back, I like to think that we took our work and our music seriously, but not ourselves. That was partly the secret to the early success of the show. The beginnings of A Prairie Home Companion grew out of the West Bank folk scene that passed for Greenwich Village around Minneapolis in the 1970s. We had a lot of good times, comradery, and encouragement, and got to share our songs and the music we loved with the world.
ANDRA SUCHY, SINGER
One of my favorite recollections is the time I was in the car with GK, goinh from the hotel in Nashville to the Ryman. GK asked if I had ever been to the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum. I had not, so he looked at his watch, gave me a twenty dollar bill and had the car drop me off. He said, “You can be an hour and a half late to rehearsal. I know the boss. Come over after you get through.” I’ll never forget that!
Another memory is being on the tour bus and making cheese curds in the middle of the night in the microwave, which I had no idea was the proper way to eat them (not cold right out of the bag).
Or when we did a show in Bismarck and I suggested rewriting the words to an old cowboy song (come a ti-yi-yippee, etc.). He said, “OK! Be back with it in 20 minutes!” Keep in mind, my idea was for HIM to write it. The muses were good to me that day because I came back with “The Old Suchy Trail” and it made it on the show.
TIM RUSSELL, ACTOR
Garrison invited me to be on the show in May of 1994. My first show was in Portland, Oregon. I remember passing him at the door of the hotel on the day before the show, he said, “I’m going to buy some reds socks; I need to write something for you.” He wrote a script about “The Plaid Pants Warehouse” that featured my President Reagan impression, and we were off and running. Needless to say, I enjoyed doing the recurring characters: Dusty in “Lives of the Cowboys,” a chance to dig up a voice from the TV Western serials of my youth; Jim for The Catchup Advisory Board, which started out as a parody of the TV spots of ad guru Hal Riney, the voice of President Reagan’s “Morning in America” spots.
I had great fun doing the panoply of “Famous Celebrities” ruminating on the importance of various holiday’s or topical events, the voices of current and past politicians and presidents (the Washington Post noted that my “John McCain” was dead on; I told them his voice was a strange combination of Carol Channing and Liberace). There were also the many “Bob and Ray” nods as Garrison interviewed characters like my version of Paul Bunyan or F. Scott Fitzgerald. He challenged me with various dialects: the script might say (Italian) and I would have to create Italian gibberish and so on.
None of this would have been as fun without Garrison’s great script; his scripts made it easy to envision the voices needed and most of the time he didn’t tinker with whatever choice the actors would make. And if we were off the mark, he would guide us to a better choice. Garrison is a writing machine, it’s all about the rewrites, right up to showtime and sometimes during the show itself. There’s a picture of Garrison reaching around my shoulders — as I was reading a script on the air — and editing the script midstream. Most importantly, I enjoyed working with a great cast: Sue Scott, Fred Newman, and the late, great Tom Keith. Plus, the one-of-a-kind staff and technical crew that made every weekend a joy. The musicians were always world class, led by Rich Dworsky who was a valuable part of every script with his amazing, inventive, underscoring. The scripts would jump to life, thanks to Rich.
Then there was the opportunity to travel.
New York City: Taking the walk though Times Square to the legendary Town Hall on W. 43rd St. in NYC. Sharing a stage once trod by the greats in jazz, opera, folk, and spoken word. Downstairs — bathroom challenged, but full of camaraderie, Klezmer musicians and Broadway stars sharing curtained cubbyholes.
The energy of the great outdoor spring and summer venues.
Miami, where a bunch of deceased “Famous Celebrities,” like Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne, welcomed the recently passed Mr. Rogers to heaven. GK: “I’m sorry I wasn’t kinder to you Mr. Rogers.” Mr. Rogers: “That’s okay. I’ve talked to the Man upstairs and guess what.” GK: “What?” Mr. Rogers: “You’re not going to be my neighbor.”
Tanglewood, in the unparalleled beauty of the Berkshires. Quick jaunts to the Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, where his Four Freedoms paintings can bring a grown man to tears. Joined onstage with the likes of James Tylor, Meryl Streep, Sara Bareilles, and great classical musicians like Emanuel Ax. Major thunderstorms driving the lawn attendees under the great roof for epic marathon post-show sing-alongs, with everything from hymns and the great patriotic anthems, to the Beatles and Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.”
Wolf Trap National Park in Virginia, where the lawn crowds howl with enthusiasm at the mere mention of wolves. My imitation of Al Gore saying President George Bush’s policies creating a “giant sucking sound” sounded like something entirely different, drawing a light gasp from the crowd and some serious pearl clutching from the NPR listeners. “Did I hear word Sucking or something else?” Majority Leader Harry Reid was sitting on stage, and he evidently heard the “something else” and he loved it!
Ravinia, in the Northern Chicago suburbs, where one can visit a great botanic garden and drive up and down Sheridan Avenue wondering how so many people could make so much money. One year, we shared the stage with the howl of the 17-year cicada infestation. It’s where our beloved stage manager, the late Albert Webster, tracked impending storms on his computer.
The Hollywood Bowl, where guest Martin Sheen, The West Wing’s President Jed Bartlet got presidential advice from my Reagan, George W., Clinton, etc.
The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, where the cool June nights were highlighted by the dramatic lighting of the amphitheater’s crown of vegetation, bringing out the best in a performer.
The Starlight Theatre in Kansas City, where one can sense that 105 degrees is not optimal for performing — but nonetheless Calvin Trillin and Kelley Hunt persisted.
Nashville, the home of the Ryman Auditorium, where we enjoyed the likes of Emmylou Harris, Mark Knopfler, and Brad Paisley, sitting in with the band and, one time, bringing us a moment with Little Jimmy Dickens.
The Odd Spaces:
Canceled flights, a 13-hour rental car drive, nighttime in a snowstorm, to Bismarck, ND.
Sue Scott, Tom Keith, and Stevie Beck taking an 8-hour rental car drive from Denver, over the mountains at night, to Durango, CO.
Staying in the dorm at Interlochen Music Academy in Michigan — camp for grown-ups.
Lanesboro, Minnesota: a stormy Rhubarb Festival on-air show on a baseball diamond, where the weather knocked the satellite off the air, but Garrison soldiered on walking the muddy fields, microphone in hand joining the drenched crowd in song. Memorialized on film for the PBS American Masters documentary by Peter Rosen, The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes.
The Minnesota Dance Hall Shows, where attendees are comfortable enough to chat you up while the show is on. So, where’s the men’s room then?
Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Lodge, wondering if this is the day that Old Faithful gives up the ghost. The Lodge Recreation center, good for basketball and bison, where a bull, rolling in the dust, threatened the broadcast satellite dish.
Flagstaff. A chance for a pre-show bucket list visit to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, seeing a California Condor, with numbered tag, on a ledge below
New Orleans, LA. The rickety but famous St. Charles Streetcar takes you to within a few blocks of the WW2 museum, discovering the importance of a man named Higgins, the creator of the Higgins Boat, the heroic landing vehicle responsible for making D-Day a success. Trying to master the Cajun parlance for a script the morning of the show by listening to local talk radio.
Reykjavik. Learning to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull, the active volcano, almost as hard as Piscawaddaquadymogon (a word Garrison would throw in a script for some big shot visiting actor to be tortured trying to pronounce). The first screening of Robert Altman’s film A Prairie Home Companion, with Icelandic subtitles where “you can’t put the horse before Descartes” was subtitled “you can’t put a horse before Plato.” John C. Reilly was on the show from Iceland and loved jamming with the musicians in the wee hours.
The Cruises. Garrison chartered Holland American Ships some 11 times for a cruise experience that brought talent and fans together for a chance to see the world. We did many APHC-like shows in the big showroom, and our guest musicians, singers, and poets would take over the smaller venues. Sue Scott and I would spend a couple of months putting together our own shows for the Showroom. Fine-tuning one of those shows would remind us of the skill Garrison had in putting together a 2-hour show each week for a national audience, an incredible feat.
The Summer Rhubarb Tour. The first of many non-radio APHC tours, one-nighters, covering the country. Sue Scott, Fred Newman, and I were on some of the first of these tours and it was deluxe: jetting to a city in a private plane (Pearl Jam’s touring plane), doing a show then flying to the next city, a stay in a hotel for the day, then doing the next show, then rinse and repeat. Later Garrison took just Fred, the musicians, and a guest singer like Suzy Bogguss or Sara Watkins for a couple of weeks on a magical mystery bus tour with a different theme each summer — two buses, lots of adventures.
JENNIFER HOWE, APHC OFFICE MANAGER AND PERSONAL ASSISTANT TO GARRISON
I joined A Prairie Home Companion in 1984 and immediately began to tour with the show. The entire experience was new to me, and I fell in love with the vast array of theaters, their history, “phantoms,” and construction. One theater had numerous balconies, the top few rows at an almost vertical angle, narrow stairs and only a knee-high guard rail. The pitch was such that you were sure you were going to fall over the railing. It was so high from the main floor that a person could hardly see the actors on the stage. Some venues were gothic, others Pepto Bismol pink, ultra-modern or quaint — each one more interesting than the one before. My favorite was a theater that resembled a Sultan’s tent.
Today the technicians use a computer; however, the original backstage control panel resembled the wall of a battleship. Large hand cranks, knobs, buttons, dials, and steering wheels to move the screens, curtains, and lights. During rehearsal, I asked one of the techs to explain the controls and he informed me that the ceiling could be illuminated to produce a sunset, stars, and sunrise. I showed Garrison and he talked the procedure through on the radio. The ceiling had not been lit for some time and everyone was thrilled to see it. There were ooohs and aaahs from the audience just like you hear during the Fourth of July fireworks.
George Lunn, Chet Atkin’s Road Manager, was on the my few road shows and took me under his wing — a great mentor and friend. Chet and my husband, Bob, became friends over the years. One day Chet called and invited us down to Nashville, all expenses paid, for his famous Celebrity Golf Tournament and party. Bob golfed in Chet’s foursome — an experience that neither of us would ever forget.
My first trip with Garrison was about three weeks after my start date. The cast and crew had already departed, and Garrison and I were taking a later flight. Departing the airport, I saw a long white stretch limo waiting at the end of the sidewalk. The driver was holding the door. I climbed in, followed by Garrison and to my amazement, across from us were Chet Atkins and Johnny Gimble. All I could do was think to myself — Jennifer Mathwig Howe, Cumberland, WI, population 1897, sitting in a stretch limo with Garrison Keillor, Chet Atkins, and Johnny Gimble. Needless to say, I pinched myself a dozen times!! And the adventure of a lifetime began.
Fan letters were abundant — everything from advice, thank-you notes, pictures of family gatherings, gifts. A few that stand out were from a chaplain, an inmate, and a college English class. The chaplain wrote from a military base in Europe. He had taken one of Garrison’s tapes with him and had played it so many times with the troops that it was worn out. I boxed up one of each of Garrison’s tapes and books and forwarded the package to the chaplain. We were happy to hear that it arrived in time for Christmas. The chaplain’s thank-you read that a number of the boys never received mail from home, so this was a very special gift. Students dissecting one of Garrison’s stories in an English class found a grammatical error. As a class project, they composed a letter spelling out the error to Garrison, each one signing the letter. Garrison asked me to send another gift box of his books and tapes and off it went with a letter of acknowledgement and thank you from Garrison. An inmate, in for life, found solace in Garrison’s work and asked if we could send tapes and enlist our services to get the show on the local airwaves. We were unable to accomplish the latter, but we boxed up a season’s worth of tapes, in addition to some of Garrison’s products and sent them off. Because the show tapes were not shrink wrapped, the concern of the prison staff was that they could contain secret messages to the inmates, escape routes and such, so it was a strict prison policy to return this type of material to the sender.
One memorable package came to our office after Garrison had mentioned in a monologue how he missed the sweet aroma of cow manure. Sure enough, along came a two-pound coffee can filled to the brim!
One book autograph request was from a man in Australia. Garrison turned the book upside down and inscribed, “To _____, in the land down under,” Classic and brilliant as always.
One of the many benefits of working with Garrison and APHC was the opportunity to meet his vast array of guests and to hear such a wonderful variety of music. And as exciting and humbling as it was to meet some of the all-time legends, I have to admit one of my favorite guests was “Murray,” the 800-pound sea lion from California’s SeaWorld. There is an incredible photograph of Garrison leaning over addressing Murray. When Garrison put his microphone in front of Murray, hoping for an audience laugh, Murray surprised us by talking back. Much to Garrison’s (and our) amusement, he barked back an answer to every one of Garrison’s questions. Garrison’s facial expressions were priceless. They went back and forth for several minutes, and it brought the house down! When Murray had to depart for his next “performance” he took a bow, waved his flipper at the audience and waddled off to his travel cart down a special plank we had built for him. He was doused with water to keep his skin from drying out, and off he went, barking at us all the way out. What a variety show! It was the only time I saw Garrison upstaged.
Garrison’s willingness to accept outside speaking engagements — in addition to writing, producing, and hosting a weekly show — was remarkable. In most cases, a request for Garrison to “stop by and greet volunteers of a hospital or church during their lunch break” would turn into a full-blown two-hour benefit performance, in a theater that held 2,000 people. Garrison would insist that all proceeds go to the charity the volunteers were working for. It is amazing how Garrison gives of his time and talents.
The final Saint Paul APHC broadcast in 1987 was a day none of us looked forward to. The performance was flawless, filled with emotion for all who performed, worked, or listened. My husband was waiting in our Jeep in the alley behind the stage door to whisk Garrison away to a private farewell function with family and friends. Garrison’s loon calls, as lonely and heartbreaking as they sounded, were also a ray of hope to all of us that Garrison and A Prairie Home Companion would someday return. None of us could begin to imagine Garrison’s feelings. We each experienced our own mourning and sense of great loss. But for the creator and host — who had spent so many years onstage — it must have been a very sad day indeed. It was then wonderful to know our feelings about the loon calls were correct: Garrison returned, and the show continued for another thirty years. Congratulations on your 50th Anniversary!
POP WAGNER, SINGER, SONGWRITER, PERFORMER
Early years
The first time I played on the show was in 1974 or 1975. It was at the small theater space in the Park Square Court Building (where the radio station was also located at that time). I remember the feeling of excitement over its being a LIVE broadcast although the in-house audience was relatively small. In the early years, I was a frequent guest and played on shows at the Science Museum, the Sculpture Garden, and the World Theater. I remember volunteering with many others as we cleaned up the old World Theater, getting it ready for the public. In those early years, the entire cast and crew would often go out to dinner together after the show — a great feeling of camaraderie! Once when the show was being broadcast from the Sculpture Garden, it started to rain. The broadcast was briefly switched back to the station and everyone (cast, crew, and audience) picked up a mic stand or other piece of equipment and carried it across the street to the World Theater. We were back on the air within 5 or 10 minutes as I recall!
The show goes national
I had the honor (along with the Butch Thompson Trio, the Powdermilk Biscuit Band, and others) of being on the first national broadcast at the NPR convention in Kansas City. I believe this was being considered as a “trial run” of sorts. Later, when the kickoff show for the regularly scheduled national broadcasts was held at Northrop Auditorium, I was the first solo to perform after the introduction — the excitement, almost electric, was palpable in the air! And a full house sang along with me as I played Libba Cotten’s “Shake Sugaree.”
The movie
During my first day on the movie [Robert Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion] set (as a musician extra), I was in a scene with Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep, and Lindsey Lohan. I was instructed to pass by them as they entered the green room area. The cameras rolled and I walked. Then as I was passing by, Meryl said, “Good morning, Pop!” and I responded with “Howdy, ma’am!” — at which point someone hollered, “CUT!” Well, then I was taken aside and told NOT to say a word since it would have put me in a much higher pay grade. I like to think that somewhere on a cutting room floor there is footage of me trading lines with Meryl Streep!
PAT DONOHUE, GUITARIST
One segment on the show I will always remember was in 1994 when we did a Prairie Home show for the grand reopening of the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. It was a star-studded show. One bit was the “Everly Brothers Singing Contest,” in which there were three “teams” of duo singers. We (the Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band) played “Dream” (by the Everlys) and Kate MacKenzie and G.K. sang the first verse and did great. Vince Gill and Mary Chapin Carpenter sang the second verse and the crowd went wild. Then, the actual Everly Bros. (who were also on the show) came in on the middle part — “I can make you mine, taste your lips of wine, anytime night or day” — with their iconic sound fully on display and at that point the crowd went totally insane with happiness, me included.
Another thing I will always remember happened after a Dec. 21 APHC show at The Town Hall in NYC. It had started snowing … hard! We were supposed to fly back home the next day as usual, but I chose to get in the truck with our beloved driver Russ Ringsak and ride back to Minnesota with him, since I didn’t want to get snowed in. It was coming down like crazy and I had my doubts as to whether or not Russ could drive us out of Manhattan in such a storm in that big red APHC semi. Well, sir, I saw a masterful exhibition of truck driving that not only got us out of New York but also safely home in about a day and a half. Those who stayed were snowed in for several days. I hope they all made it home for Christmas. I know I did, thanks to Russ. I had a great time on the ride too, listening to blues and playing my guitar in the passenger seat. God bless Russ.
SUZANNE WEIL, ARTS ADMINISTRATOR AND PRODUCER
I ran a one-person Performing Arts program at Walker Art Center in Minneapolis beginning in the late ’60s. We were a discerning, I might say a bit hard to please, small staff — a relentlessly sophisticated young bunch. If there had been a water cooler, we would’ve all be around it each morning talking about the Prairie Home Companion.
That guy in the tiny booth in a tiny town? I have no idea how we got there; I’m certain that there was no such thing as a publicist, given the time and the resources, laughable. The juxtaposition of that little town somehow brilliantly funny and always respected, perhaps that is the crux of it all. There was music you wanted to hear but didn’t know it. If “Help Me, Rhonda” didn’t set you up for the day, forget it …
I’ve complained about the loss of Jack’s Auto Repair and Raoul’s Warm Car Service (a particular favorite). I don’t remember who survived those early programs — was Pastor Liz there? I don’t think so.
He made them funny but never talked down to them. The listener didn’t have to feel guilty laughing at them — ever.
I had gotten to know Garrison when I presented a poetry reading of Garrison and the late Peter Schjeldahl (Art Critic at The New Yorker for many years, a Minnesotan) at the Planetarium at the Public Library. GK’s Richard Nixon poems stand out. I suggested a live program at the Walker Art Center Auditorium (“listeners would like to see what you look like”). We presented A PRAIRE HOME ENTERTAINMENT with others at the Auditorium at Walker Art Center. That seemed to be the beginning of something, I’m not sure what exactly.
I think those of us who found him then have a right to be a bit smug — I am.
MARCIA PANKAKE, PERFORMER (WITH HUSBAND JON PANKAKE), EDITOR OF A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION COMMONPLACE BOOK AND A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION FOLK SONG BOOK
The Masked Folk Singer
It was Garrison’s idea that traditional music scholar and musician Jon Pankake appear on A Prairie Home Companion as “The Masked Folk Singer.” Wearing a red mask, Jon would take the stage and sing a song. For one such appearance, Jon had been instructed to enter the theater during the broadcast through the loading dock door — behind the curtain at the back of the stage. Finding that door locked, Jon and I went through the theater’s main door, where we were met by some resistance from a staff and crew unaware of the plan. Bill Kling, president and CEO of Minnesota Public Radio, thought the Masked Folksinger bit was awful, especially on shows with the likes of Chet Atkins or The Modern Jazz Quartet.
“Just say goodnight …”
Like many listeners, we can remember where we were when we heard a certain show. We were picking raspberries in the backyard, and at 5 o’clock set things aside, got our lawn chairs and sat down in the yard to listen. It was the show from Alaska in which the News from Lake Wobegon ran long. I was thinking. “Oh, maybe the show is going to be more than two hours today.” Later on, I heard that Garrison had dug himself into a convoluted monologue and it was stalwart stage manager Steve Koeln who — as the clock ticked down — kept going out on the stage to show GK signs: 5 MINUTES. Then, 2 MINUTES. And finally, JUST SAY GOODNIGHT!
The Prairie Home Attic Show
I think this was the first time Garrison ever took time off from the Saturday show, and he may have still been doing KSJN’s The Morning Show as well. But he asked us to put together a broadcast of recorded music (from “the attic”), and so we listened to a lot of things and played a few things for him and came up with a show. I sat with engineer (and sound-effects man) Tom Keith and we assembled the recorded pieces. We had Garrison on tape speaking something and we were going to connect that to something else, but he had breathed out rather than in — or in rather than out — just where the join was going to be. Tom worked on that one recorded breath for an inordinate amount of time before we got it cut just right.
The project was great fun because “the attic” included lots of recordings from the 1930s. GK had told us that we should contact the still-living people we could find to get permission to use their recordings — typical of his thoughtfulness. I wrote to the DeZurik Sisters, for example. Carolyn and Mary Jane DeZurik — who grew up in the tiny town of Royalton, Minnesota, and went on to appear regularly on Chicago’s National Barn Dance — were very excited that we wanted to use one of their records. Later on, one of the sisters wrote back, telling me that they had gathered the family together and listened to the show. They were tremendously thrilled to hear their old recording.
STEVIE BECK, PERFORMER, ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
At the Ryman
I remember when Garrison went down to Nashville in the spring of 1974 to see the final Grand Ole Opry show held in the Ryman Auditorium. For several months, he had been taking music lessons from me, and at our next session, he brought me a picture of the Carter Family, which I still have. He also returned with an idea for a live radio show: A Prairie Home Companion.
The Ryman had been home to the Grand Ole Opry since 1943, and thirty-one years’ worth of performers added up to a big chapter in the history of country music. For some of us who listened to WSM on Saturday nights, when Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl, Ernest Tubb, and Loretta Lynn performed on that stage, the 1974 move to Opryland USA didn’t sit too well.
During the next couple of decades, only the occasional recording session or special event brought music back to the Ryman. The building, falling into disrepair, was open daily — 8:30 to 4:00 — to busloads of tourists who paid $2.50 for a chance to see a collection of memorabilia from the glory days.
Then in 1993, an $8.5 million renovation began, which would bring the “Mother Church of Country Music” back to life. Greg Pope at WPLN Nashville Public Radio and the Ryman Auditorium staff invited A Prairie Home Companion to kick off the grand opening celebration, And with APHC’s broadcast on June 4, 1994, live radio returned to the Ryman.
During that afternoon, PHC’s guest performers — including Chet Atkins, Vince Gill, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kate MacKenzie, Robin and Linda Williams, Don and Phil Everly, and Mark O’Connor — wandered through the Ryman’s oak pews and recalled their own connections with the venue. Don Everly told me that back in the 1950s, he and Phil spent two solid years standing in the alley between the Ryman and Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, hoping they’d be invited onto the Opry stage. And, he added, every time Chet Atkins came out the stage door, he’d introduce the Everlys to whomever he was with and comment on the boys’ talent. Chet himself remembered being a boy of ten when someone told him, “Keep on playing that fiddle, Chester, and someday you’ll be on the Grand Ole Opry.”
What stays lodged in my memory of that day is the thrill of standing on the stage where Maybelle Carter once sang with her daughters; where Roy Acuff did “The Wabash Cannonball” and balanced his bow on his nose; where Minnie Pearl’s piercing “Howdy! I’m just so proud to be here” carried all the way to the parking lot; and the likes of Red Foley, Kitty Wells, Uncle Dave Macon, Hank Williams, and Patsy Cline stepped up to the mic on Saturday nights.
First appearance on A Prairie Home Companion
After Garrison received an Autoharp for Christmas in 1973, he began taking lessons from me early the following January. The lessons lasted only a few months, but that summer he called and invited me and my music partner, Bob Bovee, to play on his new radio program. Our first APHC appearance was October 19, 1974, the first time he dubbed me the Queen of the Autoharp. It was Prairie Home’s sixth show — and audience attendance was holding steady at about 12.
Early days
For the first few years, the music performers played the parts of characters in the scripts. I was once cast as Jessie James in an all-female version of the James Gang. On another show, I played a trucker named Little Queenie, hauling a load of bat guano in my eighteen-wheeler. Later, APHC stepped up its game and booked real actors — a marked improvement. All the while, Tom Keith provided the sound effects. He was a genius at his craft and made poetry of every footstep, faucet drip, helicopter flyover, car tire spinning on ice, even (wince) a cornea removal. After Tom’s death, sound-effects duties went to Fred Newman (the envy of any 14-year-old who ever put palm to armpit).
Associate Producer
I performed on A Prairie Home Companion five or six times a year until the show folded its tent (the first time) in 1987. And a couple of years after the program was resurrected (as American Radio Company of the Air before returning to the original title), I was offered the position of associate producer, in charge of booking talent.
During rehearsal on show days, the most frequent question I got from the guest performers — out of their element in our production style — was, “How do I know when to start?” I’d always tell them, “Just listen to Garrison when he introduces you and chats with you. He’ll say or do something that’ll seem as though he’s handed you a downbeat on a silver platter.” True.
In New York
Working on a Prairie Home Saturday broadcast in St. Paul could be challenging, but doing the show in New York flummoxed me. Everything felt like a struggle. Our ad hoc office at The Town Hall was on an upper floor, a space you got to by elevator — that is, if you could find the elevator operator. One December Saturday, shortly before airtime, I had completed some last-minute task in the office and then rang for the elevator.
The minutes — five, ten, twenty — ticked by. More ringing. No luck. I considered taking the stairs but thought the better of that idea when I peeked into the stairwell and found it so dark that I could barely make out the pigeon corpses that littered the steps. Rescue finally came after I made a (then) long-distance call to the tech director’s cell phone, and he got someone to track down the elevator guy.
In the words of our wonderful stage manager Steve Koeln, “If you need a piece of plywood in St. Paul, you zip over to Knox Lumber and get one; in New York, it takes three hours, two unions, and a trip to New Jersey.”
KEN LAZEBNIK, WRITER
My wife, Kate, and I moved to New York City in 1985, driving out from Minnesota in an old Chevy Nova my parents had bequeathed us. When I lived in St. Paul, I had listened to Garrison’s morning show, and then Prairie Home Companion, with star-struck admiration. (I graduated from Macalester College in 1976, unaware that one summer when I was preoccupied with doing summer theater productions there, PHC was broadcasting from the music hall at Macalester.) The brilliance of the writing — the uncanny combination of inspired absurdity of the sketches, balanced with the profoundly human storytelling of the monologues — created a magic I’d never heard before. But I had never met Garrison or connected with PHC in any way when I lived in Minnesota.
When Garrison returned from his Denmark hiatus, he wanted to launch a different show, one based in New York. It would be a two-hour variety show, like PHC, but without the Midwest as its touchstone. He hired Minnesota composer Randall Davidson as his initial producer of The American Radio Company of the Air, and he set up the office of The American Humor Institute in an old building on 14th Street. In one of life’s serendipitous turns, Randall and I were childhood friends; we’d both grown up as sons of professors who taught at Stephens College, in Columbia, Missouri. Randall contacted me and said Garrison was looking for a writer. He invited me to send a couple of short script samples.
As a playwright, I had some short plays — ten- or twelve-page one-acts — and I mailed those to Randall. On Halloween night of 1989, the phone rang in our one-room apartment, which was a four-floor walk-up on Christopher Street. Kate answered and was astonished to hear the radio come out of her phone. It was Garrison’s voice, and he asked to speak with me. She handed the phone to me, and I heard that familiar voice say hello, and explain he was launching a show and looking for a writer. He asked if I had any short pieces. I stammered that I had sent him a couple of short plays, and Garrison said he was looking for very short pieces — one or two pages. I replied that I had one of those, and he said, “Good. Come by the office tomorrow.”
I hung up, dazed. Of course I didn’t have anything of the kind, and of course I was determined to write one that night. I decided to walk through Greenwich Village and see what I could come up with. Halloween night in the Village in 1989 was both more anarchic and friendlier than the current corporate version of Halloween. I walked through the streets, noting the drag costumes, which would today be categorized as legendary, writing down bits of overheard dialogue, and then I came back to the apartment and wrote something that I hoped to be simple and honest and a little funny. It was in the form of a letter from New York, written by a young man to his girlfriend back in Missouri.
I typed it up on the best quality paper I had (yes, this was before word processing, so it was actually put through a typewriter), and the next day I reported to the American Humor Institute. It was a simple office, with a couple of rooms, one of which was occupied by Jennifer Howe, the endlessly cheerful and efficient manager of a million things GK. She greeted me and then Garrison came out, we shook hands, he was taller than I had anticipated, and we sat down in his office.
He asked the polite questions about where I had come from and I remember stammering. Even though I was 34 at the time and had worked in theaters for a dozen years, this was an opportunity like none I’d ever had. Then Garrison said, “Let’s see what you have.”
I handed him my two-page piece. He took it, and started reading. I hadn’t expected that. Silence. Extended silence. Fortunately, I had lived in Minnesota long enough to be comfortable with silence. My two pages on his desk, Garrison scowling down at them. Then he pulled out a pen and started editing. I could see him crossing lines out, writing in the margins. His lips pursed, serious, unsmiling. Finally, he looked up.
“Good. Is there a second act?”
As far as I knew, I was being interviewed for a staff writer position. I figured he was testing me — could I come up with a continuation of the story? I said, “Yes. Maybe she writes him back.”
Garrison stared in the distance for a moment, then said, “No.”
Then he pitched a wonderful idea for a second act. I wish I could remember what he said. I just remember it was great, a funny twist to the story, which opened it up. Then he handed me back my pages and said, “Can you come back in a day or two?” I said yes, correctly interpreting this as “Please rewrite this and return.”
I set a time to return with Jennifer and walked out in the hall. I looked at the pages Garrison handed back to me. During those minutes of scowling and editing, he had added hilarious jokes. It was my first experience of seeing him hard at work as a humorist — which was skillful, serious work.
I did the rewrites, typed up the new version, and returned in two days. As before, I walked in, was greeted by upbeat Jennifer, and went into Garrison’s office.
“What’chu got?”
I handed him the pages. Once again, silence as he read. He looked as serious as ever, but this time when he put the pages down, he said, “This is good. How much do you want for it?”
I was floored. I thought I was applying for some version of a staff job. I had no idea how much public radio paid — specifically how much public radio (or Garrison) paid for a two-page script.
I stammered around and finally said, “Well, I generally hope to make about $500 a week.”
A pause. I thought to myself, “Damnit, I asked for too much.”
Then he said, “I’ll give you $750.” And he had Jennifer write me a check on the spot. Somehow, he knew I needed the money. Among the many extraordinary qualities of Garrison is his visceral unbroken connection with people struggling to pay the bills. He has never forgotten what that was like.
I became a contributing writer, and it defined for me what getting your big break meant. The theater I was part of was a wonderful off-off-Broadway company, which meant our work was exciting and there was no money and we performed at the Home for Contemporary Theater and Art on Walker Street, a theater carved out of a storefront, with seating for something like 80 people, and a backstage with one tiny dressing room and a bathroom we shared with the audience. I went from the sense of performing for an audience in the palm of your hand to ARCA’s first show at BAM, on an immense stage with a Broadway orchestra populated by world-class musicians and led by Rob Fisher. It was like being shot out of a cannon and finding yourself flying in a dream.
During that time, I found myself riding back to Manhattan in a limo with Bob Elliott and his son Chris. I was introduced to Renée Fleming and Pete Seeger and Victor Borge. I traveled to the Grand Ole Opry and London and Seattle and Memphis. I was friends with Rob Fisher and Broadway musicians and Rich Dworsky and Tom Keith. (The sweetest man in the world; much missed.) Years later, I met Robert Altman and sat next to Kurt Vonnegut at the premiere of the PHC movie. It was the ride of a lifetime.
I learned many things from Garrison over the years. (I wrote for the radio show steadily for four or five years, until my TV writing took up too much time. I then shared a story credit with Garrison for the PHC movie, and I wrote again for the radio show the fall he was getting back to full steam following his stroke.)
Thing One: GK is a singular genius, a writing machine that I have never seen duplicated. I wrote five minutes of a two-hour show; Garrison wrote the rest. My usual writing consisted of short sketches, and then narrative pieces about the city we were touring to. The rest was Garrison. The idea that for 39 weeks each year, Garrison would create a two-hour show, writing 95% of the material — and somehow weaving a vision of music through it all — remains a high-wire feat unlike any in American popular culture.
Thing Two: It’s all just material. Our process was for me to turn in four or five short pieces on Thursday. There was a Friday afternoon read through of all the material for that week’s show. Garrison would show up with reams of sketches. In the first year of ARCA, there was always a 10- to 14-page continuing drama of Gloria, played by Ivy Austin, about the life of an aspiring singer in New York, as well as the other sketches that repeated every week (Duct Tape, Dusty and Lefty, Guy Noir, etc.), as well as a couple of mine. After the read through, Garrison and I would repair to his office and he would select the pieces that he thought worked, and which ones needed revision. The first week, I remember he took one of his ten-page scripts, and methodically crossed out page after page, until he finally circled one paragraph. “I’ll come back with something.” The next morning he appeared with a new eight-page script, with that one paragraph forming its core. Not many people could do this (and produce any quality, let alone sustained brilliance) — but the underlying lesson was that it’s all just material. Don’t be precious. Let it go, the good things will come back to you. Pick and choose good things and put the blocks back together in a new arrangement. It’s just material.
Thing Three: Come at a story from the side. One horrible misconception of Garrison is that he spins homespun stories from the heartland. Nothing is further from the truth. Garrison started out writing for The New Yorker, and that means a lineage from James Thurber and S. J. Perelman and E. B. White. One writing technique he guided me toward was coming at things from the side. If you want to land at point K, don’t start at point J. Start way off to the side and come to things indirectly. There’s a tremendous delight an audience feels when they suddenly see how things have tied together in a completely unexpected but understandable way. He employs this technique in the monologues most famously. (Note: He always writes the News From Lake Wobegon in a mysterious cone of silence. He’d simply show up on Saturdays and deliver them — never went over them in rehearsal. If I had to guess, he’d write it out Saturday morning, and because he has what seems to be a photographic memory, he’d be able to deliver it that afternoon.)
Thing Four: It’s a live show; keep it live. From doing hours of live early morning radio he realized that part of the excitement of a live show is to not overprepare. Or, rather, to bake the cake right in front of the audience. The audience delighted in seeing the flow of the show — in seeing Garrison do the high-wire act of creating a two-hour entertainment that held together, but was created right before their eyes. This was both true and not true. The musical acts were obviously booked long before the show; the scripts were rehearsed —well, read through on Friday, and then read through again on Saturday — but the feeling was that we were putting the whole thing together right in front of the audience’s eyes. Garrison always pushed the deadlines for preparing for the show to the final moments — I remember one week in New York when, at about half hour before air, he nonchalantly said he was going back home to get a belt (not such an easy trip in the city, to go from midtown to the Upper West Side and back!) — and he actually ducked out. There was tightly controlled panic, and prayers that he’d come back in time, and sure enough, with only moments to spare, he walked in, now fully dressed with a belt, and walked out on stage and did his pre-show. I think that was all part of a conscious and subconscious effort to keep the show in the moment: This is happening right now, we’re all in this together, let’s hope it turns out for the best.
RICHARD DWORSKY, MUSIC DIRECTOR AND KEYBOARD PLAYER
After a more than 40 year association with Garrison Keillor and his radio show A Prairie Home Companion, people often ask me how that relationship began. The answer is short and simple. My parents…Bob and Shirley. Dad had owned the World Theater and the attached Schubert Apartments since 1970. A Prairie Home Companion was looking for a permanent home and, in 1978, found it at the World Theater (later renamed the Fitzgerald Theater). Sadly, Dad passed away that same year, and Mom became the owner/landlord. She knew nothing about business (that was handled by others), but she did become friends with the show’s producer, Margaret Moos. Mom had been impressed by a talented Russian and Yiddish singer, Sima Shumilovsky, who had recently arrived in St. Paul from the Soviet Union. Mom thought that Sima would make wonderful guest on A Prairie Home Companion and dragged Margaret to a little a cappella performance Sima gave in a basement room at the St. Paul Jewish Community Center. Margaret was very impressed but a little cautious, saying, “Sima is great, but she needs an accompanist”. Mom immediately replied “My son, Richard, can play piano in any style and can learn a song immediately by ear” etc. Margaret was sold on the idea. Mom then came to me with the plan for my approval. Not considering myself a Russian/Yiddish folkie, my response was less than enthusiastic.
But Mom was persistent and begged me, saying “Come on. It’ll be a mitzvah” (Hebrew for a good deed). Sima and I performed on the radio show in February of 1980, and it went so well that we were invited back several more times. After a few shows, I was given an opportunity to do a solo tune. Garrison took notice and invited me back as a solo performer and to accompany him and various other guests. This all led to me eventually becoming A Prairie Home Companion’s pianist/music director for decades.
The moral of the story? Listen to your mother! Every once in a while, she just might be right…and in a way that can change your life.
A short story about my dad, Bob Dworsky and the World Theater
After his service, Bob graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1949 and began his law practice in St. Paul. He was admired and respected as a brilliant attorney, and in 1962 formed the “Dworsky & Rosen” law firm in partnership with attorney William S. Rosen. Beginning in 1956, he performed legal services for his old college friend, Billy Weitzman. Bob eventually became a development partner in Billy’s company, William H. Weitzman and Associates, a firm which designed and built apartments in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul).
Upon Weitzman’s death, Bob retained his ownership share in many of the buildings, and formed his own company, Multifam Corporation, to manage them. But he was granted sole ownership of the Shubert Building apartments and the adjacent World Theater (later renamed The Fitzgerald) in St. Paul, which became the permanent home of Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion on Minnesota Public Radio. In 1978, MPR had approached Bob about renting the theater during broadcast weekends. Bob was a lover of the arts and generously gave MPR use of the theater for a flat fee of $90 per week. The show’s producer at the time recalled that “this fee was supposed to cover heating and lighting. I can’t imagine it came close.”
Bob passed away that same year, but Shirley never raised the rent. MPR eventually purchased the theater from Shirley.
CHRISTINE TSCHIDA, PRODUCER
I have lots of memories about the show in the early days of its reincarnation as The American Radio Company of the Air, then, The American Radio Company, and eventually A Prairie Home Companion once again.
Though I am from Minnesota/Mac grad/and had attended a couple of broadcasts of the original APHC in the Twin Cities, I was actually working at The Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York when Garrison returned from Denmark and started ARCA. My college friend Ken LaZebnik was living in New York at the time, and I’d occasionally get him comps for BAM shows. So, when he told me he was doing some writing for Garrison’s new radio show — which was actually renting one of the theaters at BAM in that first season, I asked him for tickets to that in return. A couple of months after seeing it, Ken told me that the show needed to find a new producer, and that’s how I came to be hired by Minnesota Public Radio while living in New York. I had produced plenty of theater and dance tours, but I had never really worked in radio, so it was good that there were smart people who knew the technical/broadcast side of the business, because I certainly did not.
The show was a bit of a nomad those first couple of seasons. BAM wasn’t really the right place for it, or for Garrison’s audience, which would happily find its way to midtown Manhattan from Connecticut and New Jersey and beyond. Somewhere with less expensive rent and production costs was better, and not in a sketchy (at that time) neighborhood in an “outer borough” would be better. So the “second season” (the first one that I worked on) found us renting The Lamb’s Theatre on 44th Street in Manhattan. At 350 seats, it was a much better fit for a show that was just getting started at building an audience than the cavernous BAM Opera House was.
Garrison had connected with Rob Fisher to put together a wonderful 16-piece band they called The Coffee Club Orchestra (with a smaller group called the Demitasse orch). There was also a terrific musical arranger, Russell Warner, who would compose theme music for the sketches and commercials. I recall “The Water March” for a campaign to promote drinking eight glasses of water a day (which didn’t last) and others, like Café Boeuf, Rhubarb, and Coffee that did. There was a running soap opera about a young woman in New York called “The Story of Gloria” and Ivy Austin and Richard Muenz were regulars (more or less) augmented by Tom Keith (who didn’t want to travel) and other terrific New York based actors like Alice Playten and Lynne Thigpen.
So, the first show I ever worked on was at The Lamb’s Theatre, and I don’t remember all of the details exactly. I think the guest list may have included The Gregg Smith singers (they made a few appearances on shows in that period) and perhaps Victor Borge was on? I do distinctly remember leading him up a circular staircase offstage right to a dressing room area that we had designated for him, brushing cobwebs out of the way as we went. He was a very good sport about it.
Prior to that show, I got my first stopwatch. We had a meeting or two earlier in the week in the show’s offices in the big Republic Bank Building on the corner of 14th Street and 8th Avenue. (Surely this must have been the inspiration for Guy Noir’s Acme Building, right?)
We read through first drafts of a couple of scripts, talked about possible music selections from the orchestra and the guests, and called the final tech/dress rehearsal for noon on Saturday at The Lamb’s.
Saturday we ran through musical numbers, which I timed, waited for Garrison to arrive with revised, and new and different scripts, and went through all of that material. Sometime mid afternoon, I sidled over to my friend Ken, with my list of timings in hand, and said, “So, we have all of this … stuff now. Who figures out how it all comes together to be a show?” I could see a look of fear on Ken’s face. The fear that he had recommended a complete idiot to be the producer. Still, he smiled, chuckled, and said, “Well, YOU do.” And so, the learning curve began.
The first “tour show” I worked on was shortly thereafter — a broadcast from the Mark Twain home in Hartford, CT, but the show traveled to many exciting places — London’s West End, Edinburgh, Dublin, Berlin, and the Reading Room of the New York Public Library.
My favorite tour story, though, was the Birmingham, Alabama, Blizzard story, where the city shut down, and the company was stranded for an entire extra day because nothing was moving. Of course, the show went on — despite being told repeatedly on Friday afternoon and evening that we should cancel it. Tom Keith would tell everyone that I “made him” rent a car when his connecting flight from Atlanta was canceled (I did), but admitted later on that it was great that we had it available so he could run a reconnaissance mission out to the Birmingham airport. By now, everyone has likely heard the stories about how 500 people managed to get themselves to the theater for the broadcast (the guy with the keys to open it up for us used skis); how Emmylou Harris’s tour bus was 50 miles outside of town an hour before broadcast time; how our truck driver Russ Ringsak had to go pick up the last member of the Dixie Hummingbirds AND his pregnant wife from the other side of town in the cab of the semi, and they made it onstage for the closing number of the show. It was nerve-racking as we went through it, but so much fun to think about now.
Recognizing that this is a 50-year anniversary, I want to mention some things that I think about, occasionally, related to the show and the world that it was/is a part of.
One thing is TECHNOLOGY. We used to have scripts come in paper form that we would feed into a xerox copier that we carried with us to every theater we performed in (or rented on-site.) Revisions were done by hand sometimes, sometimes even mid broadcast, as the script was being performed. Research wasn’t done via the internet or Wikipedia. We used books, the library, and Russ Ringsak’s on-site observations from the road.
The first “mobile phones” that we had were enormous. I remember that technical director Scott Rivard had one that was roughly the size of a shoebox. We had to have phone cables installed in each theater in order to be able to transmit the show for uplink for broadcast. There was one night in New York (the show by then hand moved from The Lamb’s Theatre to Symphony Space and then to The Town Hall) when something went wrong with that uplink connection, and we had to dash from Town Hall to WNYC studios down by City Hall in lower Manhattan carrying two reels of tape so that the show could get on the air for those who tape-delayed it on Saturday, and for the Sunday rebroadcast.
Travel was different, of course, because my time with the show was mostly pre-9/11, and things were easier. There was a season when we had two back-to-back weekend broadcasts in Ohio (Cincinnati and then Columbus, I think), and we had sent out plane tickets to the musicians and guests in advance. One of the musicians (Joe Wilder) headed to LaGuardia on Friday for his flight, shrugged when he didn’t see any other musicians in the waiting area, but figured they must have been on different flights. So Joe boarded a flight to Columbus ONE WEEK EARLIER than he was actually ticketed to go there, having mixed up the order of his Cincinnati and Columbus tickets. Meanwhile the rest of the band was somewhere down another concourse boarding their correct flight, wondering if Joe was late, or just not booked on the show that weekend.
My husband used to drive me to the airport and pick me up, and could come right to the gate with us. One week when I had left my stopwatch in my desk at MPR, he dropped me off, drove back to MPR to pick it up, and delivered it to the door of the aircraft for the stewardess to bring to me.
And then there are certain historical events that I recall in the context of the show: Justice David Souter joined the Supreme Court in October of 1990, and there was a song that Ivy Austin sang about him (“The man is a liberal …) It would have been one of the first broadcasts I worked on.
In spring of 1992, the show was still based in New York, but Ivy had moved to Los Angeles and was flying back and forth each weekend to perform with us. Los Angeles was burning from the Rodney King riots, and there was a question about Ivy’s flight being able to take off because the smoke was so thick at LAX …
In 1994, I remember sitting in a hotel room in Houston, Texas, where we were attempting to do script read-throughs on Friday evening, but sat transfixed in front of a TV watching OJ Simpson’s white Bronco sailing down the LA Freeways with the police in cautious pursuit. Later that fall, we did a broadcast from Madison, Wisconsin, and Tim Russell was in a script where he played a genial, but befuddled Ronald Reagan. Little did we know that Reagan’s revelation of his Alzheimer’s diagnosis was a news item in the break right before the start of the show, because having a constant news feed of things that were going on in the world the moment they happened was not a “thing” yet. Those who heard the show live were appalled by our insensitivity, thinking it was deliberate. But the audience in the theater (who laughed) and the staff and crew knew nothing of this announcement. It was only when I ran into a somber-faced Tim Russell in the lobby of the hotel who gave me the news and saw the blinking red light on my hotel phone indicating an urgent message from Bill Kling that I realized we were going to catch some hell. I think we were able to do a quick edit for the tape delayed broadcasts, and certainly for the Sunday repeats, but, nonetheless, it was uncomfortable.
And then there was the Y2K scare that ended up being a big “nothing burger.”
KATE GUSTAFSON SANDERSON, MANAGING DIRECTOR
I began working for Prairie Home in 1986 just after the big success of Lake Wobegon Days. I worked two years as an elementary music teacher when the state of Minnesota suffered a budget crisis, which meant the laying off of art and music teachers. Typing only 46 words a minute, I got the Minnesota Public Radio job, which entailed answering the phone and responding to the mail. After his hiatus from A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison started broadcasting American Radio Company from New York. I remained in Minnesota but became the business manager, responsible for payrolls, unions, and contracts. In 2002, I became Managing Director of our own company, Prairie Home Productions. Over the next 23 years, we produced 34 broadcasts per year, chartered cruise ships, did crazy summer tours (30 shows in 40 days), opened a bookstore, produced TV shows, theater events, and of course, the A Prairie Home Companion movie.
Garrison would call often, starting the conversation with, “I have an idea.” It was up to our small staff of 15 to bring these ideas to life.
One example happened the season of our 35th Anniversary. For months, we asked Garrison if he wanted to do anything special for the 35th (July 2009). Nine weeks from the anniversary, he called and said that he would like to do a show with these guidelines: a live broadcast from an open field in Avon, Minnesota, including a brass band, Senator Klobuchar, local mayor, priest, restaurant owners, WW II veterans, as well as our regular guests. The event needed to be free with food and beverage vendors. Against all odds, we pulled off a very memorable event. On July 4, 2009, at 5 p.m. CT, it was a perfect 80 degrees. An estimated 10,000 attended the show sitting on picnic blankets and lawn chairs. There were only two ways in to Avon and the traffic was backed up for miles. Senator Klobuchar was stuck in traffic on the freeway well past the start of the show.
This story is a great example of how Garrison put the fan’s experience first — above everything else. It was all about giving the listener and the venue attendee something worthwhile. They were always the first priority. It was up to the staff to get it done, and we always gave it our best shot.
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http://www.craveguitars.co.uk/tag/chet-atkins/
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en
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Chet Atkins
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2020-09-16T11:41:16+01:00
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CRAVE (Cool & Rare American Vintage Electric) Guitars - Love Vintage Guitars
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en
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CRAVE Guitars
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http://www.craveguitars.co.uk/tag/chet-atkins/
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Prelude
HELLO AND WELCOME to the second half of 2020 for what it’s worth. The fact that most of us meek hominids have made it this far is surely a good thing (for mankind, if not the planet), despite the best efforts of coronageddon. At the time of writing there are over 17 million confirmed cases and 667,000 deaths recorded globally due to coronavirus and sadly the numbers are still rising. I hope you are surviving amongst the mercenary madness. Thoughts, as always, lie with those affected directly and indirectly. Also, it is important to recognise the detrimental effects of the COVID pandemic on mental health & wellbeing; the risk of long‑term psychosis is a concern, worse because it cannot be seen and is rarely disclosed as an issue. Civilisation still has some way to go before it can prove resilient to the virus and worthy enough to survive as a species.
Before further ado, let’s move forward to the past. In the last article, I covered the key acquisitions made by CRAVE Guitars during 2019. As signposted last time, this month I’ll be covering the experience of repatriating 42 guitars and basses (40 of them vintage) after an extended period in enforced storage and bringing them back to as good a shape as they can be. None of the guitars covered here were featured in last month’s article, so there is no overlap between the two.
What are we actually talking about here?
As a reminder, here is the full list of the guitars that eventually returned home (by brand/alphabetic order):
Vintage Fender guitars (13):
1966 Fender Coronado II
1965 Fender Duo-Sonic II
1965 Fender Jaguar
1965 Fender Jazzmaster
1965 Fender Musicmaster II
1966 Fender Mustang
1972 Fender Mustang Competition
1977 Fender Stratocaster
1983 Fender Stratocaster ‘Dan Smith’ Era
1988 Fender Telecaster
1974 Fender Telecaster Custom
1973 Fender Telecaster Deluxe
1972 Fender Telecaster Thinline
Vintage Gibson guitars (20):
1983 Gibson Corvus II
1963 Gibson ES-330 TDC
1985 Gibson ES-335 Dot
1983 Gibson Explorer
1984 Gibson Explorer
1982 Gibson Explorer CMT/E2
1984 Gibson Explorer Custom Shop Edition
1984 Gibson Explorer ‘Union Jack’
1976 Gibson Firebird Bicentennial
1966 Gibson Firebird III
1980 Gibson Flying V2
1989 Gibson Les Paul Custom
1977 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe Gold Top
1975 Gibson Les Paul Standard
1964 Gibson Melody Maker
1961 Gibson Melody Maker D
1982 Gibson Moderne Korina Heritage
1981 Gibson RD Artist
1965 Gibson SG Junior
1968 Gibson SG Standard
Vintage other brand guitars (5):
1966 Epiphone Olympic
1962 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins Double Cutaway Hollowbody
1965 Gretsch 6135 Corvette
1974 Rickenbacker 480
1964 Silvertone 1449 ‘Amp in Case’
Vintage basses (2):
1977 Fender Precision Fretless Bass
1978 Music Man Stingray Bass
Non-vintage guitars (2):
2002 Gibson Les Paul Standard
1998 Gibson Les Paul Standard DC
Many purists may assert that some of these aren’t ‘vintage’. However, that is a debate for another time and place (and has actually been deliberated upon in previous articles). CRAVE Guitars’ cut‑off point is currently the end of 1989, i.e. over 30 years old.
While I might bloviate limitlessly about these musical devices, you will probably be relieved that I won’t be going through each of the guitars in sequence and in forensic detail. Rather, I will try to relate the key headlines, the highs and lows, the learning points and any resultant implications arising from the exercise.
At the time of writing, 38 vintage guitars have been given a well-deserved cossetting and these are the ones I’ll be covering here. The only ones remaining are the two vintage bass guitars, which I dread will both need some expert remedial work, as well as the two newer guitars (1998 and 2002). These remaining instruments will get the treatment they require in due course but now is the time to reflect on the significant work done on the major assets. I abhor calling them that but in this context, I guess that’s what they are.
Where they went and how they returned
In this first section, I may reiterate some points I’ve previously covered, so for regular readers, please forgive me for repeating myself. The elephant in the room is… ‘why?’.
I have to admit that the events that led to ‘here & now’ include a very dark period for me and the impact of the hardship still deeply affects me to my core. I won’t go into the detail of the circumstances, suffice to say that I lost pretty much everything back in 2011 and rapidly had to find a temporary home, not only for us as a family, but also for most of my guitars, which at that time was around 37 of them.
My first job was to document what was going away as best as I could, which included photographs and a comprehensive database covering each guitar. Fortunately for me, a good friend was able to find a safe space for them and they were stored away in a dry and reasonably ventilated roof space. Certainly not the ideal conditions for temperature and humidity but when desperate needs must, it was a saviour of momentous proportions and for which I will be eternally grateful. At least we live in a cool temperate zone, so the swings in climate could be a lot worse.
I had hoped to get back on my feet in a matter of just a few months, however that turned into a year and then several years until they were brought back home in 2019. I felt truly bad about the imposition on my friend and very fearful about what deterioration might be taking place in a less than perfect environment over an extended period of confinement. At least the guitars were all in cases of one sort or other, offering some degree of protection. During the lengthy hiatus, some guitars were retrieved, others swapped out and some were interred. Some of them, however, spent the full 7‑8 years in horrible exile.
We eventually relocated into a new home in the SW of the UK in 2017. When we moved, a few of the newer non‑vintage gear had to be sold off to preserve the core vintage items. A year after our move, my friend also moved home, staying in the SE of England. It was that combination of events that led to ‘the 42’ and I being reunited at long last in January 2019. A specialist haulage company charged the Earth for the pleasure of transporting them 200‑odd miles but at least they arrived OK. I had originally planned to refurbish our damp, dark cellar to make a new home for the guitars first but, as is usually our luck, circumstances got in the way and now I’m living amongst many stacked guitar cases. At least they are always close to hand.
I knew that it wasn’t just going to be a case of unpacking and playing them as if nothing had happened, so I set about planning a very unhurried and practical approach to assessment and reconditioning. There was no set order to this process; it was very much a case of starting at the beginning and working through in whatever order they happened to be in. Now, in July 2020, I have worked through all the key returnees.
Nevertheless, it has taken over 18 months to complete the programme of refurbishment to this point. Not a quick procedure but not rushed either. I always felt that it would be better to take it easy rather than potentially to make things worse by jumping in too enthusiastically. They are already old, a little longer doesn’t matter.
General Condition
Thankfully, all the guitars were in cases, although the condition of each case varied greatly. Some cases are good and strong, while others have various signs of wear and tear and some are very tatty and weak, providing hardly any physical protection but better than nothing. The oblong cases were far easier to accommodate, being easier and safer to stack, unlike the shaped ones.
The first thing to notice was a predictable coating of general entropy. A lot of people pay a lot of money for genuine old dust and grime (heehee), so the cases stay as they are, as testament to the trials and tribulations to which they had been exposed. I am not one of those snobbish ‘collector’ types that insist on everything being perfect and as‑new. I fully understand that I am only a temporary custodian in their long lifespan that in some cases started before I was born and which most likely will well outlast me. This part of their existence has at least been documented for all to see. It is all part of our collective heritage, albeit a miniscule representation.
Opening each case for the first time and taking each guitar out was the point of maximum trepidation and anxiety, rather than excitement. On initial release, each one was given a cursory once over to see if there was any immediate and obvious appreciable damage. I can report that, so far, that no appreciable impairment has occurred to any of the guitars during stasis. No significant issues requiring immediate corrective work were noticed, which was a massive relief. Phew!
One thing common to many, if not all, guitars was an unidentified surface film/smear, despite being effectively protected from too many outside elements. There were also signs of varying degrees of oxidation and/or corrosion to some metal parts although, again, nothing particularly serious. Most of these ‘issues’ would be rectified by a sensitive clean. A few guitars seemed to have more nitrocellulose weather checking than I remember. Whether this was a result of inaccurate memory or a genuine reaction to environmental factors, I cannot be absolutely sure. While finish crazing can add mojo to a vintage guitar, I’d rather not intentionally make it worse, so I was a bit despondent on that front, as the crazing process is irreversible. So, job number 1 would be a thorough deep cleaning – not enough to ruin the genuine patina of age but just to bring the finish back to life and protect it for the future.
The next thing was a quick acoustic strum and noodle before plugging them in. All of them were strung at full tension to preserve the neck relief but the strings themselves showed various degrees of corrosion and were horribly sticky to the touch. What surprised me was that about 80% of them were still in tune. Impressive. They sounded dead and lifeless though, even acoustically. So, job number 2 would be a full restring and setup for each of them.
Each guitar was then plugged in to an amp to test the instrument’s electrics. This is, sadly, where the most obvious degradation was evident across the board. Initially, some showed no signs of electrical life at all, which was a concern. Others had annoyingly intermittent noisy signals, many had rough scratchy pots, iffy crackly switches and raucous jittery jack sockets. I don’t think that any permanent failures occurred although they clearly needed to be seen to before they could be used in earnest. To be honest, with unkempt electrics and long dead strings, they generally sounded awful compared to how they should be. Not a promising initial analysis. So, job number 3 would be to go over the electrics where necessary to return them to usable operation.
That’s about it. Thankfully, there were no major concerns other than any reservations I might have had anyway (these are vintage guitars after all). The appearance could easily be resolved through some sensitive tender loving care (TLC). The electrics, I was pretty sure could be cleaned up and just used. Restringing and setting them up properly would, I hope give them a new lease of life. Phase 1 sorted then – just 3 key straightforward tasks for each guitar plus anything specifically identified on each one as they went through the TLC procedure.
Playability
As mentioned above, straight out of storage, pretty much every guitar felt dead and lifeless with little resonance from the bodies. Anyone who has followed CRAVE Guitars over the years knows that it is my firm belief that guitars should never be kept as mere trinkets and they need to be played regularly. The guitars seemed to agree wholeheartedly with this observation, as they were telling me loud and clear that they didn’t appreciate not being used for so long. It makes me wonder how many would‑be collectors are put off vintage guitars because they try one out in this unprepared state and then presume that they are all like that.
As I wasn’t in a hurry, I experimented with my approach to this zombie‑like phenomenon. They are just bits of wood, metal and plastic after all; why should a period of abandonment make that much difference? What is it that makes the difference? I decided to take some amateur and idle investigation a little further.
Some guitars I stripped down straight away, while others I decided to play for a while before reconditioning them. The interesting thing is that they didn’t need cleaning or restringing to bring them back to some resemblance of vitality, they simply needed playing for a while. Even with ratty old strings, tarnished finish and creaky electronics, they surprisingly would recover much of their vibrancy after a few days of being used. Some needed more teasing than others – no surprise there. This doesn’t mean that they couldn’t be made even better. Those that were given some TLC first seemed to spring back a bit quicker and stronger with fresh strings on board.
Most of the guitars did not need much in the way of set up to restore their playability. Not one needed a truss rod adjustment (phew!). I suppose the necks have been OK for several decades and they had already settled into how they should be. However, restringing gave an opportunity to check action, nut, bridge saddles, intonation and pickup height to fine tune them. A couple needed appropriate lubrication for the nut, bridge and tuners but not much. Time for some D’Addario/Planet Waves ‘LubriKit Friction Remover’, especially on vibrato‑equipped instruments. Just a few simple things made a lot of difference.
However, getting back to the point, the biggest difference to usability was simply to play them for a while. The comparison between ‘before’ and ‘after’ was remarkable in almost every instance. I’m sure that there must be scientific reasons but I’m not clear in my mind what actual cause and effect is going on here.
General TLC
This is the bit of maintenance that I’m probably best at – the simple stuff. I have mentioned quite a few times that my practical guitar tech skills are limited. What I can do though, is to give guitars a thorough pampering. The first thing is to take the old strings off (and recycle them). Some needed a bit of extra dismantling, for instance to get at the electrics, to shim a bolt‑on neck or to capture neck/body codes and document internal condition.
Cleaning is a relatively straightforward and painless process but it does make a huge difference to aesthetics. If there were specific reasons to do so, I might start off using T‑Cut judiciously to get through thick grime or smooth out some minor scratch marks. However, T‑Cut isn’t recommended to use on vintage guitars but it can help in some circumstances, as long as one is very careful. I have tried other abrasive products with varying degrees of success.
Most of the cleaning process was done using my guitar maintenance ‘system’ of choice, which is D’Addario/Planet Waves products.
More gentle than T‑Cut is D’Addario’s ‘Step 1 Restore: Detailer’, which is good for restoring the underlying nitrocellulose finish without ruining the natural aging and patina that develops over many years. It also helps to reduce minor swirl or plectrum marks, giving a nice healthy overall sheen. The degree of elbow grease required depended on each guitar and it is worth it.
After leaving the finish for a day to stabilise, I then used D’Addario’s ‘Step 2 Protect: Guitar Wax’, which uses premium quality Brazilian carnauba wax to give it a lovely finish and protect it for the future. As a wax, I’m uncertain as to how effective it actually is on nitrocellulose or polyester finishes but I figured that it certainly can’t do any harm. It is important here not to use anything that contains silicon or other unhelpful contaminants.
At this point, I would stop and not use D’Addario’s ‘Step 3 Shine: Spray Cleaner’ unless I continued to play the guitar for some time. It is ideal for use when a guitar needs a quick spruce up after playing, before putting it back into its case and/or moving onto the next one.
Plenty of people prefer other maintenance systems such as Dunlop’s excellent cleaning products. I just prefer the ’Addario/Planet Waves’ products. It may seem like I’m promoting and/or recommending their products, I’m not – it just works for me. They are quite expensive per millilitre but I think worth it on balance.
All rosewood and ebony fingerboards needed a good clean and multiple applications of lemon oil (which, incidentally, ain’t what it used to be!). Here, I use Kyser Lemon Oil, now that I’ve run out of my old good stuff, which it seems you can’t get any more. I’m still looking for something better though. Maple fingerboards only needed the same cleaning as for body/neck finish and it is important not to use lemon oil on lacquered maple fingerboards.
The condition of frets unsurprisingly varied from guitar to guitar, especially in the lower ‘cowboy chord’ frets. A few will require expert fret work at some point but not immediately. There were a few signs of rough surface corrosion. At its worst, rust build up could be removed using very fine grade wet & dry paper, whereas routine sprucing up could be achieved with fine wire wool depending on condition. For a final gleam, I used D’Addario’s ‘Fret Polishing System’. Visually, it does make a difference and it makes playing much nicer, especially when string bending in the higher registers.
Most of the other metalwork was OK and nothing needed anything radical. One has to be careful on gold, chrome or nickel plating, not to abrade the surface too much, so a gentle application of Brasso Metal Polish wadding was usually enough to remove surface tarnish and restore a nice metallic shine. I didn’t need to go further and use something harsher like Solvol Autosol on any guitar metalwork.
The crackly, glitchy, scratchy electrical components, including the usual pots, switches and jack sockets were mostly solved with a dose of electrical contact cleaner and repeated use to clean the surfaces. Here, I use Tone Electro-Sound Guitar Pick-Up & Electronic Cleaner, which is expensive but cheaper than the class leader, DeoxIT. There were a few remaining electrical problems that will require soldering and/or replacement parts/wires but nothing requiring immediate attention. As they were mostly OK when they went into confinement, it was really only new issues that will need sorting out.
As I’m sure most guitarists will attest, new strings are a key part of the playing experience. Here, I am very pragmatic and don’t insist on a ‘must have’ type of string. I am certainly not a string snob, opting for some (expensive) esoteric boutique product that needs changing after every play. Frankly, I can’t tell the difference. What I will mention is that it requires a level of investment to restring 40+ guitars, especially without ready access to bulk buying as a regular end‑consumer.
For Stratocasters with a vibrato block, I generally use Fender Bullets 10‑46 gauge. For most standard scale guitars, I use Ernie Ball Regular Slinky 10‑46 gauge. For short scale guitars or ones that benefit from a little extra string tension, I’ll go up to Ernie Ball Power Slinky 11-48 gauge. For the Gibson ES‑150, I haven’t decided on a suitable string set yet but it will probably need something like 12-56 semi‑flat wound strings to give it the necessary volume, warmth and resonance that it deserves. With the dreaded Brexit negotiations and no clear trade deals with either the European Union or the U.S.A. (or anyone else for that matter), I may decide to migrate to British‑made Rotosound strings for general use.
A final buffing with a lint‑free duster keeps the guitar’s finish nicely clean and shiny. No guitars are going back into long‑term storage and all will be played regularly over time. They aren’t on constant display and are kept indoors in their cases when not being played.
Remedial Work
Most of the guitars were in pretty good condition when they were stored away, so they didn’t go into incarceration with (m)any outstanding issues. Fortunately, they also came home in pretty good condition too. As mentioned above, I think both basses need some expert attention to their necks. I can’t be sure what issues they may have or what may be required but it is probably best to leave that to the experts.
There are a few guitars that do need electrical work doing, once again, anything beyond cleaning up contacts is best left to the experts. Some have intermittent problems (hums, crackles) or weak signals. On some, the balance of tones doesn’t seem right and could do with investigation. Perhaps some combination of new pots, switches, wires, capacitors, jack sockets, solder joints, etc. may be required.
If replacements and/or repairs are needed, where possible, these will be vintage correct. However, finding genuine vintage parts in the UK is a big issue and importing them is disproportionately expensive, so it isn’t something to be taken on lightly. In several instances, I may have to be pragmatic and replace faulty vintage parts with newer quality equivalents. After all, it is better to have guitars working properly, otherwise they are just planks of wood, bits of metal and plastic that won’t get played. Things like vintage pots can always be fitted retrospectively if need be.
Apart from the basses, not one of the guitars suffered neck problems, which I am genuinely amazed at. I guess they were old and settled anyway. Certainly no fretwork will be needed other than some basic levelling, crowning and polishing. I wish it was something I felt more confident about doing myself but I know that, if I made a mistake, it would undoubtedly be worse than when I started. Best left to a competent technician.
None, thankfully, require any finish work. I would prefer to leave any worn finish, dinks, scuffs, scratches or other marks as they are, rather than refinish a guitar and ruin its authenticity. Besides, I am smitten by the untold stories behind the genuine blemishes and imperfections that give them character. These are not new guitars and neither should they look it. Neither are they museum pieces, so the ravages of daily use are important to both their integrity and charm.
I only have one refinished guitar, which is CRAVE Guitars’ ‘signature’ 1975 Gibson Les Paul Standard. The guitar came to me when it was about two years old and had significant buckle rash on the back. For a while, it was finished in natural before being refinished again in a beautiful cherry sunburst. If you are wondering, it was originally a dark tobacco sunburst. At the time, as a teenager, I didn’t know any better and had absolutely no idea that in several decades that I would a) still have the guitar or b) value original finishes. Oh well. One lives and learns.
Guitar cases are a different matter. Some of the very old ‘cardboard’ cases are pretty tatty and there is not much that can be done about that. A number of cases have broken latches or missing handles and I would like to work through these to make them at least usable. Sourcing vintage or OEM NOS parts and restoring the hardware isn’t easy, as latches, hinges and handles were mainly riveted on, rather than screwed. Again, this isn’t entirely necessary or urgent, so it can be a project for a future date. Mostly, they are best left as they originally came to me.
Parts and Accessories
There are a few guitars that have had newer parts fitted at some point (not by me, I might add!). Some of these examples could do with sensitive conservation by using vintage original replacement parts. None of this is necessary or urgent so, like several other jobs, it can be done over time as opportunities present themselves. Messing with them or modifying them is not on my agenda.
Case candy is always nice to have but I don’t go out of my way to acquire it, if it wasn’t original to the guitar. Authenticity matters here. We have more than enough fake news and phoney history to contend with, without adding unnecessary doubt to the origins of the guitars.
Some have optional parts missing, for instance, my 1977 Fender Stratocaster doesn’t have its original bridge cover but, let’s face it, does it really matter? It may be another ‘nice to have’ but it serves absolutely no beneficial function.
Many of the guitars have their original cases but, similarly, many came to me with non‑original or modern cases. While I might like to get vintage original cases for some guitars, that can be inordinately expensive and it kinda messes with originality. Another ‘nice to have’ but not essential. If an occasion comes along to conserve the instrument better, I’ll consider it as and when. It really is the contents that matter.
If I’ve done my buying well in the first place, the acquisition of parts and accessories to restore a guitar to as close to its original condition generally aren’t needed. There are always exceptions to each rule, so it’s on a case‑by‑case basis.
Documentation and Photographs
By now, you’ll have hopefully concluded that they are all in more‑or‑less acceptable playable condition. Everything else is a bonus.
All that is left to do is to document each guitar at this particular point in time. As mentioned above, when the guitars went into storage, they were photographed and their individual characteristics logged onto a comprehensive database. Now, several years later, some of the details on the database can be updated and, where information was missing, new data can be added.
New photographs have been taken for historical evidence and also added to the database. In the event of some potential future catastrophe such as theft or damage, all the necessary details will be available. Many of the same photographs can also be used on the web site to go with new all‑new features that have been written. I will come back to the web site in due course, so that’s enough on that front for the time being.
In addition, and perhaps more interestingly, this article and the documentation are all part of each these guitars’ long life stories and something that can go with them if and when they ever get passed on. Perhaps for the first time in their long lives, there is a written and photographic moment‑in‑time record for these wonderful heritage artefacts. This extensive task is still only partially completed but there is no ‘burning bridge’ imperative to hurry the task and it can be done at leisure.
The one I couldn’t put down
Rediscovering these lovely vintage guitars all over again was a real pleasure and there weren’t really any major surprises or disappointments. I wasn’t planning on comparing or ranking the returnees. There was, however, one guitar that stood out above all the rest during the process.
It was… drum roll please… the cool 1965 Fender Jazzmaster. It is an all‑original, pre‑CBS standard sunburst Jazzmaster, so there is nothing particularly unusual about it to differentiate it from any other of the period. Once it was resurrected, fairly nearly the end of the programme, it was the one that I just couldn’t put down and I kept playing and playing if for several weeks before I was compelled to move on. The Jazzmaster must have had some fairy dust sprinkled on it for it to stand out from very tough competition.
I consider myself to be very fortunate not only to have had all the guitars but also to re‑experience them for a second time. I am therefore largely content with my lot, despite the hellish privations in getting through the wicked times to this redemptive point.
What next?
Well, the obvious next thing to do is to play and enjoy them. That is, after all, the whole point of having these things in the first place, isn’t it? They can’t all be played at once, so organising them so that they can have equal opportunity for playtime will be important.
That brings us back to an oft‑repeated bugbear of mine, which is my priority to refurbish the house’s currently unused cellar to make a safe and secure home for them all. In the meantime, they are arranged not too badly, so they can be accessed without too much heavy lifting.
While I have worked through the vast majority of the repatriated guitars, these only represent about two thirds of all the instruments here at CRAVE Guitars. There are also the other 24 guitars (and counting), some of which could well do with the same sort of pampering that the returnees have had, and some also need similar remedial work to, for instance, frets, electrics, etc.
I think the cycle of TLC is a continuous one. Once one cycle has been finished, it will be time to start another one. It is a bit like the metaphor of ‘painting the Forth Bridge’, i.e. an on‑going, repetitive and never ending process. Almost the definition of Sisyphean. At least it is a pedestrian task that I can enjoy as therapy from the mad, mad world unravelling outside my little hikikomorian bubble.
While the focus of this article has been on the guitars, there are also effect pedals and amplifiers that need regular attention and some of which were repatriated alongside the guitars. The same basic principles apply to keeping them in tip‑top shape, even though their needs are different.
I don’t need to sell any guitars although a bit of rationalising and trading up may actually be a good idea. The thing is that I’m not one of those people who regularly buys and sells to keep a constant flow of ‘new’ (to me) guitars coming through. I tend to grow an attachment to guitars, and especially these guitars that have been through so much at my expense. There is maybe a small number that I could part with to make space for something else. It’s just whether I can break the emotional ties. Oh, that and the impending global recession will undoubtedly have a bearing on matters.
There will also inevitably be further additions to the ‘collection’ in due course. I can’t see it getting smaller but I can certainly envisage it getting bigger. However, due to the finite constraints of space, time and money, buying anything else is on hold for a while out of plain old and boring necessity.
Help Needed
I mentioned in the last article that vintage guitars, effects and amps need expert attention from time to time to keep them working at their best, so this is basically a reiteration. If there is someone out there with the requisite skillset to help maintain these treasures, and who is local to SE Cornwall in the UK, I would be interested in exploring opportunities. Is there anyone out there attracted to the proposition? If there is, please contact me at the e-mail address at the bottom of every page on the website.
Learning points
Well, having gone through all of the above, I must have learned something, right?
Probably the most important lesson is simply, ‘don’t do what I did’. Don’t store guitars away for long periods, especially in inappropriate environmental conditions. I couldn’t help what happened to me and I did what I had to do using my best judgement at the time. In retrospect, I am not sure what I could have done differently and retain the guitars. I ‘swear to God’ that I don’t ever want to go through that experience again.
The second lesson is ‘to take your time and not rush in’. To do so would risk the integrity of the guitars. After all that time away, a few more weeks waiting to be sorted out made no difference in the big picture. A measured approach worked wonders and also took a lot of the potential stress out of the process. In effect, instead of a single insurmountable task, breaking it down into manageable steps made it more of a therapeutic and cathartic exercise.
The third lesson is to ‘do what you can and do not do any more’. Leave the other stuff to the experts. Be prudent and cautious about what you undertake. Any foolish actions might well prove to be irreversible and therefore regrettable. One also really doesn’t want to make them look like new; they are old and they are meant to look and feel that way. Conserving these artefacts is important, while preserving them (proverbially ‘pickling them in aspic’) is not. Sensitive refurbishment means accepting that what they are is a direct result of what happened to them and to be happy about it. That doesn’t, however, mean that they should now be neglected all over again. They can be played, enjoyed, maintained and kept in good condition, no problem. They’ve survived this long; my job is to ensure that they survive for a long time after me.
That is really it. Three fundamental, profound and straightforward learning points. Simples! The vista of glorious vintage guitars has been re‑opened to me, so that is one thing to celebrate for sure. The haptic experience of playing these gracefully aging instruments has been restored at long last.
Tailpiece
So, that represents some of their story, revealed at long last. After a year‑and‑a‑half, I can finally say that I am relatively pleased with how things are and no longer over‑anxious about what I might find. Why am I not over the moon? Any overwhelming joy or excitement has been surpassed by the detriment of the past decade that I cannot obliviate.
There is still plenty to do, even in one’s splendidly isolated silo of virus‑induced exile. The short‑term aim is largely to continue on the path already set, while also looking forward more ambitiously to the medium‑to‑long‑term future. I have a plan; it is executing the plan that is the problem. That, ultimately, comes down to filthy lucre.
Anyway, that’s two out of the three catch‑up topics now dealt with. I hope you’ll be willing and able to return for another tasty course of ‘whazzup’ delights next month.
Stay safe and hope you continue to survive the coronapocalypse. Remember that the basis of karma is to ‘be good and do good’. Until next time…
CRAVE Guitars’ ‘Quote of the Month’: “Addiction to false beliefs is equivalent to wronging the world’s rights”
© 2020 CRAVE Guitars – Love Vintage Guitars.
← Return to ‘Musings’ page
Welcome to what is, for now at least, the final part in this series of articles on the history of the world’s most popular musical instrument.
If you wish to recap on any or all of the previous seven posts before starting with this one, the whole ‘Potted History of the Guitar’ series, can be accessed here (each part opens in a new browser tab):
Part I – The ancient world up to the early Renaissance
Part II – The Renaissance up to the end of the 19th Century
Part III – The late 19th Century up to the 1930s
Part IV – The 1920s and 1930s
Part V – 1930s up to the 1950s
Part VI – 1950s and 1960s
Part VII – 1960s to date
Part VIII – The current day and into the future. Read on below…
Having pretty much reached the present day, all that remains is to summarise where we are now and to take a somewhat flippant and imaginative look ahead. The ‘current day’ is a tricky subject, as ‘now’ is at best ephemeral. The future, on the other hand, can only ever be guesswork, even if it can be informed by the past. Perhaps the best way to predict the future is to help to create it, so that means that what happens to the next chapter of the guitar is in our hands. Can we be trusted to behave as responsible guardians of the guitar’s destiny? As Mahatma Gandhi (1869‑1948) said, “The future depends on what we do in the present”. This suggests that what will happen is not predetermined and individually or collectively, we can take action to shape the future.
There are not many images again supporting this article so, apologies to those who like pictures to speak a thousand words. Anyway, without further ado, on with the last part of the chronicle…
The guitar has come a very long way in the last 3,500 years or a road slightly less travelled in the preceding 350 years depending on whose version of the facts you want to believe. The story has finally reached that pivotal moment that lies between the past, which is, on the whole, pretty well documented and the future, which of course isn’t. There is much to be played for and the stakes are certainly high.
It is hopefully of little surprise that the future of the acoustic and electric guitar, as well as all its derivatives and distant relations, is probably well‑assured, at least for the foreseeable future. Whether it survives in the (very) long term or not, the world’s favourite musical instrument is undeniably going to be a hard act to follow, let alone surpass.
As with many industrial and technological revolutions, predictions have proved variable in terms of accuracy. As time passes, change tends to accelerate in both pace and scope. While progress may be inexorable, there is an unseen ‘force’ that tends to counteract unbridled advances and which acts as a bit of a restraint. That set of reins is the very human tendency to hold onto what is familiar while resisting change until it is either inescapable or desirable. This natural ‘drag’ effect has laid waste to many grand ideas and great inventions. Numerous well‑marketed ‘next big things’ have fallen at the hurdle of persuading the general public to take up something new or unfamiliar, especially if one’s respected peers haven’t bitten the bullet of early adoption either. Mankind’s flawed history is littered with countless failed marvels. This phenomenon isn’t, I hasten to add, just a trait of idiosyncratic musicians; it appears to be a fundamental characteristic of the human condition.
Anyway, as usual, I digress. It is time to get back to the point which is basically that whatever you read from here on has absolutely no basis whatsoever in fact and is highly likely to be extremely wrong! My consolation is that few people will regard it as portent or look back to judge its accuracy in a century’s time. There is nothing genuinely prescient here in the vein of Da Vinci or Nostradamus. Apologies if you were hoping for more in the way of a profound visionary insight. Unfortunately, my stock of that ran out last week.
General indicators of change
It is fair to suggest that popular music is often representative of, and in turn is dependent on, broader social, cultural and political movements, and guitars follow in their footsteps. Whether we like it or not, music is integral to our everyday lives, so it is not surprising that it is also inherently powerfully evocative. As a result, it can dramatically affect the way we identify with past events.
One of the key factors that drove guitar evolution has been the trends in popular music, so perhaps musical trends may provide a much generalised hint at parallel guitar developments. Let’s start by considering the (very simplistic) genre movements and the types of instrument used over the last century. Starting with the post‑classical era, there was jazz (Gibson archtops) and blues (National & Dobro resonators) in the 1930s and 1940s, country and rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s (Gretsch & Gibson hollowbodies), pop and rock in the 1960s (Fenders and Rickenbackers), progressive and heavy metal (Gibson solid bodies) and then punk (pawn shop guitars) and hair metal (pointy super Strats) in the 1970s. Then we get to the guitar doldrums of electronica, new age and rap in the 1980s, followed by revitalised guitar music of alternative, grunge in the 1990s, and indie (retro guitars) nu‑metal (PRS) and dance in the 2000s, etc. I struggle to think of a musical genre that so far defines the 2010s or perhaps many distinctive guitars to go with them. So there is some kind of link going on here. Google has attempted to map the progression of musical genres from 1950 to the current day (take from it what you will).
The type of guitars de jour used by famous musicians, including artist associations, during these epochs often reflected the style of contemporary music they played and these have largely been well covered in previous parts of the story. Just think of Chet Atkins with his Gretsch 6120, Buddy Holly with his Fiesta Red Fender Stratocaster, The Beatles with their Rickenbacker 300s, or Jimmy Page with his Gibson Les Paul Standard and EDS-1275 double neck. The various interconnections are manifold and too many to mention here, and many have been captured in photographs to become iconic in the annals of rock history.
Cinema and television music regularly use key songs to catapult us back in space and time without the need for narrative exposition to describe what’s happening. Just think about classic movies such as American Graffiti, Stand By Me, Almost Famous, Saturday Night Fever, The Breakfast Club or 8 Mile among many, many others. Those random examples don’t include the numerous biopics (e.g. Sid & Nancy, Walk The Line, The Doors) and musicals (e.g. West Side Story, Grease) or original scores (e.g. Paris Texas) that use familiar, memorable and/or popular music to transport us to another ‘reality’. Then there are the one‑offs like the mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap. TV programmes also picked up the strategy for domestic viewing since the 1960s and often featured manufactured artists such as The Monkees or The Archies. The lists of relevant examples are endless. Music is used to draw the viewer into the director’s vision of a certain bygone era. Many of the sound tracks of our lives rely heavily on evocative (guitar) music to manipulate us emotionally and, more importantly, intentionally.
The way that environmental factors affect local communities may spark a genre direction that is then promulgated more widely. For example, one could point to the rise of electric blues in Chicago, soul in Detroit, Mersey beat in Liverpool, punk in New York and London, rap in Los Angeles/Philadelphia, or grunge in Seattle, etc. What we cannot predict is what or where any future musical revolutions (if any) may emerge, from where, and what step‑change responses guitar builders may then make.
As with many other aspects of our 21st Century lives, the nature of music, how it is made, distributed and accessed suggests that anything genuinely ‘new’ will find it much harder to stand out from the mainstream. What is already there will continue in some form and anything new will simply be added to it, often at the margins of existing genres, hence the proliferation of sub‑genres, e.g. thrash or nu-metal in rock; house and techno in dance; raga and dancehall in reggae; dubstep and grime in urban music, etc. One only has to compare and contrast the mind boggling varieties of heavy metal music and then consider how they continuously diverge, converge and cross‑fertilise in order to keep it fresh and vibrant.
While some technological change may be more predictable, social change and the music that characterises it is certainly more unpredictable. When one looks at something as specific and tangible as the guitar, it becomes increasingly risky to anticipate with any certainty what change may occur over an extended period of time, say the next century or so.
One view is that we are powerless and don’t need to think about it, as what will be, will be. Another is that we wait passively and be subject to what transpires with little or no influence over it. A third way may be not to accept the status quo and take positive action to stimulate change, which can happen in oddly random ways. Being of an opinionated sort, I tend to fall into the latter camp. Apologies, that probably actually doesn’t help much!
Perhaps the biggest challenge to the guitar’s supremacy is likely to lie in the digital revolution that really started to make an impression in the 1970s and 1980s. Part of the reason for the guitar’s seemingly unassailable success has been that it is a hugely expressive and flexible instrument, which actually makes its nuances extremely difficult to replicate in a world constructed entirely of binary 0s and 1s. We shall see whether digital advances can fully overcome the difficulties in recreating the subtleties provided by a very analogue instrument in the hands of discriminating (and generally quite conservative) musicians.
The evidence so far suggests that digital is making ever increasing inroads into the analogue guitar’s dominance and the discernible gap between analogue and digital output is decreasing all the time. How long will it be before even the most ardent luddites finally admit that they can’t really tell the difference (despite what they may say outwardly)? However, it isn’t just the sound of guitars that appeals to guitarists; it is also the feel and the look of them that matters, as well as how they allow musicians to communicate with each other in unspoken ways.
New generations of guitarists, however, may be looking for something very different from their predecessors. What form will ‘the shape of things to come’ take? Will it be all hyper‑modernistic and crammed with tech and flashing lights and built from materials we cannot yet imagine, or will it be the same old bits of tree wood crafted into the familiar shapes of Telecasters, Stratocasters, Precisions, Les Pauls, ES‑335s and SGs that we covet today? Only time will tell how things pan out and it will be for future authors to use the convenient assistance of hindsight to determine and document what path the history of the guitar takes from here on.
Looking and learning from the past, one might simply extrapolate forward. Future guitarists may well be like their ancestors and pragmatically seek to mix the best of the past with the best of what’s to come, regardless of whether it is analogue or digital. My personal prediction is a typically ambiguous ‘sit on the fence’ one, in that guitars will probably become increasingly hybrid if they are to keep ahead of other comparable instruments. Let’s face it, there are not really any threats` to the guitar’s dominant popularity at the time of writing and it has always been a continuously evolving instrument, so it would be of little surprise if this were to continue. While the 1980’s temporary trend for synth and electronica attempted to eradicate guitar music in the minds of popular listeners, the guitar has proved very resilient and difficult to displace.
Since the 1970s, the guitar has been used to trigger digital electronics. However, while both signal tracking and polyphony still present problems, these barriers are gradually being overcome. There have been several attempts to introduce effective guitar synths over the years but they have really been analogue or digital filters activated by either an ordinary guitar pickup or by discrete signals from a hexaphonic pickup. Hex pickups, which output a separate signal for each string, were often added to an existing guitar and used to transform it into a MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) controller while still able to be used as an ordinary guitar. MIDI was a standard specification published in August 1983 by Japanese electronics giant Roland and American synthesizer company Sequential Circuits, and is commonly used to control electronic audio equipment. While attempting to revolutionise guitar music, Roland’s excursions into guitar synths since the 1980s have still relied on a standard guitar as its starting point.
Other Japanese companies specialising in electronics have also experimented with MIDI control of external synthesis engines, for instance guitars from Casio (DG20) and Yamaha (EZ-EG). It seems incredible to think that these early electronic instruments are now being considered as ‘vintage’. Today, there are now plenty of guitars on the market with MIDI capability built in. Technology has moved on and the fundamental concepts of a digital source are now ripe for being reinvestigation and improvement.
Other pioneering companies such as Line 6, now owned by another Japanese giant Yamaha, introduced their ground breaking digital modelling preamp (the Pod) and digital modelling guitar (the Variax) to indicate the direction in which development might go. Line 6’s philosophy inspired and influenced subsequent successful products such as the Kemper Profiler and the Fractal Audio Systems Axe-FX. Computer control of complex parameters, presets, firmware and downloads are commonplace for amps and effects in the 2010s and we can certainly expect this trend not only to become de facto but also to become a requirement in the near future, so a laptop at live gigs is already almost a necessity to keep your rig running smoothly – not a comfort zone for many analogue technophobe musos.
Guitar making cannot stand still and neither should it. Even the companies with a century or more of history, such as Gibson, Gretsch and Martin, have to keep moving forward or risk being overtaken. However, the tightrope of appealing to customers who appreciate the heritage is also key to the future success of long‑established manufacturers. Newer, smaller companies, though, are not constrained by the time capsule factor.
It is probably safe to say that the future is likely to be a practical symbiosis of both the familiar to satisfy the conservative traditionalists and the whizzy new gizmos to appeal to the technologically savvy experimentalists and neophytes… just as it always has been if fact. Even Gibson has been toying with the addition of digital features into its guitars, including the Les Paul HD.6X Pro and the Firebird X models. Intriguingly, Fender and other major brands have yet to declare their hands. It will be the fine balance between the opposing forces that will enable lasting incremental change, via ‘chimera’ guitars, rather than a number of fundamental radical shifts. That eventuality could prove a bit boring though, don’t you think? However, sadly, it also seems to mirror the way that modern popular music is going as well?
Leaps of unadulterated conjecture:
This next section is pure fantasy and should not be relied on as authentic in any way. It came from an idea that it can sometimes be fun to imagine what things might be like in some near or distant future. One hopes, though, that what follows doesn’t come to represent some form of self‑fulfilling prophecy.
It may be that the guitar itself could become superseded by something completely different from what musicians (rather than video game players) use today. Could it be possible that something along the lines of the PlayStation ‘Guitar Hero’ controller may someday make inroads into real instruments to create real music? I would anticipate that the majority of guitarists would sincerely hope not.
There are already some very modernistic looking instruments out there, such as the HTG Hyper Touch and the Misa Kitara (note the use of the Greek name kitara from Part I of this long story). Are these all‑electronic ‘guitars’ the sorts of instruments that will replace our beloved classic designs and become de rigeur in the near future? Alternatively, perhaps the electric guitar could somehow morph into some form of fully digital instrument via the route of hybridisation. As a logical conclusion, is the ‘Digital Guitar’ with analogue playability a holy grail and, if so, for whom? Here are some current digital guitar innovations from the 2010s…
So… suspend your disbelief for a few minutes and take a tentative look ahead to the scary world of AIs, AAs, AVs and AM (spoiler alert – these acronyms may seem familiar but in this context, they don’t mean what you think they mean today). You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. Read on…
10 years’ hence (c.2028):
Analogue vs digital – Digital technologies will be used increasingly to enhance the analogue signal chain rather than usurp it completely. We have already seen many examples of this appearing in effects and amps, so there isn’t really any clever insight in mentioning it. Digital control of analogue signals is already becoming commonplace especially in delay and modulation effects where digital manipulation gives much more precise control over what happens in the analogue domain.
It remains unpopular to sample the original signal through an analogue to digital converter (ADC), mess around with it and then put it back through a digital to analogue converter (DAC) to turn it back into a signal for further processing. Many purists say that the act of conversion using today’s chips taints the original signal. It will be a while longer before we make that bold step of a fully digital signal chain from fingers to ears but it is getting ever closer. It will happen but possibly not by 2028, mainly because of the difficulty in engineering effective fully digital instruments and loudspeakers.
Research will continue to develop a truly digital guitar ‘pickup’ that could compare to current electromagnetic pickups and provide the first step to more complex processing in the future. Digital modelling using DSP (Digital Signal Processing) chips will continue to improve and will become almost indistinguishable from analogue electronics in effects, amps and digital audio workstations (DAWs). There will be a hardcore fan base that remains wedded to the old school stuff for many, many years to come. The guitar itself is highly unlikely to become fully digital in the next 10 years, if only because there are far too many dogmatic people invested in preserving the status quo. Auto‑Tune for the guitar anyone?
Guitar Making – In the near future, it is highly unlikely that wood will be superseded by any other material as the primary input for the majority of guitars. Wood has proved over millennia to be a very flexible, durable renewable material. Let’s face it, it can also look wonderful. One major advantage of wood is that it contributes towards the organic tone and touch of an individual musical instrument. Many alternative materials have been used in the construction of guitars since at least the 1920s, including plastics, metals, carbon fibre and a wide variety of composites. To‑date, though, wood has prevailed in terms of structural integrity allied to inherent musicality. What will change, though, is the shift away from the use of endangered exotic hardwood species such as rosewood, ebony and even mahogany to more sustainable species. For instance Pau Ferro (Libidibia Ferrea, a.k.a Bolivian rosewood) is rapidly replacing the CITES‑restricted rosewood (varieties of the genus Dalbergia) as a popular fingerboard material. Quite how fussy musicians will accept unfamiliar wood substitutes, will be determined in due course. What is clear is that guitarists really have no choice but to go with the ecologically acceptable flow in the long‑term.
Like their classical musical counterparts, the guitar itself (whether acoustic or electric) will remain very much a natural instrument for a good few years yet. The guitar will still be supremely popular and will be making great music all over the world. Guitars will be made by a broad range of entities from one man band local custom luthiers up to multinational mass manufacturers. Competition, particularly from China, will be a threat to many established western companies until their economic bubble bursts, which it eventually will at some point.
Recorded music – The vast majority of recorded guitar music will be produced on digital equipment with a few retro studios still using analogue equipment including valve preamps and tape machines. The relative accessibility of convenient digital recording equipment will continue to provide openings for all sorts of artists from the home musician to the professional mega bands using famous dedicated studio facilities such as the famous Abbey Road Studio in London. Recorded music will be increasingly distributed and accessed online, although legacy formats will maintain a solid niche popularity.
Live music – Live music will continue to grow in popularity to become the cornerstone for many successful artists, provided that they do not price themselves out of live appearances and that over‑zealous regulations don’t stop large live events from taking place. PA and monitoring systems will continue to improve significantly and sound pressure levels at venues will be severely restricted, removing some of the visceral excitement of the live music experience.
30 years’ hence (c.2048):
Analogue vs digital – Digital will be the primary domain in which music will be made, recorded, distributed and accessed. The guitar will remain analogue, although it is likely that the entire chain from the pickup onwards will be predominantly digital. However, as with current classical instruments and music, there will still be an important place for traditional analogue guitars. Amps and effects are likely to be almost totally digital. Successors to the analogue electromagnetic pickup and the loudspeaker will be introduced to a point that digital sound will be common if not universal. ‘Old fashioned’ guitars will remain very popular and will experience regular revivals and rejuvenations, even if the overall battle will be won by the digital technologies of the 2040s. New digital connectors will proliferate, as the currently ubiquitous USB port will long since have been superseded, and the jack pug/socket will be purely of vintage interest.
Guitar making – Most of the large manufacturers will be producing some sort of digital instrument as the norm, even if the vital interaction between fingers and strings will remain as it is now. All guitar tone woods will be derived from sustainable sources by strict regulation and use of rare species tightly controlled (outside the unavoidable black market). The use of alternative materials will be in full swing, reducing the reliance on today’s natural materials. New guitars will be built to be recyclable. Automated manufacturing will be the norm and the demand for traditionally made guitars will be catered for by numerous specialist guitar builders. Pure wooden analogue guitars will be vintage only and regarded with the same respect as classical instruments are now. Guitar development will be relegated to refinements around the margins, rather than core revolutions. Hybrid instruments will be fighting a rear‑guard action, with digital beginning to win the final battle. Competition to the guitar will continue but will not succeed… yet.
Recorded music – Digital will almost totally dominate recorded music production, distribution and access. Diehard analogue fans will be regarded as geeks and nerds. Vinyl albums will, however still persevere… just.
Live music – Like recorded music, live music will be, apart from the musicians themselves, almost universally digital. ‘Loud’ live music will be a thing of the distant past. Music venues will begin to disappear as discrete locations, with personalised performance content delivered direct to the individual.
50 years’ hence (c.2068):
Analogue vs digital – Analogue guitar music will be like classical music is today, a popular, niche and a largely historic pastime. All other aspects will be digital.
Guitar making – Standardisation and construction will be largely prescribed. Hybridisation will just about have peaked and on its way out. The majority of guitar production will move towards making AIs (Artificial Instruments). The focus will be on the technical facets of music making, rather than subjective, emotive ones. Guitars as we know them now will be of heritage interest.
Recorded music – Music will be manufactured in the digital domain with just a few maverick analogue‑obsessed musicians beavering away in the minority. The vast majority of contemporary recorded music will be created electronically, with few outmoded musical instruments as we know them now being used. Many artists will be AAs (Artificial Artists), rather than by artistically inclined human beings – the latter will concentrate on performing historic pieces from the golden heyday of guitar music.
Live music – There will no longer be a need to travel to a discrete venue where music is performed in person to a collective audience. ‘Live’ music will be created in computers, customised to an individual’s tastes and accessed in the home, in a domain known as an AV (Artificial Venue) giving the sight, sound and feel of a venue.
100+ years’ hence (c.2120):
Analogue vs digital – Analogue guitar music will be an historic vocation and largely a lifestyle pastime. All other aspects of ‘modern’ music will be entirely digital. Some authentic old‑style music will be recreated on historic instruments for research purposes, rather than as entertainment.
Guitar making – Even the last few old‑school luthiers will be migrating to alternative materials, automation and digital electronics. Hybrid instruments will be seen as a thing of the past. AIs will be commonplace and there won’t be a need for human musicians to learn the art or skills needed to make any type of contemporary music.
Recorded music – Popular music will be artificially created without the need for accomplished musicians. Music will be constantly morphing on a second‑by‑second basis, known as AM (Artificial Music).
Live music – Performance capture will be produced electronically and experienced direct by the listener’s visual and audio receptors, bypassing the unreliable eyes and ears altogether. Finally, the digital signal path from computerised source to the recipient’s brain will be complete and will require no human intervention whatsoever.
Alternative Reality
Or… in some alternative, perhaps more desirable dimension, the unwritten future could well be pretty much as it is today, with new generations doing just what we do now, rocking to good old electric guitar music. To many guitarists, the tactile and synergetic relationship between musician and his/her guitar in full flow with other musicians is unbreakable and simply cannot be usurped by some dystopian digital future scape.
One trusts that there will always be a place for creative artisans and a desire or the musically minded to enjoy the fruits of their vision for the guitar of the future. It is encouraging that many well‑known guitar makers are actually stepping back in time in order to move forward. This isn’t the paradox that it may first seem. Savvy guitar builders are investigating in great depth what made great guitars great in the first place and identifying what musicians actually want from their instruments today. Much of this current R&D is leading to a number of findings that indicate that what was important 100 and 200 years ago (and probably longer) is still important today but with modern consistency and reliability.
Perhaps the past masters did get it largely right in the first place and that is why their products, new or vintage, are still desirable artefacts today. While traditional manufacturers like C.F. Martin use modern production methods for some parts of the building process, they are also still using tools and equipment employed by successive cohorts of luthiers, as well as relying on many of the basic techniques and skills refined and passed down from one generation to the next. Most of the top flight guitar builders also work very hard to ensure long-term supplies of precious tone woods to make into future guitars. This focus on the best‑of‑the‑best perhaps suggests that guitars may well remain, for the large part, relatively familiar in 10, 30, 50 and 100 years from now but with improvements to the detail. Perhaps it takes that bold flight of fancy to realise that we already have what we and future generations of musicians actually need. Owning inspiring guitars inspires guitar playing and results in inspiring guitar music.
There really is no point in speculating any further ahead. The likelihood is that, even with advances in medical technology, most if not all of us reading this in 2018 will not be around to see anything beyond c.2020. The guitar is dead, long live the guitar. The passage of father time will inform just how accurate these flights of fantasy (or descents into nightmare) really are. Clearly, the further one looks into the future, the less precise any predictions become. Welcome to tomorrow’s very scary ‘brave new world’.
I, for one, am certainly not laying any bets. I’d like to think that there is something about our very personal instruments that will endure for many decades, if not centuries. If we lose that quintessential ‘something special’ about making guitars that make guitarists that make music, it will all have been for nothing. Watch this space.
Conclusion
So, that’s it. The long‑running and on‑going story of the guitar has finally reached a logical stopping off point, at least for now… However, it not the end of the story by any means. Somewhat disappointingly, the denouement to ‘A Potted History of the Guitar’ series seems to be a bit more of a whimper than some almighty bang. After so much history and so much personal investment in researching it, it seems a bit of a let‑down to leave the guitar’s evolution ‘hanging’ without some sort of definitive resolution to the script and with the various loose ends neatly tied up. Nevertheless, remember that this is not a fictional piece and let us not forget that this is definitely not the epilogue.
‘They’ say that a picture speaks a thousand words. So, to sum up the 3,500‑year, 8‑part journey in a single image that tells the story of the guitar from its origins to the possible near future, here is a fitting 27‑picture montage that possibly speaks approximately 50,000 words. Basically, I could have saved 9 months of my life and just posted this one composite picture. That, I guess, is one of the benefits of hindsight. I hope that you’ve enjoyed the expedition with me and that, like me, you have learned a little something about the guitar along the way. You wanted a potted history of the guitar? Well, how about…
From this point in time onwards is the start of the future and, whatever happens next. It will be fascinating to experience the on‑going next instalment of the long story and to observe with trepidation and excitement what is to unfold. Let us try to make it a bright and positive outcome for everyone who loves The Guitar and Great Guitar Music. Thank you for reading. Enjoy the future, whatever it holds for us guitar aficionados.
End of Part VIII and the end of this series
Now… I need a break from the relentless rigmarole of the research and write routine, which has, for the best part of a year (or more), been on top of everything else. As mentioned previously, at some point, I might adapt the eight separate ‘Guitar History’ parts into a more coherent and accessible feature set on the CRAVE Guitars’ web site.
Very shortly, I will try and start to prepare for 2019’s (hopefully slightly less) epic partner piece to this year’s gargantuan opener. For the rest of this year, it is back to opinionated hum‑drum ‘normality’ with stand‑alone observations of a more topical and transient nature.
One thing I have noticed is that I haven’t been playing enough guitar in recent months, hardly any at all in fact, which is deplorable. So perhaps now that this particular endeavour is over for now, it’s time to practice what I preach, pick up a lovely vintage guitar and plink away for a bit of cathartic enjoyment. At least, in doing so within the context of the past, I now have an enhanced appreciation of the history that led to it coming into my hands and why it is so important to conserve the heritage for that future. Until next time…
CRAVE Guitars ‘Quote of the Month’: “Let’s be honest, the future is all we really have and it is the only thing we can do anything about”
© 2018 CRAVE Guitars – Love Vintage Guitars.
← Return to ‘Musings’ page
Welcome back to the latest in a long series of articles chronicling the history of the world’s favourite musical instrument. Last time, we covered the advent of production solid body electric guitars during the guitar’s ‘golden era’ from c.1950-1965. That article also covered some relevant later events, but the essence was about a period of intense invention and creativity, hence why it deserved a separate article dedicated to it, even though much of the content would be familiar to many.
This month’s article mostly focuses on ‘what happened next’ between c.1965-1987, although it does also cover the subsequent period up to the current day, albeit in less depth than the earlier years. Depending on how the rest of the story is covered, this 7th part is likely to be the penultimate episode.
If you’ve been following the various twists and turns along the way, you’ll know that I have tried very hard to strike a balance between light entertainment for the general reader and the level of detail that would appeal to the needs of the nerdiest of guitar geeks out there. As previously stated, this is not an academic thesis – I just don’t have the time or resources to reference every element along the way, so it probably will never make it into book form, which is a bit of a shame but ç’est la vie. However, once the 3,500 year history has been finished, I may try to bring it all together as a ‘box set’ feature on the web site, so it will be easier to find and come back to than monthly instalments. It also provides the opportunity to correct the content. I may also add a bit off the original longer version back in (!!) and to balance the various parts as a more coherent whole.
You may wish to recap on previous articles before starting here at Part VII. If so, the previous segments of ‘Potted History of the Guitar’ series, can be accessed here (each part opens in a new browser tab):
Part I – The ancient world up to the early renaissance
Part II – The renaissance up to the end of the 19th Century
Part III – The late 19th Century up to the 1930s
Part IV – The 1920s and 1930s
Part V – 1930s up to the 1950s
Part VI – 1950s and 1960s
I hope that you’ve enjoyed the journey so far and will stick with it for just a little longer. For me, it has certainly involved a huge amount of hard work researching and learning along the way. There is an enormous amount of information that had to be excluded in order to make it digestible in an online format. As always, while I have been diligent, some errors and omissions will inevitably have crept in. Not only do I apologise if that is the case but also, I welcome feedback from readers in order to correct or clarify. I would also encourage readers who might wish to look at things either from a different perspective or with a different level of detail to explore the fascinating world of guitars for yourselves.
There are not many pictures this month, as the subject matter is largely narrative‑driven. Sorry about that, photo fans.
Post-Modern Reconfiguration, Rejuvenation and Consolidation
It has become generally accepted that the electric guitar’s so‑called ‘golden era’ started at the beginning of the 1950s with the introduction of Fender and Gibson’s solid body electric guitar models and ended in the mid‑1960s around the time that Leo Fender sold up in early 1965, followed by Gibson in 1969.
On the face of it, the years immediately after the mid‑1960s would appear to be of little historic interest, particularly as far as investors and ‘serious’ collectors are concerned. While the 1950s and early 1960s have been very well documented in countless learned tomes, the subsequent years have tended to be characterised by vociferous opinion and anecdote in a relative vacuum, rather than subject to objective scrutiny.
The Internet has, perhaps unsurprisingly, encouraged many already polarised opinions to become even more extreme. Assertive and often throwaway hyperbole of many self‑appointed ‘experts’ has possibly been consistently exaggerated to the point that they have gained some sort of historical validity. Widely read ‘unpopular opinion’ is often misinterpreted as indisputable definitive evidence. It isn’t gospel; there was more to it than what many would have you believe.
This version of the ‘facts’ is arguably simply that and, while every effort has been made to remain impartial, it should be read with a degree of realistic scepticism. This doesn’t mean that there wasn’t some ‘smoke without fire’, just that the flames may have been fuelled by circumstances and intensified by ill‑informed prejudgment.
The music industry wasn’t alone in coming in for acerbic over‑criticism; the American automotive industry was also subject to similar issues during 1960s and 1970s. The parallels extend beyond the superficial with the demise of many historic car brands and the inexorable rise of Japanese competition. As with guitars, some of these old models are now becoming highly sought after. The guitar industry during the latter part of the 20th Century, it seems, was symptomatic of wider deep‑seated socio‑political problems in the world’s largest capitalist economy.
Actually, ‘what happened next’ is an equally fascinating tale and one that is worth spending a little while looking at. At the same time, it’s also worth standing back and looking at the bigger picture as events unfolded. While it’s all a matter of degree, what transpired was rife with intrigue and machination. The appeal of these transitional years is one of the reasons that CRAVE Guitars tends to focus on ‘forgotten underdog’ and quirky cool American electric guitars from between around 1960 and 1989, although not exclusively.
Was that all‑too‑brief 15‑year ‘golden era’ the end of the story? Will guitars built in the ‘dark ages’ between 1965 and 1987 remain ignored most as gross errors of judgement? Will there be another defining period of electric guitar evolution or will musicians spend their lives experiencing mediocrity by default while harking back to that unobtainable time viewed through rose‑tinted spectacles? Perhaps digital technology will deliver the next step‑change with some Darwinian mutation that future writers will look back upon and write about. OK, enough of the rant, on with the story…
The Catalysts
The trouble really started once both Fender and Gibson been acquired by faceless corporations used to running commercial businesses, rather than important customer‑led operations. Despite post‑war prosperity and growth, the period between the mid‑1960s and the mid‑1980s could possibly be described aptly as eventful and tempestuous. In hindsight, whichever way you look at it, the sale of the industry’s ‘big guns’ was a 20th Century watershed for guitar building.
Firstly, let’s take a quick look at what actually happened immediately after the ‘golden era’ drew to a close circa 1965. The subsequent corporate merger & acquisition activity impacted directly on American musical instrument manufacturing up to the end of the 1980s. A few choice examples may help to illuminate the significant strife that befell the industry for a couple of decades (in rough chronological order)…
Rickenbacker – The only one of the major American brands that didn’t ‘sell out’ during the 1960s was Rickenbacker. They had, in some ways dodged that particular bullet, as Adolph Rickenbacker had already sold his company to music industry businessman Francis C. Hall in 1953. In retrospect, the move to transfer the undertaking and to keep it in safe hands seemed both pre‑emptive and positively prophetic. Arguably, the timing enabled Rickenbacker to capitalise on 1950s creative growth and become more resilient to what was to come. RIC (short for Rickenbacker International Corporation) has remained under the ownership of the Hall family since 1953 with John C. Hall as CEO at the time of writing.
Fender – After Rickenbacker, Fender was the first of the big names to capitulate to big business ambition. In 1965, Leo Fender sold his company to CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) for just over $13m. The reason often given for the sale was Leo Fender’s health, although an injection of capital funding probably was also contributory. Other perspectives cite Leo Fender’s desire to pursue new ideas, which he possibly couldn’t do while running the company. CBS started making changes almost immediately and expanded capacity at Fullerton to increase supply. By agreement, Leo Fender was prohibited from setting up another music instrument company for 10 years, after which he went on to found Music Man (1974) and then G&L (1980). After 20 years under CBS control and on the brink of total collapse, division president William Schultz bought the company, forming Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC) in 1985. What followed was a period of intense restructuring, with guitar production temporarily moved to Japan for approximately two years before resuming full American manufacturing with the launch of the American Series guitars in 1987. U.S. manufacturing was moved from Fullerton to Corona, California and its headquarters were relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona. Fender was once again back on the path to success as an independent company and has remained so ever since.
Danelectro – Danelectro was originally formed by entrepreneur Nathan Daniel in 1947. Daniel built his business on the back of large scale, low cost department store and mail order demand for electric guitars, often branded as Silvertone and Airline. This enabled him to start building instruments under the Danelectro brand from 1954. By 1966, Daniel sold Danelectro to industry giant MCA (Music Corporation of America). MCA tried unsuccessfully to introduce the Coral brand and to restructure its distribution network. The outcome was that Danelectro ceased production altogether just 3 years later in 1969. The brand was resurrected by the Evets Corporation in the late 1990s and, after several faltering attempts to recapture market share, Danelectro remains in operation as a successful American company with overseas manufacturing based in China and Korea.
Gretsch – Gretsch was originally founded by Friedrich Gretsch in 1883. Two years after Fender and one year after Danelectro, Fred Gretsch sold the family business to the Baldwin Piano Company in early 1967. After many organisational troubles including relocation, factory fires, Chet Atkins withdrawing his endorsement, and misjudged model decisions, Baldwin finally ceased production of Gretsch instruments by 1981. Fred W. Gretsch acquired what little remained of the company in 1985, basically just the Gretsch name and rights ownership. After a number of abortive efforts, consistent output was eventually re‑established in Japan. Rockabilly guitarist Brian Setzer became a key endorsee for Gretsch in the 1990s and consumer interest in the brand was rekindled. Retaining family leadership, Gretsch has been under the patronage of Fender since 2002 and the famous brand is once again a significant player in the guitar industry.
Gibson – Gibson was really the last of the large American names to succumb to corporate ownership. Gibson’s parent company, Chicago Musical Instruments Ltd (CMI) followed the competition in 1969 when Gibson was taken over by a South American brewing company called ECL and then subsumed by Norlin Musical Instruments in 1974. Gibson survived cost‑cutting, relocation to Nashville and general mismanagement largely intact, although its hard‑earned reputation was severely tarnished. Gibson eventually returned to private ownership in 1986 through a consortium management buyout. Despite a major financial crisis and bankruptcy protection initiated in May 2018, there are signs of a positive future for the company.
These were just some of the big players who were able to weather the economic storms during the second half of the 1960s through the 1970s and into the 1980s. In addition to the big names, plenty of other well‑known American companies failed to survive, including:
Valco merged with Kay in 1967; a move that included familiar names such as Supro and Airline. However, the newly combined company went bust in 1968
National Dobro merged with Mosrite before the latter went bankrupt, also in 1968
Harmony lasted until 1975 before it ceased trading
Those that survived the volatility would continue to fight for survival at best. Overall, when viewed in hindsight, it proved a disastrous phase for American guitar making and collectively one that isn’t widely documented, other than in individual circumstances. The ‘golden era’ was, seemingly, definitely over.
As is often the case, the causes of American guitar manufacturing woes between the mid‑1960s and the mid‑1980s are quite complex, based on deep‑seated structural flaws. Looking at the circumstances strategically, there were probably, amongst many other contributory factors, five key issues…
Industry structure and stability – Inward investment and backing of large business should have provided a positive commercial injection to guitar companies who were either struggling with financial difficulties or were unable to grow quickly enough with existing management structures. What actually happened was that big businesses, as is their wont, were looking to cut costs and increase profit, seemingly unaware of the impact that they were having. The large companies tried to stimulate demand by experimenting and introducing new products without assessing whether what they were making was adequately meeting consumers’ needs. For small agile companies, risk taking was a vital part of the creative process, while the bigger firms focused on large scale, efficient production methods, conversely heightening the risks of failure. Remote and disconnected governing bodies tended to dictate business decisions based on balance sheets and shareholder return, rather than customer satisfaction. Arguably, though, the businesses were in dire need of ‘better’ rather than ‘different’ management both before and after takeover.
Industrial relations – Strict operational disciplines, controlled production processes and rigorously applied policies are a fundamental requirement of larger bureaucratic organisations. These management styles were generally not part of the music industry’s ‘way of doing things’ at the time. Companies needed to be managed effectively rather than efficiently and, unfortunately, the pendulum swang too far towards the latter. Business managers exhibited a flagrant disregard for the expertise and skills required to make consistent, high quality musical instruments. Production facilities were relocated, often giving long‑term highly experienced luthiers a ‘move or go’ ultimatum. In addition distribution and dealership networks were changed with little regard for what went before. Unhappy employees and belligerent trade unions led to heated industrial disputes (and worse), thereby causing significant leadership and management problems. Decades of accumulated knowledge, skills, expertise and, perhaps importantly, attitude were lost to the industry in a short space of time – something that would take years to rebuild. The outcome was that quality fell, exacerbating existing deficiencies elsewhere in the industry.
Industry culture – New corporate owners did not fully appreciate or take the time to understand why the guitar industry worked as it did, resulting in fundamental mistakes internally and externally. The latter disenfranchised those involved in the supply chain from distributors to dealers and, ultimately, impacting on paying customers. Crucially, working musicians’ requirements were not being met and, with that dissatisfaction, brand loyalty diminished as professional guitarists looked elsewhere for alternatives. In addition, musical tastes were rapidly changing and short‑lived fads required nimble organisations that knew how to adapt to changes quickly and appropriately. Smaller companies that were better‑tuned into what was going on could flex more easily. The larger corporations, however, were unable to spot change and respond, leading to mismatches and time lags between demand and supply. Many commentators suggest that it was because musicians weren’t running the show. However, guitarists don’t necessarily make good business people (or vice versa!), which might have contributed to the difficulties. Significantly, two of the most influential guitar innovators – Leo Fender and Ted McCarty – didn’t play the guitar at all. Nevertheless, they were effective leaders because they ensured that professional artists were closely involved with business decisions. Importantly, the time when musicians were listened to and relationships were actively cultivated had fallen by the wayside.
Supply problems – Availability of consistent materials, particularly the all‑important tone woods, created challenges for large‑scale American production. Variable density and therefore weight of some imported tone woods meant that it was difficult to manufacture to dependable standards. Depending on the combination of materials, the shortage of quality inputs affected builders to different degrees. Around the same time, sustainability and environmental factors were becoming an issue, leading to further supply issues. Manufacturers started looking to alternative materials including metal (e.g. Kramer, Travis Bean), plastics (e.g. Ampeg/Dan Armstrong) and composites (e.g. Gibson) that were intended to improve consistency and streamline manufacturing processes. Other moves included building guitars not from single pieces of difficult to acquire, expensive wood but from cheaper, smaller, more available cuts. Consumers saw such actions as negative and symptomatic of other perceived underlying problems. Unfortunately for the manufacturers, customers were not impressed by ‘good intentions’ and the changes were seen as cost‑cutting measures taken a step too far. Many consumers saw through superficial claims and resented the big companies for making what they felt were false marketing claims.
Far Eastern competition – Enterprising Japanese companies, revitalised by post‑WWII recovery and able to observe from outside, spotted that American labour and manufacturing costs were contributing to a combination of poor quality and high prices – an equation that would present opportunities to penetrate a previously U.S.‑dominated market. Companies such as Ibanez and Yamaha did two crucial things. The first was to use their structural advantages to make high quality instruments at lower cost, and to produce them in large enough numbers to compete with American products on their own ground. The second thing they did was to brazenly copy iconic American designs, presenting consumers with recognisable products built to (generally but not always) higher standards and sold more cheaply than the American ‘classics’. There is more on the Japanese competitive assault on American guitar makers below. They also used rapidly changing music trends to create openings for entirely new products, including their own designs, thereby beginning to build a strong and more ethical reputation of their own. When the inevitable backlash came (see below), the marketplace had already changed fundamentally.
Lawsuit Guitars and Trademark Protection
During the post‑1965 period, sales of major American brand guitars was in decline and the home industry was in disarray. This provides a broad background against which American companies had to contend. Generally speaking, the way in which the industry and marketplace was organised was not favourable for the likes of Fender, Gibson, Gretsch, Rickenbacker and many others.
The takeovers and general (mis-)management of American firms left the U.S. industry weakened and susceptible to aggressive business manoeuvres. American labour, tooling and material costs didn’t fall, so prices for finished instruments generally remained high for guitars that were increasingly poorly made. It is relatively easy to understand why the 20‑year period between approximately 1965 and 1985 was crucial to reshaping the global guitar making industry.
One particular Japanese guitar maker, Hoshino Gakki Gen, saw an ideal opportunity to enter the fragile American market. Cleverly, Hoshino recognised the potential animosity towards Japanese‑sounding products after WWII and adopted the Ibanez moniker. Incidentally, the Ibanez name was derived from Spanish guitar maker Salvador Ibáñez, who made classical guitars and sold them to Japan from the 1920s. When Ibáñez, failed during the Spanish Civil War (La Guerra 1936-1939), Hoshino acquired the rights to use the name, dropping the accents in the process. Hoshino’s next step was to take over an American company, Elger, which had already been importing Japanese guitars into the U.S. This move gave them ready access to the American territory, initially as Hoshino USA and then Ibanez USA. From 1970, Ibanez began systematically targeting and imitating popular American guitar models, particularly from Gibson, Fender, and Rickenbacker.
Initially, Fender and Gibson chose not to challenge these foreign copies unless they were identical to the originals, i.e. deliberate forgeries. Perhaps they didn’t see the early copies arriving in relatively small numbers as a significant threat and therefore not worth the lengthy and expensive battles through the American court system with no guarantee of success. Perhaps naively, they may have seen the copies as providing entry‑level experience that would lead consumers to trade up and purchase the ‘real thing’. Nobody really knows for sure. However, by taking their eye off the proverbial ball, the already struggling American brands were storing up a hornet’s nest of latent problems.
The relatively cheaply made Japanese copies often used bolt‑on necks, cheap materials and inferior hardware. Having said that, they were often reasonably well made for what they cost the consumer. The slavish copies appealed to many novice guitarists wishing to have guitars that, at least visually, looked like the more expensive American counterparts without the accompanying high price tags. Notably, and perhaps pertinently, Fender’s own low cost ‘student’ guitar lines (the Mustang ‘family’) and Gibson’s budget models (the Melody Maker) didn’t resemble their upmarket pro‑level instruments, further exacerbating the weaknesses in the eyes of customers.
The Japanese picture at the time is typically complex and confusing, particularly when trying to differentiate the production companies from the brands they made and the importers they used. Some of the companies such as Tokai, Greco, Yamaha and Suzuki followed Ibanez’s lead and jumped on the cloning bandwagon, making relatively faithful copies of American guitars.
The huge Kawai Teisco company was a mass producer that made guitars under many names, including Apollo, Domino, Kent, Randall, Sterling, Victoria and Winston. One brand, Antoria was actually a German company (Framus) that imported Japanese Guyatone (Suzuki) guitars that included replica Stratocaster copies. Others, such as British firm CSL (Charles Summerfield Limited) originally rebranded imported Ibanez guitars. Columbus was another brand that simply imported Japanese‑made guitars under its own name. Hondo was an American company that imported Japanese copies, giving them some home‑grown legitimacy. The Spanish‑sounding Fernandes, on the other hand, was a wholly owned Japanese company that also used the name Burny. Many companies made guitars for other companies, so the picture is further obscured. There were many, many Japanese manufacturers that were largely unknown outside the country but were indirectly contributory to the assault on America and Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, including Fujigen Gakki, the aforementioned Hoshino Gakki Gen (who also used the Tama brand), Matsumoku, Moridara and Tombo.
So… just what were all these Japanese companies actually targeting? In particular, Gibson’s Les Paul and SG models, as well as Fender’s Telecaster and Stratocaster came in for ubiquitous copying. Popular Martin, Guild and Gibson acoustics also came in for replication, as they were the world’s most recognisable acoustic instruments at the time. Acoustic copies including names like Takamine, Morris, Pro Martin and Ventura. Even the fonts used for headstock logos often mimicked the original American brand styles.
As volumes increased, the wave of imports understandably caused problems for the original manufacturers and it was only a matter of time before there was a defensive response. That reaction was based largely on Gibson’s famous Les Paul and particularly the outline shape of the headstock.
In June 1977, Gibson’s owners at the time, Norlin, filed a legal case against Ibanez/Hoshino for copying the Gibson ‘open book’ headstock outline. The case was settled out of court by February 1978, by which time Ibanez had already changed their headstock shape. However, since 1974, Ibanez had been astute enough to foresee the complication and had been developing and improving its own unique Artist guitar designs, thereby circumventing any further rights issues. From 1978, once the lawsuit was behind them, Ibanez focused purely on its own designs.
Despite appearances, there was, in fact, only one landmark lawsuit at the time and it only related to the design of the headstock on Gibson guitars. Presumably, other American manufacturers were watching and waiting for the outcome of the Gibson case. Not looking for potentially damaging confrontation in the courts, other Japanese companies sought to avoid the wrath of the American companies and changed their designs just enough so as not to fall foul of further litigation.
Ironically, some of the Japanese ‘lawsuit’ guitars have since become collectable in their own right. Although many copies that claim to be subject to the lawsuit aren’t, they are just guitars made during the ‘lawsuit era’ of the late 1970s. Generally speaking, Japanese guitar making – having made its mark for better or worse – went on to plough their own furrow in the multinational market, establishing a successful business model on which they could build.
The imitation game hasn’t gone away completely though. Many ‘knock off’ guitars in the 21st Century are emanating from China, where there is little effective means of legal challenge. While some of the guitars originating from China replicate American designs and are produced in large volumes, some of the fakes are appearing in small quantities as very convincing forgeries of rare and valuable vintage instruments.
Also, somewhat ironically, the big American brands struck back by strategically shifting manufacture of lower cost instruments off‑shore. Fender made guitars in Japan from 1982, only later changing the name to Squier to differentiate them from the American originals. Similarly, Gibson started Far Eastern manufacture of Epiphone guitars in Japan in the early 1970s, then in Korea from 1983, before relocating production again in 2003 to a dedicated Epiphone factory in Qingdao, China.
In 1984, PRS guitars was established by luthier Paul Reed Smith and has since become one of America’s major guitar manufacturers. To cater for all price points, PRS also introduced Korean production facilities for its SE‑branded guitars in 2003. While on the subject of lawsuits, after PRS had released the PRS Singlecut in 2001, Gibson filed a trademark infringement claim against PRS for allegedly copying the Les Paul design. Gibson’s lawsuit failed at appeal and PRS resumed production of the Singlecut, albeit slightly altered, from September 2005.
Fender now actively defends its trademarks, which exist in perpetuity, unlike patents that have a limited duration. To illustrate the issues, Fender’s defence of its trademark headstock design reads as follows, “The headstock is the key source-identifying feature of the modern electric guitar. In particular, the shape of the headstock (which, in the types of guitars at issue here, is part of a single piece of wood that also includes the guitar neck) is nonfunctional and primarily serves to identify the brand and model of the guitar. Fender owns trademark rights and federal registrations for the shapes of its headstock designs. These marks are instantly recognizable to generations of musicians and music fans as indicators of the source of Fender’s products and of the immense history and goodwill associated with Fender.”
Furthermore, Fender lost a 2009 application to trademark its guitar designs retrospectively. Opponents stated that consumers had had decades of unopposed exposure to those shapes from a wide variety of other guitar makers. This particular ruling opened the door to many look‑alike guitars, bar the familiar and distinctive headstock shapes.
Rickenbacker, unlike many of its counterparts, trademarks its important designs and vigorously protects them through the courts, hence why there are generally fewer Rickenbacker copies on the market compared to Fender and Gibson clones.
The whole issue of who owns what and how owners’ rights can be protected in a global market rife with replicas is a hugely complex issue and the nuanced legal debates are not for this story, so it is time to close this particular case and move on.
The Fallout and Time for Objective Re-assessment?
The Gibson law suit was, however, a wakeup call for American guitar building, as it proved beyond doubt that they were vulnerable to competition. While it may seem a relatively small isolated incident, it was contributory to the way in which guitar making, distribution and sales had to change. It was time for a shake‑out. By getting back to the basics, the rebuilding of American production that took place from the mid‑1980s resulted in vastly improved fortunes, even though it would take years for several companies to return to prosperity. Gibson and Fender were back in private ownership, Rickenbacker had sustained its business and, although Danelectro and Gretsch would find success, it took some time to regenerate historic popularity.
Despite what naysayers, respected journalists and wealthy vintage guitar collectors will delight in telling anyone who will listen, not all guitars built between 1965 and 1987 (when Fender introduced the landmark American Standards) are bad. Yes, there are many examples of poor quality instruments produced during those ‘dark ages’ but, let’s be honest, that has always been the case. Just look at some of the cheap and nasty instruments from the 1950s and early 1960s produced during the ‘golden era’.
Being a bit provocative and controversial, it is the author’s considered belief that there were many very good instruments built in the 1970s but these tend to be overlooked and caught up in the sweeping generalisation that ALL instruments from that period are sub‑standard. Some unique and interesting models only appeared during the 1970s and 1980s as part of the drive for experimentation. Some of these experiments were often made for relatively brief periods before they disappeared again. As a result, many of these rare examples are highly likely to be of interest to collectors in the future. As vintage prices of 1950s and 1960s guitars are rapidly increasing beyond many enthusiasts’ ability to purchase them, 1970s and 1980s guitars are also creeping up in value and are likely to become the ‘next big thing’ in the vintage marketplace. When they do eventually become desirable, which they will, that critical labelling of ‘poor quality’ is likely to be conveniently forgotten as the wheat is separated from the chaff.
Generally speaking, with the introduction of automated and computer controlled construction technologies, instruments from c.1990 onwards are generally consistently well‑made. This means that poor quality instruments are fewer and further between. Value‑for‑money since the 1990s has never been better with some very good guitars available at relatively low prices compared to the past. Broadly categ
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https://www.kcur.org/2011-12-17/chet-atkins-the-lasting-influence-of-mr-guitar
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Chet Atkins: The Lasting Influence Of 'Mr. Guitar'
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2011-12-17T00:00:00
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Atkins climbed from humble beginnings to become a major record producer and one of the most famous guitarists of his era. Ten years after his death, he's the subject of continued adoration — and a new exhibition at Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
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KCUR - Kansas City news and NPR
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https://www.kcur.org/2011-12-17/chet-atkins-the-lasting-influence-of-mr-guitar
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Chet Atkins is no longer the household name he was in the 1960s, when he was all over TV and radio with his guitar. But every year, the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society packs a Nashville hotel. This year's gathering was the 27th.
"I saw the list of countries this year, and it's like New Zealand, Japan, Poland," says Pat Kirtley. "And the common bond is the music of Chet Atkins."
Kirtley has performed at Chet Atkins Days for 22 years. He's a veteran finger-style guitarist who attributes the very possibility of his career to Atkins.
"Chet made it OK to be a solo guitar player," he says. "It's not that there weren't solo guitar players before him — but there weren't that many. Chet took solo guitar to everybody."
Even to this day, young devotees are embracing Atkins' style. Ben Hall, a 22-year-old from Okolona, Miss., showcased at this year's convention. Hall uses the tricky right-hand technique that Atkins adopted from Kentuckian Merle Travis and refined in the 1940s and '50s.
"It revolves around a bass note," Hall says. "The fingers ... Merle used one, Chet thought Merle was using two. So he used two and three and sometimes a handful of fingers. They play the melody. And there's famous stories of so many great guitar players along the way who play other styles listening to this and saying, 'I had no idea that's one instrument.' "
Atkins made his first solo recordings in the mid-1940s, but it would take him until 1955 to land his first hit, "Mr. Sandman." He was 31 by then, and more than a decade into his professional career. Born in the Appalachian town of Luttrell, Tenn., he'd acquired a hard-to-play Sears Silvertone acoustic guitar when he was about 10 years old.
Inspired by Travis and jazz guitarists George Barnes and Django Reinhardt, Atkins practiced obsessively in high school and then sought work. Carolyn Tate, chief curator of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum exhibition, says it was a struggle at first.
"He knocked around on the radio circuit for a good long while," Tate says. "Your radio popularity in those days was based on the number of cards and letters that you got in. And he was just so shy, nobody was writing in for him — and so when times got tough, they would get rid of Chet."
Then, a connection with one of the seminal early country-music groups changed everything. Atkins began backing up The Carter Family (then known as The Carter Sisters) at the end of the 1940s. When the Carters were asked to join the Grand Ole Opry in 1950, Atkins came with them and quickly established himself in Nashville's new recording scene. He backed Hank Williams in "Cold, Cold Heart" and Elvis in "Heartbreak Hotel." And on records like Jazz from the Hills in 1952, Atkins and his fellow Music Row pickers breached the limits of country sessions and swung with the best of them.
"He'd launch into some kind of brand-new jazz style of playing or something that nobody had ever heard before, all because of all the things that had entered his head up to that point," Hall says.
Hall says Atkins was open to all the great music of his era, and cites a letter Atkins wrote to his sister from New York City.
"He said, 'I've heard some great music since I've been here. I even heard a guy named Art Tatum — you know, the fellow who plays such fine piano.' That tells you all you need to know about how curious Chet's ears were," Hall says.
Atkins would bring the city to the hills and the hills to the city for the rest of his career. As a recording artist, he made nearly 90 studio albums and released more than 100 singles, featuring intricate arrangements of everything from old fiddle tunes to calypso music to Beatles covers.
Atkins also enjoyed a long, influential career as a music executive. As head of RCA Records in Nashville, he became one of the architects of the so-called Nashville Sound. That fusion of country with string-laden pop rankled some traditional music fans, but it opened up new markets and helped Music City thrive in the 1960s.
Tate, the Hall of Fame curator, says the exhibition aims to tell those stories, while also letting visitors glimpse the private Chet Atkins.
"Folks that knew him and went to the house spoke of him being the consummate tinkerer," Tate says. "There were very few of his guitars he hasn't put a drill to or a saw to or put a big hole in it, or just made it his own."
The museum reconstructed Atkins' home workbench and filled it with the voltage testers, vacuum tubes and other things that were on it when he died in 2001. Country star Steve Wariner, a longtime Atkins friend and protege, says it's the perfect unifying symbol.
"I had goose bumps," Wariner says. "It's exactly the way it looked at his house when you walked into his control room."
Wariner recalls bringing over an electrified classical guitar whose bridge had become separated in a hot car. He'd hoped for advice about where to get it fixed.
"And he lays it up on his workbench, loosens the strings and pulls them apart. And he reaches over, and he's grabbing tools," Wariner says. "He takes the bridge off it, and I'm like, 'Oh my god, he took my bridge off.' And he says, 'Just leave it with me.' So Chet fixed it for me. Didn't charge me a penny, of course. And I'm thinking, 'How cool is that? Chet Atkins working on this guitar?' "
Over the last decades of his life, Atkins stepped back from the business and made more time to record and perform — with symphony orchestras, at the White House and at home. When he appeared on Johnny Cash's short-lived variety show in 1970, Cash introduced the legend with a poem he'd written just for the occasion:
The hands of the baker and the candlestick maker
Are those of a skillful man.
The thread of the tailor, the ropes of the sailor
Are tied by knowing hands.
The watchmaker's eye, and the light to see by
And hands that are calm and sure
Make the tiniest springs do the tiniest things
And long has the skill endured.
It matters not the job you've got
As long as you do it well.
The things that are made by plans well-laid
The test of time will tell.
But how can you count or know the amount
Of the value of a man?
By the melodies played and the beauty made
By the touch of Chet Atkins' hands.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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Jazz guitar players: Chet Atkins
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Chet Atkins - jazz guitar player spotlight at Play Jazz Guitar.com
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Without Chet Atkins, country music may never have crossed over into the pop charts in the '50s and '60s. Although he recorded hundreds of solo records, Atkins' largest influence came as a session musician and a record producer. During the '50s and '60s, he helped create the Nashville sound, a style of country music that owed nearly as much to pop as it did to honky tonks.
And as a guitarist, he was without parallel. Atkins' style grew out of his admiration for Merle Travis, expanding Travis' signature syncopated thumb and fingers roll into new territory. Interestingly, Atkins didn't begin his musical career by playing guitar. On the recommendation of his older brother, Lowell, he began playing the fiddle at a child. However, Chet was still attracted to the guitar, and at the age of nine he traded a pistol for a guitar. Atkins learned his instrument rapidly, becoming an accomplished player by the time he left high school in 1941. Using a variety of contacts, he wound up performing on the Bill Carlisle Show on WNOX in Knoxville, TN, as well as becoming part of the Dixie Swingers. Atkins worked with Homer & Jethro while he was at the radio station. After three years, he moved to a radio station in Cincinnati.
Supporting Red Foley, Atkins made his first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry in 1946. That same year, he made his first records, recording for Bullet. Atkins also began making regular performances on the WRVA radio station in Richmond, VA, but he was repeatedly fired because his musical arrangements differed from the expectations of the station's executives. He eventually moved to Springfield, MO, working for the KWTO station. A tape of one of Atkins' performances was sent to RCA Victor's office in Chicago. Eventually, it worked its way to Steve Sholes, the head of country music at RCA. Sholes had heard Atkins previously, and had been trying to find him for several years. By the time Sholes heard the tape, Atkins had moved to Denver, and was playing with Shorty Thompson & His Rangers. Upon receiving the call from RCA, he moved to Nashville to record.
Once he arrived in Nashville, Atkins recorded eight tracks for the label, five of which featured the guitarist singing. Impressed by his playing, Sholes made Atkins the studio guitarist for all of the RCA studio's Nashville sessions in 1949. The following year, Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters hired him as a regular on the Grand Ole Opry, making his place in Nashville's musical community secure. While he worked for RCA, he played on many hit records and helped fashion the Nashville sound. RCA appreciated his work and made him a consultant to the company's Nashville division in 1953. That year, the label began to issue a number of instrumental albums that showcased Atkins' considerable talents. Two years later, he scored his first hit with a version of "Mr. Sandman"; it was followed by "Silver Bell," a duet with Hank Snow. By the late '50s, Atkins was known throughout the music industry as a first-rate player. Not only did his records sell well, he designed guitars for Gibson and Gretsch; the popularity of these models continues to the present day.
Sholes left for New York in 1957 to act as head of pop A&R, leaving Atkins as the manager of RCA's Nashville division. However, the guitarist didn't abandon performing, and throughout the early '60s his star continued to rise. He played the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960; in 1961, he performed at the White House. Atkins had his first Top Five hit in 1965 with a reworking of Boots Randolph's "Yakety Sax," retitled "Yakety Axe"; in addition to being a sizable country hit, the song crossed over to the pop charts. Atkins' role behind the scenes was thriving as well. He produced hits for the majority of RCA's Nashville acts, including Elvis Presley and Eddy Arnold, and discovered a wealth of talent, including Don Gibson, Waylon Jennings, Floyd Cramer, Charley Pride, Bobby Bare, and Connie Smith. Because of his consistent track record, Atkins was promoted to vice president of RCA's country division when Sholes died in 1968.
The following year, Atkins had his last major hit single, "Country Gentleman." In the late '60s and early '70s, several minor hits followed, but only one song, "Prissy" (1968), made it into the Top 40. Instead, the guitarist's major musical contribution in the early part of the '70s was with Homer & Jethro. Under the name the Nashville String Band, the trio released five albums between 1970 and 1972. Following Homer's death, Atkins continued to work with Jethro.
Atkins continued to record for RCA throughout the '70s, although he was creatively stifled by the label by the end of the decade. The guitarist wanted to record a jazz album, but he was met with resistance by the label. In 1982, he left the label and signed with Columbia, releasing his first album for the label, Work It Out With Chet Atkins, in 1983. During his time at Columbia, Atkins departed from his traditional country roots, demonstrating that he was a bold and tasteful jazz guitarist as well. He did return to country on occasion, particularly on duet albums with Mark Knopfler and Jerry Reed, but by and large, Atkins' Columbia records demonstrated a more adventurous guitarist than was previously captured on his RCA albums.
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Chet Atkins | Biography, Songs & Nashville Sound
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1998-07-20T00:00:00+00:00
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Chet Atkins was an influential American country-and-western guitarist and record company executive who is often credited with developing the Nashville Sound. Born into a musical family, Atkins began playing the guitar as a child and during his teen years performed professionally as a fiddler. By
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Encyclopedia Britannica
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https://www.britannica.com/biography/Chet-Atkins
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Chet Atkins (born June 20, 1924, Luttrell, Tennessee, U.S.—died June 30, 2001, Nashville, Tennessee) was an influential American country-and-western guitarist and record company executive who is often credited with developing the Nashville Sound.
Born into a musical family, Atkins began playing the guitar as a child and during his teen years performed professionally as a fiddler. By the late 1940s he had become a sought-after session guitarist. His signature finger-picking style (three fingers picking the melody while the thumb supplied bass rhythm) was largely derived from that of Merle Travis. From his first solo album, Chet Atkins’ Gallopin’ Guitar (1953), through more than 100 recordings in his own name and hundreds more as a backing musician, Atkins’s picking changed little, although his material and collaborators varied widely. His recordings range from old-time mountain music to contemporary rock and jazz.
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‘Something to Talk About’ songwriter Shirley Eikhard dies
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2022-12-17T15:27:15+00:00
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Shirley Eikhard, the singer-songwriter who supplied songs for Cher, Emmylou Harris, Anne Murray, Chet Atkins and found lasting fame penning Bonnie Raitt‘s Grammy-winning 1991 hit “Something to Talk About,” has died.
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NEW YORK (AP) — Shirley Eikhard, the singer-songwriter who supplied songs for Cher, Emmylou Harris, Anne Murray, Chet Atkins and found lasting fame penning Bonnie Raitt‘s Grammy-winning 1991 hit “Something to Talk About,” has died. She was 67.
Eikhard died Thursday at Headwaters Health Care Centre in Orangeville, Ontario, due to complications from cancer, said publicist Eric Alper.
The blues-rock smash hit “Something to Talk About” was written in 1985 and Eikhard had offered it to Murray and other artists, who all declined to record it. Then years later Raitt left a message on Eikhard’s phone saying she she’d just recorded it. Raitt said later she’d discovered the song on a demo Eikhard had sent and admired it.
The song was the first single from Raitt’s 1991 album “Luck of the Draw” and spent 20 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 5. It would win Raitt the best pop vocal performance at the 1992 Grammy Awards and was also nominated in the record of the year category.
On Grammy night, Raitt made sure to thank Eikhard and she turned to Twitter after Eikhard’s death to say she was “deeply saddened,” writing “I will be forever grateful for our beautiful connection and friendship.”
Eikhard earned Juno Awards in 1973 and 1974 for best country female artist and she won several BMI Awards. She was inducted into the Canadian Songwriter’s Hall of Fame in October 2020. Her most recent album was 2021’s “On My Way to You.”
During her career, Eikhard released 18 full-length albums between 1972 to 2021 and taught herself to play guitar, piano, bass, drums, percussion, chromatic harmonica, sax, banjo and mandolin.
At age 15, Eikhard’s song “It Takes Time” was recorded by country singer Murray in 1971, and later became a hit in her native Canada. Eikhard released her self-titled debut album the following year in 1972. The title track for Atkins’ 41st studio album, “Pickin’ My Way” was one of Eikhard’s earliest successes.
She also crafted with Cher the frenetic dance track “Lovers Forever” for the 1994 film “Interview with the Vampire,” but it didn’t make the final soundtrack cut. They collaborated again on “Born With the Hunger,” from Cher’s 2000 album, “Not.com.mercial.”
Eikhard sang the theme song for Stanley Kramer’s 1976 movie “The Domino Principle” starring Gene Hackman and Candice Bergen, as well as the theme song for “The Passion of Ayn Rand” in 2000.
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And he did it by winning over millions of country music fans. Until the early 1990s, when Cleve Francis came along, Pride was the only Black country singer signed to a major label. “Then it was ‘first Negro country singer;’ then ‘first Black country singer.’ Now I’m the `first African-American country singer.′ That’s about the only thing that’s changed. Throughout his career, he sang positive songs instead of sad ones often associated with country music. Even a country singer,” said country singer Rissi Palmer on Twitter.
FILE - In this Feb. 23, 2018, file photo, Garrison Keillor poses for a photo in Minneapolis. Keillor has two books coming out this fall, his first releases since sexual harassment allegations were made against the author and humorist three years ago. (AP Photo/Jeff Baenen, File)NEW YORK Garrison Keillor will have two books out this fall a novel and a memoir marking his first releases since sexual harassment allegations were made against the author and humorist three years ago. Arcade Publishing announced Thursday that Keillor's The Lake Wobegon Virus, which continues his popular Lake Wobegon series and ties it to the current pandemic, is coming Sept. 8. "The people of Lake Wobegon were waiting for the chance to go wild and so the book wrote itself.
2001: Guitarist, singer-songwriter and producer Chet Atkins, who helped create the smoother country music style known as the Nashville sound, dies of cancer at age 77 in Nashville, Tennessee. A 14-time Grammy winner and an inductee of both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame, Atkins (seen here in 1965) was known for his trademark guitar picking style. He produced records for acts such as Porter Wagoner, Dolly Parton, Dottie West, Elvis Presley, The Everly Brothers, Jerry Reed, Waylon Jennings and many others. Hide Caption
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1924-06-20T00:00:00
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Genealogy for Chester Burton "Chet" Atkins (1924 - 2001) family tree on Geni, with over 230 million profiles of ancestors and living relatives.
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https://www.geni.com/people/Chet-Atkins/6000000014249250418
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chet_Atkins
Chester Burton Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001), better known as Chet Atkins, was an American guitarist and record producer who, along with Owen Bradley, created the smoother country music style known as the Nashville sound, which expanded country's appeal to adult pop music fans as well.
Atkins's picking style, inspired by Merle Travis, Django Reinhardt, George Barnes and Les Paul, brought him admirers within and outside the country scene, both in the United States and internationally. Atkins produced records for Perry Como, Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Eddy Arnold, Don Gibson, Jim Reeves, Jerry Reed, Skeeter Davis, Connie Smith, Waylon Jennings and others.
Among many honors, Atkins received 14 Grammy Awards as well as the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, nine Country Music Association Instrumentalist of the Year awards, and was inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. .
Childhood and early life
Chet Atkins was born on June 20, 1924, in Luttrell, Tennessee, near Clinch Mountain, and grew up with his mother, two brothers and a sister—he was the youngest. His parents divorced when he was six. He started out on the ukulele, later moving on to the fiddle, but traded his brother Lowell an old pistol and some chores for a guitar when he was nine. He stated in his 1974 autobiography, "We were so poor and everybody around us was so poor that it was the forties before anyone even knew there had been a depression." Forced to relocate to Fortson, Georgia, to live with his father because of a near-fatal asthma condition, Atkins was a sensitive youth who made music his obsession. Because of his illness, he was forced to sleep in a straight-back chair in order to breathe comfortably. On those nights, he would play his guitar until he fell asleep holding it, a habit which lasted his whole life. While living in Fortson, he attended historic Mountain Hill School. He would return in the 1990s to play a series of charity concerts to save the school from demolition.
Stories have been told about the very young Chet who, when a friend or relative would come to visit, and if that person played a guitar, would crowd in and put his ear so very close to the instrument that it became difficult for that person to play.
Atkins became an accomplished guitarist while he was in high school. He would use the restroom in the school to practice, because it gave better acoustics. His first guitar had a nail for a nut and was so bowed that only the first few frets could be used. He later purchased a semi-acoustic electric guitar and amp, but he had to travel many miles to find an electrical outlet since his home had no electricity.
Later in life he lightheartedly gave himself (along with John Knowles, Tommy Emmanuel, Steve Wariner and Jerry Reed) the honorary degree CGP, standing for "Certified Guitar Player". In 2011 Daughter Merle Atkins Russell bestowed the CGP degree upon long time sideman Paul Yandell. She then declared no more CGP's would be allowed by the Atkins Estate.
His half-brother Jim was a successful guitarist who worked with the Les Paul Trio in New York.
Atkins did not have a strong style of his own until 1939 when (while still living in Georgia) he heard Merle Travis picking over WLW radio. This early influence dramatically shaped his unique playing style. Whereas Travis's right hand used his index finger for the melody and thumb for bass notes, Atkins expanded his right hand style to include picking with his first three fingers, with the thumb on bass.
Chet Atkins was a Ham Radio General class licensee. Formerly using the call-sign, WA4CZD, he obtained the vanity call sign W4CGP in 1998 to reflect the C.G.P. name. He was an ARRL member.
Early musical career
After dropping out of high school in 1942, Atkins landed a job at WNOX-AM radio in Knoxville. There he played fiddle and guitar with singer Bill Carlisle and comic Archie Campbell as well as becoming a member of the station's Dixieland Swingsters, a small swing instrumental combo. After three years, he moved to WLW-AM in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Merle Travis had formerly worked.
After six months he moved to Raleigh and worked with Johnnie and Jack before heading for Richmond, Virginia, where he performed with Sunshine Sue Workman. Atkins's shy personality worked against him, as did the fact that his sophisticated style led many to doubt he was truly "country." He was fired often but was soon able to land another job at another radio station due to his unique playing ability.
Traveling to Chicago, Atkins auditioned for Red Foley, who was leaving his star position on WLS-AM's National Barn Dance to join the Grand Ole Opry. Atkins made his first appearance at the Opry in 1946 as a member of Foley's band. He also recorded a single for Nashville-based Bullet Records that year. That single, "Guitar Blues", was fairly progressive, including as it did, a clarinet solo by Nashville dance band musician Dutch McMillan with Owen Bradley on piano. He had a solo spot on the Opry; but when that was cut, Atkins moved on to KWTO-AM in Springfield, Missouri. Despite the support of executive Si Siman, however, he soon was fired for not sounding "country enough."
Signing with RCA Victor
While working with a Western band in Denver, Colorado, Atkins came to the attention of RCA Victor. Siman had been encouraging Steve Sholes to sign Atkins, as his style (with the success of Merle Travis as a hit recording artist) was suddenly in vogue. Sholes, A&R director of country music at RCA, tracked Atkins down to Denver.
He made his first RCA recordings in Chicago in 1947. They did not sell. He did some studio work for RCA that year but had relocated to Knoxville again where he worked with Homer and Jethro on WNOX's new Saturday night radio show The Tennessee Barn Dance and the popular Midday Merry Go Round.
In 1949 he left WNOX to join Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters back on KWTO. This incarnation of the old Carter Family featured Maybelle Carter and daughters June, Helen and Anita. Their work soon attracted attention from the Grand Ole Opry. The group relocated to Nashville in mid-1950. Atkins began working on recording sessions, performing on WSM-AM and the Opry.
While he hadn't yet had a hit record on RCA his stature was growing. He began assisting Sholes as a Session Leader when the New York–based producer needed help organizing Nashville sessions for RCA artists. Atkins's first hit single was "Mr. Sandman", followed by "Silver Bell", which he did as a duet with Hank Snow. His albums also became more popular, and he was featured on ABC-TV's The Eddy Arnold Show during the summer of 1956; as well as on Country Music Jubilee in 1957 and 58 (by then renamed Jubilee USA).
Atkins's Gretsch Country Gentleman, model G6122-1962
In addition to recording, Atkins became a design consultant for Gretsch, who manufactured a popular Chet Atkins line of electric guitars from 1955–1980. Atkins also became manager of RCA's Nashville studio, eventually inspiring and seeing the completion of the legendary RCA Studio B, the first studio built specifically for the purpose of recording on the now-famous Music Row.
Performer and producer
When Sholes took over pop production in 1957—a result of his success with Elvis Presley—he put Atkins in charge of RCA's Nashville division. With country music record sales declining as rock and roll took over, Atkins and Bob Ferguson took their cue from Owen Bradley and eliminated fiddles and steel guitar as a means of making country singers appeal to pop fans. This became known as the Nashville sound which Atkins said was a label created by the media attached to a style of recording done during that period to keep country (and their jobs) viable.
Atkins used the Jordanaires and a rhythm section on hits like Jim Reeves' "Four Walls" and "He'll Have to Go" and Don Gibson's "Oh Lonesome Me" and "Blue Blue Day". The once rare phenomenon of having a country hit cross over to pop success became more common. He and Bradley had essentially put the producer in the driver's seat, guiding an artist's choice of material and the musical background.
Atkins made his own records, which usually visited pop standards and jazz, in a sophisticated home studio, often recording the rhythm tracks at RCA but adding his solo parts at home, refining the tracks until the results satisfied him. Guitarists of all styles came to admire various Atkins albums for their unique musical ideas and in some cases experimental electronic ideas. In this period he became known internationally as "Mister Guitar", inspiring an album named Mister Guitar, engineered by both Bob Ferris and Bill Porter, his replacement.
At the end of March 1959, Porter took over as chief engineer at RCA's Nashville studio, in the space now known as "Studio B". (At the time there was only one studio at RCA, with no letter designation.) Porter soon helped Atkins get a better reverberation sound from the studio's German effects device, an EMT plate reverb. With his golden ear, Porter found the studio's acoustics to be problematic, and he devised a set of acoustic baffles to hang from the ceiling, then selected positions for microphones based on resonant room modes. The sound of the recordings improved significantly, and the studio achieved a string of successes. The Nashville sound became more dynamic. In later years, when Bradley asked how he achieved his sound, Atkins told him "it was Porter." Porter described Atkins as respectful of musicians when recording—if someone was out of tune he would not single that person out by name. Instead, he would say something like, "we got a little tuning problem ... Everybody check and see what's going on." If that didn't work, Atkins would instruct Porter to turn the offending player down in the mix. When Porter left RCA in late 1964, Atkins said, "the sound was never the same, never as great."
Atkins's trademark "Atkins Style" of playing uses the thumb and first two—sometimes three—fingers of the right hand. He developed this style from listening to Merle Travis occasionally on a primitive radio. He was sure no one could play that articulately with just the thumb and index finger (which was exactly how Travis played) and he assumed it required the thumb and two fingers—and that was the style he pioneered and mastered.
He enjoyed jamming with fellow studio musicians which led to them being asked to perform at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960. Although that performance was canceled due to rioting, a live recording of the group (After the Riot at Newport) was released. Atkins performed by invitation at the White House for presidents Kennedy through George H. W. Bush. Atkins was a member of the Million Dollar Band during the 1980s. He is also well known for his song "Yankee Doodle Dixie", in which he played "Yankee Doodle" at the same time as "Dixie" simultaneously on the same guitar.
Before his mentor Sholes died in 1968, Atkins had become vice president of RCA's country division. In 1987 he told Nine-O-One Network Magazine that he was "ashamed" of his promotion: "I wanted to be known as a guitarist and I know, too, that they give you titles like that in lieu of money. So beware when they want to make you vice president." He had brought Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Connie Smith, Bobby Bare, Dolly Parton, Jerry Reed and John Hartford to the label in the 1960s and inspired and helped countless others. He took a considerable risk during the mid-1960s, when the Civil Rights Movement sparked violence throughout the South by signing country music's first African-American singer Charley Pride, who sang rawer country than the smoother music Atkins had pioneered.
Atkins's own biggest hit single came in 1965, with "Yakety Axe", an adaptation of his friend saxophonist Boots Randolph's "Yakety Sax". He rarely performed in those days, and eventually had to hire other RCA producers like Bob Ferguson and Felton Jarvis to alleviate his workload.
Atkins retires from producing
In the 1970s, Atkins became increasingly stressed by his executive duties. He produced fewer records but could still turn out hits such as Perry Como's pop hit "And I Love You So". He recorded extensively with close friend and fellow picker Jerry Reed, who'd become a hit artist in his own right. A 1973 diagnosis of colon cancer, however, led Atkins to redefine his role at RCA, to allow others to handle administration while he went back to his first love, the guitar, often recording with Reed or even Homer & Jethro's Jethro Burns (Atkins's brother-in-law) after Homer died in 1971.
By the end of the 1970s, Atkins's time had passed as a producer. New executives at RCA had different ideas. He first retired from his position in the company, and then began to feel stifled as an artist because RCA would not let him branch out into jazz. His mid-1970s collaborations with one of his influences, Les Paul, Chester & Lester and Guitar Monsters, had already reflected that interest; Chester & Lester was one of the best-selling recordings of Atkins's career. At the same time he grew dissatisfied with the direction Gretsch (no longer family-owned) was going and withdrew his authorization for them to use his name and began designing guitars with Gibson. He left RCA in 1982 and signed with Columbia Records, for whom he produced a debut album in 1983.
Jazz had always been a strong love of his, and often in his career he was criticized by "pure" country musicians for his jazz influences. He also said on many occasions that he did not like being called a "country guitarist", insisting that he was a guitarist, period. Although he played 'by ear' and was a masterful improviser he was able to read music and even performed some classical guitar pieces. When Roger C. Field, a friend, suggested to him in 1991 that he record and perform with a female singer he did so with Suzy Bogguss.
He returned to his country roots for albums he recorded with Mark Knopfler and Jerry Reed. Knopfler had long mentioned Atkins as one of his earliest influences. Atkins also collaborated with Australian guitar legend Tommy Emmanuel. On being asked to name the ten most influential guitarists of the 20th century, he named Django Reinhardt to the first position on the list, and placed himself at fifth position.
In later years he even went back to radio, appearing on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion radio program, on American Public Media radio, even picking up a fiddle from time to time.
Legacy
Atkins received numerous awards, including 14 Grammy Awards and nine Country Music Association Instrumentalist of the Year awards. In 1993 he was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Billboard magazine awarded him their Century Award, their "highest honor for distinguished creative achievement", in December 1997.
Atkins is notable for his broad influence. His love for numerous styles of music can be traced from his early recording of stride-pianist James P. Johnson's "Johnson Rag," all the way to the rock stylings of Eric Johnson, an invited guest on Atkins's recording sessions who, when Chet attempted to copy his influential rocker "Cliffs of Dover", led to Atkins's creation of a unique arrangement of "Londonderry Air (Danny Boy)."
Chet's recordings of "Malaguena" inspired a new generation of Flamenco guitarists; the classical guitar selections included on almost all his albums were, for many American artists working in the field today, the first classical guitar they ever heard. He recorded smooth jazz guitar still played on American airwaves today.
While he did more performing in the 1990s his health grew frail as he was diagnosed with cancer again in 1996. He died on June 30, 2001 at his home in Nashville.
Atkins was laid to rest at Harpeth Hills Memory Gardens in Nashville.
Atkins was quoted many times throughout his career, and of his own legacy he once said:
Years from now, after I'm gone, someone will listen to what I've done and know I was here. They may not know or care who I was, but they'll hear my guitars speaking for me.
A stretch of Interstate 185 in southwest Georgia (between LaGrange and Columbus) is named "Chet Atkins Parkway". This stretch of interstate runs through Fortson, GA where Atkins spent much of his childhood.
In 2002, Atkins was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His award was presented by Marty Stuart and Brian Setzer and accepted by Atkins's grandson, Jonathan Russell. The following year, Atkins ranked No.28 in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music.
At the age of 13, jazz guitarist Earl Klugh was captivated watching Atkins's guitar playing on The Perry Como Show. Similarly he was an extremely big influence on Doyle Dykes. Atkins also inspired Drexl Jonez and Tommy Emmanuel.
Clint Black's album "Nothin' but the Taillights" includes the song "Ode to Chet," which includes the lines "'Cause I can win her over like Romeo did Juliet, if I can only show her I can almost pick that legato lick like Chet" and "It'll take more than Mel Bay 1, 2, & 3 if I'm ever gonna play like CGP." Atkins plays guitar on the track. At the end of the song Black and Atkins have a brief conversation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chet_Atkins_discography
Industry Awards
Country Music Association
1967 Instrumentalist of the Year
1968 Instrumentalist of the Year
1969 Instrumentalist of the Year
1981 Instrumentalist of the Year
1982 Instrumentalist of the Year
1983 Instrumentalist of the Year
1984 Instrumentalist of the Year
1985 Instrumentalist of the Year
1988 Instrumentalist of the Year
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Inducted in 1973
Grammy Awards
1971 Best Country Instrumental Performance with Jerry Reed – Me and Jerry
1972 Best Country Instrumental Performance – "Snowbird"
1975 Best Country Instrumental Performance with Merle Travis – The Atkins-Travis Traveling Show
1976 Best Country Instrumental Performance – "The Entertainer"
1977 Best Country Instrumental Performance with Les Paul – Chester and Lester
1982 Best Country Instrumental Performance – Country After All These Years
1986 Best Country Instrumental Performance with Mark Knopfler – "Cosmic Square Dance"
1991 Best Country Instrumental Performance with Mark Knopfler – "So Soft, Your Goodbye"
1991 Best Country Vocal Collaboration with Mark Knopfler – "Poor Boy Blues"
1993 Best Country Instrumental Performance with Jerry Reed – Sneakin' Around
1993 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award'
1994 Best Country Instrumental Performance with Asleep at the Wheel, Eldon Shamblin, Johnny Gimble, Marty Stuart, Reuben "Lucky Oceans" Gosfield & Vince Gill – "Red Wing"
1995 Best Country Instrumental Performance – "Young Thing"
1997 Best Country Instrumental Performance – "Jam Man"
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Posthumously inducted in 2002
Early Years Chester Burton Atkins was born on June 20, 1924, in Luttrell, Tennessee, near Clinch Mountain on his grandfather's farm, and grew up with his mother Ida Ella Sharp, after she and his father, James Atkins, divorced when he was six.[5][4][6][7][8] He had two brothers and a sister—he was the youngest.[2]
Chet started out his musical pursuits on the ukulele, later moving on to the fiddle.[2] He traded his brother Lowell an old pistol (or possibly a farm wagon) and some chores for a guitar that had belonged to his step-father, Willie, when he was nine.[4] He started playing local parties and businesses.[4] Chet stated in his 1974 autobiography, "We were so poor and everybody around us was so poor that it was the forties before anyone even knew there had been a depression."[4]
Chet relocated to Fortson, Georgia, to live with his father because of a near-fatal asthma condition in the late thirties.[2][9] He often stayed home from school because of his health, and taught himself banjo during those times.[4] Because of his illness, he was forced to sleep in a straight-back chair in order to breathe comfortably.[2] On those nights, he would play his guitar until he fell asleep, and continue holding it, a habit which lasted his whole life.[2]
Chet became an accomplished guitarist while he was in high school, but it wasn't surprising considering his family's musical background.[2] Chet's grandfather was a champion fiddler.[4] Chet's father, James, was a music teacher, piano tuner, and singer.[4] His half brother, Jim, was a rhythm guitarist in the Les Paul Trio in the thirties.[4] His older brother, Lowell, also played guitar.[4] He quit high school and jumped in on the spread of country music out of the South, as World War II drafted soldiers across the country.[4] At age 17, he was a professional musician.[4]
Nashville Chet made his living first playing fiddle with the Jumpin' Bill Carlisle-Archie Campbell radio show.[4] A producer there heard him playing guitar in down times, and drafted him to play rhythm guitar for the "Midday Merry-Go-Round" show.[4] Despite his talent, he'd have trouble keeping jobs because of his shyness, which was often mistaken for hostility or arrogance.[4] His luck turned when he joined up with Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters.[4] Their fame grew into a TV show, and more so once they started appearing on the Grand Ole Opry.[4]
Chet profited off the popularity of his TV time by starting to record albums.[4] His first hit LP was "The Galloping Guitars" in 1949.[4] He moved to Nashville and started work as a studio musician.[4] By 1957, Chet was the head of recording operations at RCA Victor in Nashville.[4] It was in this role that he convinced RCA to outbid Columbia Records and sign Elvis Presley- a decision that made the company millions.[4]
Jazz had always been a strong love of his, and often in his career he was criticized by "pure" country musicians for his jazz influences.[2] He also said on many occasions that he did not like being called a "country guitarist", insisting that he was a guitarist, period.[2] Although he played 'by ear' and was a masterful improviser he was able to read music and even performed some classical guitar pieces.[2] Chet's picking style was inspired by Merle Travis, Django Reinhardt, George Barnes and Les Paul.[2] He was admired for it across music styles and geographical borders.[2] Part of Chet's talent included being able to play chords and push out a melody line at the same time, using his trademark thumb and three-finger playing style, a technique he developed trying to mimic Merle Travis' thumb and one-finger style.[3][4]
Chet produced records for Perry Como, Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Eddy Arnold, Don Gibson, Jim Reeves, Jerry Reed, Skeeter Davis, Connie Smith, Waylon Jennings, and many other well known artists.[2] His work in developing "Nashville Sound" is attributed to saving country music from a persistent slump it had been suffering by working to separate it from rockabilly and attract pop music fans.[3][4] The development turned Nashville into Music City, U.S.A.[4] He was known for how down-to-earth he could be, especially with those whose music careers he helped shape.[4]
Chet eventually worked himself back out of the production side of music and back into playing, beginning worldwide tours in 1967.[4] He wanted to have fun again.[4]
Legacy Chet Atkins died June 30, 2001, at his home in Nashville, Tennessee.[4][7] Chet had spent many years battling cancers, including colon cancer in the 70's and a brain tumor in 1997.[4] When he passed he was survived by his wife of 55 years, Leona, his daughter Merle (named after one of his heroes, Merle Travis, and Leona's mother, Merle Hancock Johnson), and two granddaughters.[4] Chet was buried in Harpeth Hills Memory Gardens, Nashville, Davidson, Tennessee.[10]
Among many honors, Chet received 14 Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and 9 Country Music Association Instrumentalist of the Year awards.[2] He was inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[2] Chet was offered numerous honorary degrees from universities, but turned them all down for his own designation as a C.G.P., "Certified Guitar Picker.
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