The Chet Atkins CGP Summit

Acoustic Guitar, 2018

A month or so after Musician magazine had moved me from New York to Nashville, as part of my mission to get to know my new surroundings, I drove downtown the Gibson Caffé Milano. It happened that I picked the night during which Chet Atkins played each week. I’m embarrassed to admit it now, but I found his performance unremarkable: an older gent, dressed like my dad during his “groovy’ attire phase, plucking away at his Country Gentleman hollowbody. As a stranger in town and a novice in understanding its legacy, my idea of great guitar playing involved flatpicks and really fast solos over a screaming rhythm section.

With time comes wisdom, or one hopes. On the subject of Chet Atkins, I began to see the light as I got to know some of the local musicians, none of whom had a sour word to say about “Mr. Guitar.” they noted his massive influence as a record executive and producer proved beyond dispute, as were stories of his laid-back demeanor and wry humor. So I dug deeper into his playing, which revealed itself to me as more subtle, less show-offy, more fundamentally musical and structurally sophisticated than I had originally apprehended.

By the time my run as editor of CMA Close Up had ended, I was familiar enough with Chet’s world to have heard of his “CGP” award. To be anointed as a “certified guitar picker” by the master was about as high an honor as any Nashville guitar player could receive. In his long reign at the peak of Music City distinction, he would select only four recipients. One of them, Jerry Reed, passed in 2008. The other three – Tommy Emmanuel, John Knowles and Steve Wariner – were still alive and picking when I started wondering whether anyone had gathered them into one room to reflect on their acquaintances with him and assessments of his legacy. (Blessedly, all three continue to thrive today.)

When I learned that no one had had the idea before me, I fired off a pitch to Acoustic Guitar magazine, which responded instantly with the assignment. What followed was several months messaging all three, bouncing dates and locations around until we could confirm a break in all of their schedules when they’d each be in town and available to talk.

We met at Gruhn Guitars, on Eighth Avenue South. One by one they arrived with their instruments and, at my request, their CGP Awards. After the usual round of handshakes, greetings, unpacking and picking their guitars, we began the conversation. I had done a good amount of preparatory research, but the beauty of this story owes entirely to their repartee.

Steve Wariner plays at his induction into the Musician’s Hall of Fame concert, Municipal Auditorium, Nashville, October 2016. Photo © The Photo Access / Alamy Stock Photo.

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Emmanuel: The name on everyone’s lips when I was a kid was Chet Atkins: “Who the hell is this guy?” Of course, when I grew up and got to know him I realized that he was just like the rest of us as far as his sheer love for playing was the most important thing to him. But there were so many other things. He was such a vast dimension of a person. He had a great ear for songs. He had a great way of production. He understood sound. And if you think back on how in tune he was on these records — and there were no digital tuners in those days — he must have had an amazing ear as well.

Wariner: What he did was to start with awesome singers and performers. The concept starts there, with incredible talent. He had an ear for that, didn’t he? My dad was a wonderful teacher. I remember when I was really young he’d play me a Jim Reeves record and say, “Chet produced that.” He’d play a Don Gibson record: “Chet produced that.” Everything was connected to Chet! I can’t even imagine my world without him.

What path were you on up to the first moment you heard Chet?

Knowles: As a really young kid I took accordion lessons. But my uncle had a guitar, so I started moving all my accordion lessons over to guitar. I was hearing Les Paul, Arthur Godfrey — all the fretted guys who were out there. Then all of a sudden I heard Chet and it just completely changed what I was going to do. I knew I needed two more strings, so I sold my ukulele and bought a guitar. I saved up for the orange Gretsch. I waited for the next Chet record to come out. I would play little bits of notes along with him so I felt like I was playing with Chet. That’s what kids think, I guess, when they play along with records.

You first saw him at a rehearsal with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

Knowles: Yeah. That was fifteen years later, so I went a long time without having any idea of what he looked like.

Wariner: What year was that, John?

Knowles: I met him in ’72 or ’73. Albert Coleman was the conductor. Somehow the rehearsal schedule got messed up, so I had an hour to hang out with Chet. We started talking and he said, “What did you say your name was?” I said, “John Knowles.” And he said, “Oh, yeah! Rick Foster told me about you.” Then he handed me his guitar and said, “Show me what you’re working on. Don’t try to amaze me.” All of a sudden, we were like peers. I felt that comfortable with him from the get-go. It would have been very easy for me to place him on a pedestal because of my fifteen preceding years of wearing out the vinyl. But he was so down to earth and so glad I was there!

Wariner: That brings back so many memories from the Seventies. When I was playing bass with Chet we did so many symphony dates. I did a few dates with Albert. But my dad was the biggest Chet-o-phile in the world [laughter]. He had every one of his records. From as early as I can remember he would tell me, “Don’t scratch my records [laughter]!” I was nineteen years old, trying to listen to Chet as much as I could. Now, my dad had country bands and they’d practice at our house. He was a pretty good guitar player and he played fiddle.

When did you meet Chet for the first time?

Wariner: I was seventeen when I moved to Nashville. I was hired to play bass for Dottie West, who Chet had discovered and produced. I wasn’t working here for even a couple of months when we went on a European tour, the RCA Cavalcade of Stars. Our band backed up Bobby Bare and Jim Ed Brown. Chet was a part of that tour. We actually met at Wembley Stadium in London. This was in ’73 and there was no heat to be found anywhere in England [laughter]. So Chet was like [Wariner makes sniffling noises] and I was the same. I was just in awe as a skinny seventeen-year-old bass player. But he was nice as he could be.

Tommy, you were corresponding with Chet before you ever met.

Emmanuel: I was eleven when my father passed away. By that time I was well into trying to work out what I heard on his records. I wasn’t interested in listening to anything else. In fact, I wasn’t interested in anything else, period. So I was already playing tunes like “Windy And Warm,” “Nine Pound Hammer,” “Freight Train,” “Foggy Mountain Top” and those types of tunes. See, Chet made it the coolest thing in the world to play guitar. When I went into a tune like “Windy And Warm,” the audience were knocked out. Their jaws were on the ground. It wasn’t that I was a kid playing properly; it was that the music was just killer. That’s what he gave to all of us. It was a window into the rest of the world through his music. That gave you inspiration but it also gave you hope for the future. You could be playing with a dance band and in the middle of a set you could go into an instrumental and be featured. It was a cool thing.

Knowles: I’d forgotten those days!

Emmanuel: And when I learned “Yakety-Yak,” “Yankee Doodle Dixie” and all that stuff in my teens, I was playing with other artists at big festivals. I had a Gretsch guitar at that time. They’d give me a feature and I’d play “Chaplin In New Shoes” into “Yankee Doodle Dixie” or whatever and just steal the show. Chet did that for me. I know I can speak only for myself but I feel like I’m talking about an entire generation because he made it cool for us to emulate him. And what we were stealing from him was so damn good that we still play it!

Wariner: We stole him blind [laughter].

Knowles: Well, he would say, “If you’re gonna steal, steal from the best [laughter].

Wariner: Every time I’d talk about stealing from him, he’d say [whispering] “It’s borrowing.”

Were you all exclusively into finger-picking at the time?

Wariner: Oh, not at all! I remember watching The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet. My dad was playing with a thumb pick and then I’d see James Burton and go, “Wait a minute! That’s not a thumb pick!” And he would bend a string and I liked that too.

Emmanuel: James used to use a banjo pick.

Wariner: Yeah, he did. When I was a sophomore I’d saved up enough money to buy a Telecaster, so I was doing both, trying to be James and Chet.

Knowles: I was three or four albums into Chet when Elvis came out. I was already deep into it when rock & roll poked its head up. It took me a while to realize how cool rock & roll was because I was totally into what Chet was doing.

Emmanuel: Because of Elvis’s popularity, people were going nuts over Scotty Moore. But I was quietly thinking to myself, “Scotty Moore is doing this [he brings his open palms near to each other] and Chet Atkins can do that [he raises his right hand way up above his left]. There were many times I felt like saying, “Have you guys ever heard a real guitar player named Chet Atkins”?

As you got into Chet’s style and personalized it, how did that affect your approach to improvising?

Emmanuel: We were all interested in everybody who improvised. Chet’s favorite improvisers probably would have been …

Wariner: Johnny Smith.

Emmanuel: Right, and Django Reinhardt. Django, especially, is still one of my all-time favorites and a guy I steal from on a regular basis.

Knowles: “ … Little Johnny Knowles, who will favor us with a number.” And of course I couldn’t play [laughter].

Wariner: He was doing an old-time radio spot.

John Knowles & Tommy Emmanuel, December 2019. Photo by Ron Wade via Facebook.

How did you specifically begin investigating Chet’s work?

Knowles: I remember getting that record Finger-Style Guitar. As a matter of fact, I didn’t know it was a 33 until I brought it home and I couldn’t play it.

Emmanuel: You thought it was 31 [laughter].

Knowles: So I took it to my neighbor’s house and played it. I had to buy my own record player to go with that record. I picked out “Glow Worm” because it was in the key of A and it didn’t have a lot of chords. For a long time I just played the bass part to “Glow Worm.” Then I was like, “The melody is up here [high on the neck] but the chords are down here [toward the bottom]. So I started having to really extend my knowledge of the fingerboard. I knew what he was doing. I could hear the accompaniment, like the bass buttons on an accordion. But I just couldn’t locate everything. Eventually I got to where I could kind of find my way around and then I’d make up the rest, which I realize now is the way to do it. If you try to copy everything, you’re doing a replica.

Wariner: I watched my dad play. I’d watch his thumb. I knew he didn’t have Chet’s precision but I knew what was being left out. I actually played drums in this band he had, if you want to call it that. The guitar player in the band, Jim Davis, taught in the local music store in our town. He was tremendous, really a good Chet player. I couldn’t venture away from the stage area because I was just thirteen, so I’d take Jim’s [Gibson] Firebird and work on my Chet stuff. He would show me things. I learned a lot of chords and stuff from him.

Emmanuel: I wasn’t aware that Chet was playing with a thumb pick. All I knew was that he was playing everything at once. Of course I didn’t know how he was doing that because we had no TV, not that there were any programs. So I worked out how to go like that [he plays the boom-chuck groove] with this [he holds up a flat pick]. Then I worked out [he plays melody with two fingers over the boom-chuck]. And I’d do [he plays “Freight Train”] and so forth.

Wariner: That’s how Glenn Campbell played.

Emmanuel: Yeah, exactly. So that’s how I started playing finger-style. I had the idea and I was starting to work out tunes. But then in ’65 his album The Best Of Chet Atkins came out, where he’s playing the green Gretsch on the cover. And there he was with a thumb pick on! I had one of those … [he slaps his palm against his forehead as Knowles and Wariner laugh]. It was like I opened the gate and the horse bolted in. I’d been tethered by this thing [holding up a flat pick]. So I got a thumb pick and I was off, I’m telling you! The other thing I wanted to say, and the thing I had to fight most of all, was that everybody said it was a recording trick. Remember, I was a kid, so when an adult says something it really affects you. And everybody was saying, “No, don’t listen to that. Chet Atkins and Les Paul? It’s all recording tricks. Damn Yanks [laughter]! So I had to keep at it almost alone. I didn’t play in front of other guitar players in this style until I could play tunes pretty well.

You weren’t doing any gigs?

Emmanuel: Well, I was playing rhythm guitar in a dance. It was really bizarre. At age twelve I was playing in two bands. I was teaching three nights a week — and all my students were adults. I was going to high school. I had a business mowing grass. And I worked at the corner store on Sundays.

Wariner [to Knowles]: He’s such a slacker!

Emmanuel: So I was trying to work out all that stuff by ear. [He plays “Avalon” in a brisk Chet style.] I didn’t know much about those chords like [he plays several jazzy chords]. So when I was about sixteen I moved to the big city. The first band I played in, the other guitar player, who was a singer as well, had a great chordal knowledge. He was playing stuff like … [he plays and sings a bit of “On A Clear Day”] Of course, when I gained more knowledge and experience, I went back to Chet’s records and I realized there was so much more in them that I hadn’t even really heard yet.

Knowles: Whoa, there it is, right there. Every one of us had to go back and rework what we thought we had.

Wariner: I’ve been doing that lately, going back.

Wariner: “If you think you’ve got it, you probably don’t.”

Knowles: If you think you’ve got it, you probably don’t. Go back and listen to it again.

Wariner: I knew Chet was awesome but it was kind of my dad’s music. Then I realized how cool Chet was when the Beatles came along and I saw George Harrison playing a Chet Atkins Gretsch guitar. And I went, “Oh, wait a minute! That’s Chet’s guitar!” Chet would often show me notes and cards that he’d gotten from Paul McCartney. I was with Chet once in London when Paul called him. Then he did the Picks on the Beatles album and that killed me.

Knowles: When you go back to when the Beatles were kids, there were only six or eight people they were listening to. And Chet was one of them. There’s no way that decade would have happened without Chet.

Wariner: They were listening to the Everly Brothers. They were in awe of Chet.

When Chet played on his video for “Cascade,” he seemed to exert no effort at all, as if he were almost playing in his sleep.

Wariner: When I was playing bass with Chet, “Cascade” was our opener. That always struck me about Chet because I knew how hard it was to do what he was doing. He wasn’t compelled to do any gyrations or anything.

Emmanuel: Chet was smart because he was always looking for the best way to play something, the way that required the least amount of effort and moving around. And he always came up with it. If you look at some of his fingering, it’s like, “How the hell did he come up with that?”

Wariner: He was searching. He looked all over the place until he found the easiest way.

Emmanuel: If it wasn’t natural, he wouldn’t do it. If he sees someone play and the music isn’t just flowing out of him, he knew that was someone who didn’t yet know what they were doing. The first I saw Chet on TV, my mother turned to me and said, “He doesn’t look like he’s doing very much [laughter].”

Wariner: And Roy Clark’s doing this [he slides his left hand rapidly up and down an imaginary guitar neck] [laughter].

Emmanuel: Well, Roy Clark was an entertainer too.

Wariner: Exactly.

Knowles: I didn’t see Chet for a long time on TV or anything, so I was trying to learn to play that stuff until one day, when I was listening to the record, I thought, “Oh, no. I’m so not doing this right.” It just felt like alligator wrestling to me. It couldn’t be this hard for it to sound like that. So I started listening to the sounds he was making [while moving along the strings]. If he saw me play something and I was doing it the hard way, he’d say “That’s too much work. Look at this.” And he’d show me a better fingering.

Wariner: He said to me once, “Son, you’re killing yourself! You’re working yourself to death [laughter]!”

Knowles: I do remember this little move in “Happy Again.” What he’s doing is [he illustrates playing intervals of a sixth, moving back and forth between two chords]. Instead, he’d do this [he plays the same thing with no hand movement along the neck].

Emmanuel: [leaning over to touch strings on Knowles’ guitar]. These would be the sustaining high notes. He did that on those early recordings and I couldn’t figure it out. That’s the first thing I asked him. I said, “Chet, there’s a sound you make on ‘Blah, Blah, Blah,’ whatever it was.” And he said, “Oh, it’s this.” He knew exactly what I was talking about.

Wariner: He loved sharing that stuff!

Knowles: Most people would make two notes on the first and third strings, tenth fret and eleventh fret. Then they’d slide their hand down. Chet was making the first two notes at the tenth fret and then the seventh fret on the second. Then the next two notes were on the opposite strings. You’d get less motion but also you’d be able to let your fingers sing.

Wariner: They’d melt into each other.

Emmanuel at the UdK Berlin Konzertsaal, September 2024. Photo © Martin Rulsch via Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike 4.0.

Emmanuel: One thing I learned from Chet about playing melody was to play the harmony first. [He illustrates, with soft grace notes preceding each note of the melody.] Instead of going [he plays the same melody straight, without grace notes], you’re now Pedro at the Mexican restaurant. But if you play it like Chet, you sound like the Everly Brothers.

Knowles: He did another one like that. He would play a three-note chord with the thumb, index and middle on his right hand. But he’d play the index finger early so it was kind of a singer with two harmony parts, one above and one below. Most people would play the thumb early — but then they’d do just what Pedro did in the restaurant.

Wariner: Remember Chet doing those little triplet trills. It’s index/middle, index/middle, back and forth.

Emmanuel: That’s the real Spanish influence.

Knowles: He would also often do a little dig on [unintelligible]. I’d worked out how to play “Send In The Clowns” like on the Judy Collins record [Judith]. I showed him and he said, “Well, that’s coming along. Do you know the words?” I said, “Not all of them.” And he said, “I didn’t think so.” That was his way of saying that the words are where the melody and the phrasing and the breathing come together.

Wariner: He knew every lyric to every song!

Knowles: He said, “You’ve got to remember: The audience knows the words. They’re singing along with you inside. If you do the words wrong, it throws them.”

Wariner: John, I came into Chet’s office one day. The blue box was sitting and he was like this [bent to one side, guitar in hand], making a tape for Garrison Keillor. He goes, “Garrison, Steve Wariner just walked in. Steve, grab that bass. Let’s play something for Garrison.” He named a song that I had no idea what it was. And when we got finished, he jumped my ass! He goes, “I can’t believe you screwed up that chorus!” I said, “Chet, I’m sorry I don’t know a song that was written in 1929 [laughter]!” He just thought that you should know every song that he knew.

Knowles: That’s how he auditioned people. He just jumped in and said, “Come on, let’s go.”

Wariner: The first thing I ever did with Chet was right before he signed me to a recording contract. He said, “I want to give you a reel-to-reel tape of some songs. Learn about three of them.” They were outtakes that he produced on Nat Stuckey and some other RCA artists. After I learned these songs, he brought me into Studio B. Looking back now, I realize that he was testing my voice on tape. So I sang these songs. Then he said, “Paul Yandell] that you play guitar.” I said, “Yes, sir.” Then he said, “I hear you play a lot of my stuff. Play me one of my songs.” And I was like, oh, my God! I came here to be a singer [laughter]. To your point, John, that was my acid test.

Knowles: I was recording some solo stuff in his basement. I went for the center fret and got the eighth one. I just stopped. He came back on the talkback and he was just laughing. I said, “What?” He said, “Somebody else’s mistakes are always funny [laughter].”

Imitation vs. Influence

How did you attempt to master Chet’s style while at the same time cultivating your own unique sound?

Emmanuel: Well, when I was young I was totally into singers and songwriters — Stevie Wonder, James Taylor, Neil Diamond. It turned out they influenced a lot of my songs. But I could also work with this technique I had on guitar. For instance, I wrote a tune called “A Certain Son of a Gun” with a bridge that Travis or Chet would never have written — and yet it’s based on their style. I wrote this song when I met Tom Gray. The first part of it goes [he plays] — a typical kind of Travis thing. So I’m using my songwriting skills but with his technique. The roots are still there in Merle Travis, Chet and Jerry Reed. But my writing comes through singer/songwriters.

I think Chet loved my writing more than anything else I did when I was younger. I have this beautiful memory: I’d just finished my album Only. I was staying at his house. His grandson Jonathan was mastering the album for me. We were supposed to go to lunch but Chet got out of the shower not feeling very good. I was out in the hallway. He was fully clothed and ready to go out but he laid back on his bed and called out to me, “Hey, come in here. And bring your guitar.” I said okay. He’s lying there on the bed, looking up at the ceiling, and he says, “Play me your new album.” I said, “I’ve got it on tape. I’ll go get it.” But he said, “No, play it for me.” So I pulled the chair up beside the bed. He closed his eyes. I finished the first song, and he goes, “Yeah.” Then I played the whole album that way, in order. He wanted to hear where I was going melodically.

Wariner: I was learning to play “Jerry’s Breakdown” when we were in Europe. Paul Yandell had taught me some of it. I was practicing [he articulates the complex pattern that runs through the first verse] for three or four hours. Finally Chet comes out of his dressing room and says, “I wish you’d learn the rest of that damn song [laughter].”

Knowles: That story right there? That’s when you knew that you and he were pals.

Wariner: You’re right about that. Now, I’ve cut many records that have that Chet groove. One that I thought of while Tommy was playing was a song I wrote with Mac McAnally that became a Number One record. [He sings and plays: “Baby, your love is a precious thing, like a newfound home, like a diamond ring …”] That’s just Chet! [He continues, playing the Chet-inspired finger-picking part more prominently.]

Wariner: That’s just Chet and a little bit of Merle Travis.

Knowles: One more thing about learning from Chet but not sounding just like him. For me, there are two things. The first is, when I studied classical guitar for about four years I had that same technique but I wasn’t playing with a thumb pick and I was changing the way my left hand worked. I met Chet right after I’d learned that. So I had Chet history but nylon strings and more of a classical touch, which meant that we could work together without me feeling like I was a replicant. The other thing is, when I would analyze his songs, it wasn’t just chord names. When a new idea or a new key came in, I would compose things. You stole the ideas without stealing the licks.

Wariner with Little Jimmy Dickens, Grand Ole Opry, Nashville, April 2007. Photo © Jason Moore

Wariner: Early on, when I was making singing records, Chet would say to me, “You need to find your own path. Don’t copy anybody.” A couple of my earlier records, even when Chet was producing me, sounded kind of Glen Campbell-ish, which was awesome. But Chet would say, “Be Steve Wariner. Don’t copy me or Glen or anybody.” That was huge because I was trying to be somebody else. I mean, there’s already one Chet Atkins! Why do a half-assed version of him?

Emmanuel: Particularly to young people, I always say that I believe it’s nature’s way that we all start out emulating somebody. That’s true in any profession. Someone lights a fire in you. As an actor, Elvis Presley wanted to be like James Dean. Everybody wanted to be like Marlon Brando. So they learned. We didn’t want to be Chet Atkins but we couldn’t help but try to play what we were hearing because we loved it so much.

Jerry Reed, CGP

There is one absent colleague in the CGP community: Jerry Reed.

Wariner: And Paul Yandell.

Emmanuel: He was the last one.

Wariner: He did kind of recuse himself.

Emmanuel: It was Paul who told Chet he should give it to me.

Wariner: Probably in my case too. Paul deserves a lot of credit.

What do you hear in Jerry’s music that shows both those Chet Atkins roots and his journey beyond them toward his own unique style?

Emmanuel: I definitely hear early Chet in his playing. He could actually emulate Chet better than any of us. And he could emulate [Merle] Travis really well too. But Jerry Reed was trying to be like Ray Charles. That’s what set him apart in his playing. He came from a whole different perspective. But he eventually evolved into his own completely unique style, which was based on piano licks.

Wariner: And you’ve got to remember that Jerry was a session guy. Then Chet started telling him, “You need to make your own records.” Many times I’d brag on Jerry’s guitar playing and he’d say, “Hey, I’m a songwriter, man.” Or I’d brag on his writing and he’d say, “Man, I’m a guitar player [laughter].”

Emmanuel: I did something to Jerry that I did to Chet as well, which was to get them to play. The first thing they’d say was, “I’ve stopped playing.” So you’d play something of theirs in front of them … and you’d do it wrong [laughter]. And Jerry would be like, “Okay, let me show you how to do it.” And once he’d play, I saw the experience in his hands. I saw a lifetime of work in two bars.

Wariner: I didn’t know Jerry that well, but after Chet passed away, the night before his service, Jerry called me out of the blue. And we talked … well, he talked, for 45 minutes about Chet. I’d give anything if I’d been able to record it. He just poured his soul out to me about Chet. We got to be really close after that.

Steve, you were at Chet’s memorial service.

Wariner: Yeah. Jerry didn’t go, though. He told me, “I can’t do it.”

The Anointments

Let’s go back to the CGP honor. How were you notified that you had received it?

Knowles: Chet said it in the plaque he gave me: “John loved the guitar so much that you gave up gainful employment and moved his family to Nashville [laughter].” He wrote down that the music had helped him get in the world “and therefore by the power I’ve granted myself I name him an honorary CGP.” He surprised me with it at the Chet Atkins Convention! He was up on the stage, playing some songs. Then he said, “Where’s John? John, get up here!” I thought I was going to play something. But he said, “You stand right here.” Then he pulls out this thing and reads it. And I’m going, “Holy smoke!” I did not know what to say — and I said it poorly [laughter].

Wariner: I went to Arista and said, “I want to do an instrumental record.” I’d never done one. But I was having hits on radio and Arista said, “Umm, we can’t really do that. It won’t be on radio.” So I went and did it anyway. Chet played on two tracks, including a song I wrote called “Big Hero, Little Hero.” I went to Chet’s studio and he had a Fender Stratocaster in his hands! I was like, “What? How do I get that Strat out of his hands and get a Del Vecchio there instead?” Anyway, after that album, the label called and said, “You’re nominated for a Grammy for this record!” I went, “Oh, my God, you’re kidding me!” But then I went, “Oh, I’m up against Chet.” So a couple of days before the Grammys, I get a message from Chet. He goes, “I see we’re up against each other at the Grammys. I’m voting for you. Truly, I hope you win this Grammy … I’ve got sixteen of them anyway.” Click [laughter]. When I saw him I mentioned this. He kind of chuckles and goes, “I use ’em for door stops [laughter].”

He ended up winning that Grammy in the end.

Wariner: That’s right. Then we went back to Nashville from New York. I got home from work one day on a Friday and Karen said, “Chet called. He wants you to come in Monday night.” He was playing every week in those days at Caffé Milano. I said, “Well, I’ll try.” She goes, “No, you don’t try. Chet was adamant that you be there.” So I walk in and I see a TNN video crew. I’m thinking, “What’s going on here? Something is up tonight.” Chet’s onstage and he goes, “I won a Grammy two weeks ago, folks!” Everybody claps. Then he goes, “But there’s somebody in the audience I think should have won.” I look around and I see Jimmy Olander with Diamond Rio, so I’m thinking it’s him. Then Chet says, “Steve Wariner!” And I’m like, what? I get up there and he says, “I’ve got something behind my amp here that I want to give you.” And he gives me the Grammy. It reads, “On loan to Steve Wariner from Chet Atkins.” Then he pulled that plaque out and it also says, “By the powers invested in” whatever. He gives it to me and he goes, “You’re a CGP.” I was just speechless — in tears, really.

I wonder what the Academy thinks about that.

Emmanuel: Don’t tell ‘em [laughter].

Wariner: It’s only a loan!

Emmanuel: My award says “for lifetime contribution to the art of finger-picking,” which says it all. I see it not so much as an award as an obligation to bring this music and this way of playing to as many people as I can, to find the young people who can carry this on, to get behind them and give them everything I can to help them into the future. I mean, he did so much for me when I was young. I could never repay him. But I can tell people about it and play music for them in that style, so hopefully they’ll be inspired to do the same thing. It breathes new life into it and carries it forward to the next generation.

Chet said on occasion that he didn’t like being pigeonholed as a “country guitar player.” That ties in with what you’re saying, Tommy. It’s not about keeping country guitar alive; it’s about keeping the path toward creativity open through his example.

Emmanuel: Exactly. You play because you love it. I love to play but I don’t love to sit home and play on my own. I love to play for people and with people. That’s my whole reason for being out here. I’ve always known since I was a kid that when I play, something happens to whoever is listening. I don’t know what it is. Frankly, I don’t want to know. I just want to know that it’s always there.

Coda, from Chet Atkins:

https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/hall-of-fame/chet-atkins

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