Guitar Legend (The RCA Years) - Chet Atkins

Advantages: Unusual, highly talented flat picking guitarist
Disadvantages: Not any that I know of

...never heard of until 3 years ago?His music was introduced to me by a French colleague, who had been taught guitar by him, and said that I just had to listen to this boy play guitar. I was absolutely stunned by Marcel's techical guitar skills and the absolute simplicity that he appeared to be giving to his music. Although he faithfully followed the instrumental styles of Chet Atkins, Merle Travis and Jerry Reed, he was in many ways a much more varied musician too and played renderings of Vivaldi and Mozart, Nashville Rumba as well as his own country compositions. So I bought two of his CDs, there are many available but mainly on French labels. The ones I bought were La Guitare à Dadi Vols 1 & 2. Three of my favourite tracks are La Madrugada (the dawn), the Third Man Theme from the classic movie of the same name, (originally played... Read review

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Advantages: Great guitar, good jazz, relaxing
Disadvantages: few

...time, you would believe that there is more than one guitar at work. However, it is all him. When I first saw him play live, I could hardly believe that this was just one guitarist alone. There is a story that he was voted "Best guitarist" by readers of a jazz magazine so many times that in the end they excluded him from the nominations! He has also won Best British Jazz Artist 7 years in a row "Portraits" contains 14 tracks of which nine are solo; on two tracks he records two guitar parts; three are duets with another legendary jazz guitarist, Chet Atkins. To help the listener know whether there really are two guitars, or whether it is just him, the track listing on the back of the CD mentions after each whether it is "Solo", "Atkins & Taylot Duet", or "Taylor Duet Overdub" - he played another track alongside his first... Read review

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Advantages: Great range of guitar styles and songs
Disadvantages: Missing some key guitar players

..., legendary performers of such classics begins to deteriorate, and although there are still many songs well deservedly on the CD, others you may not hear of in an opinion poll of 'what are your 41 favourite guitar anthems?' "Born to be Wild", "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" and "Sweet Home Alabama" do keep up the tempo, and the first CD does end on a high note with Peter Frampton's "Show Me the Way". The second CD consists of a fair number of Legends too, of course, as expected. But, although they do incorporate the guitarists bible favourites of "Whisky in the Jar", "More than a Feeling" and "Black Magic Woman", the songs on this CD do seem to be compiled to provide a more chilled feeling to the listener. In general, I would say that the songs on this CD are not as heavy rock. Considering the fact that I am only 16 years old and despite my... Read review

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