Solo Flights (Remastered) Chet Atkins

• 1 Drive In 02:17
• 2 Three Little Words 02:38
• 3 Autumn Leaves 03:26
• 4 Chet's Tune 02:08
• 5 Mercy, Mercy, Mercy 02:12
• 6 Cheek to Cheek 03:10
• 7 Cindy, Oh Cindy 02:25
• 8 When You Wish Upon a Star 02:46
• 9 Music to Watch Girls By 02:31
• 10 Choro Da Saudade 02:37
• 11 Gonna Get Along Without You Now 02:05
• 12 Georgy Girl 02:45
• Total Runtime 31:00

Info for Solo Flights (Remastered)

Solo Flights is the thirty-sixth studio album by Chet Atkins. Side one of this album features Atkins' experiment with the "Octabass Guitar," where he replaced the two low strings (the E and A strings) with heavier strings in order to drop an octave and create a fuller sound with bass.

"Though incredibly busy running RCA Victor's Nashville operation, Chet Atkins still found some time and enterprise to perform some musical experiments on his own. It was a simple idea, really, replacing the two lower strings on his electric guitar with the E and A strings from an electric bass, thus lowering the tone by an octave and creating a fuller balance. With this idea, Atkins' disarmingly easygoing fingerpicking facility threatened to put every bass player in Nashville out of business, but the so-called "Octabass Guitar" evidently wasn't pursued much further. Indeed, only on side one of this LP do listeners hear the new instrument on a series of mostly jazz and pop standards -- including the newly minted Joe Zawinul soul/jazz vehicle "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy." The bass strings give the tracks a different sound, but since one man is playing two parts in the same unified manner style, listeners will not really perceive the illusion of a genuine guitar/bass duet. The side also contains a polished remake of "Chet's Tune," the song on which just about every artist on RCA Victor's Nashville roster had pitched in on to surprise their label boss earlier that year. Side two is simplicity itself; delicate, lovingly caressed solo acoustic guitar tracks with only an occasional celesta or hi-hat cymbal set in the background. Give "Gonna Get Along Without You Now" the most points for likeability on this low-key side. All told, this is one of Atkins' more pleasing collections from that era." (Richard S. Ginell, AMG)

Chet Atkins, guitar

Digitally remastered

Chet Atkins
one of country music’s greatest instrumentalists, producers, and promoters of the Nashville Sound, was born the son of a fiddler in Luttrell, Union County in 1924. He took up guitar at an early age but first performed on Knoxville’s WNOX as a fiddler, a sideman for Johnnie Wright and Jack Anglin, and Kitty Wells. Atkins moved on to Cincinnati’s WLW, Nashville’s WSM, and Springfield, Missouri’s KWTO, backing artists such as the Carter Sisters and Red Foley during the 1940s.

In 1950 Steve Sholes of RCA offered the guitarist his first contract. Atkins returned to Nashville and immediately became a prominent studio artist. His musical talents and friendship with Sholes led to his appointment as Sholes’s Nashville assistant in 1952. When RCA built its own studio in 1957, Atkins managed it. Before long, Sholes turned over RCA’s country operations to his protégé, and by 1968 Atkins was a vice-president at RCA.

Atkins supervised other producers, produced many of his own recordings, and signed such artists as Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Jerry Reed, and Charley Pride. As an instrumentalist and producer, Atkins broadened the country music sound to compete with the growing popularity of rock music. By shaping the Nashville Sound, he strengthened the city’s position as a recording center and helped establish its fame as Music City.

Known by many as “Mr. Guitar,” Atkins legitimized the role of the country guitar soloist throughout his career with dozens of albums showcasing his unique “galloping guitar” picking style. The Gretsch and Gibson guitar companies even brought out guitar models built to Atkins’s specifications.

As of 1997 Atkins had received fourteen Grammy awards and in 1973 became a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, at that time the youngest individual to be so honored. He retired from RCA in 1981 but continued to perform and record until his death on June 29, 2001.

This album contains no booklet.