• List Price: $28.99  
• Your Price: $28.99
• In Stock: [{"available":"0"}]

You must login to place orders.




Not purchasing for a business? See our consumer site.

Chet was born in 1924 in east Tennessee. His first influence was big brother, Jimmy, who played to Chet to keep him quiet - but Jimmy left home when Chet was five. At some point, the Sears catalogue yielded a Silvertone guitar. Aged ten or eleven, he moved to his father's farm in Georgia. Older brother Jimmy, meantime, was a working musician. Over fifty years after, Chet could remember hearing Jimmy's first National Barn Dance broadcast. Chet's recollections of his teenage years can be summed up in one word - practice. A major inspiration was Merle Travis. At eighteen, Chet got his first professional gig ... playing fiddle with Bill Carlisle. Astutely, he demonstrated how good he was on guitar. Soon he was the station's staff guitarist. After four years at WNOX, he moved to Cincinnati's 50000 watt giant WLW. He replaced Merle Travis. On Christmas Eve 1945, Chet was sacked. By now, he had the confidence to recommend himself to country star Red Foley who was about to move from the National Barn Dance to the Grand Ol' Opry. Chet soon joined - and was sacked from - Foley's band. Almost immediately he was offered a contact with Bullet records, and the first two tracks here are the result. Unemployed once more, a buddy told him a station in Missouri, was looking for a guitarist. KWTO, it turned out, was part of the National Mutual Network which meant that Chet was heard well beyond the limits of his home station's 5000 watts. Chet was sacked from KWTO and joined Shorty Thompson's Cowboy Band in Denver. In mid-1947, a turning point. Merle Travis was doing big things for Capitol. RCA's Steve Sholes asked Chet to do the same for him. From the start, Chet's RCA work had assurance. And he was able experiment a little. For some of the November 1947 cuts, Chet used an electric guitar. It would be an important to him from now on. Here is a life on both sides of the mic - with Chet becoming one of the music industry's most admired - and loved - figures.