Chet Atkins in 3 Dimensions -- your thoughts?

[mark reinhart]

As I am working my way through Chet's recording history for my book project, I'm hoping to get thoughts from fellow Chetboarders from time to time -- and this is one of those times! I'm curious to know which tracks off of Chet's In 3 Dimensions album that you consider to be the most musically and historically noteworthy -- in other words, if you had to pick 2 or 3 tracks from the album for a "Chet's greatest hits" collection, which ones would you pick?

Of course, I have my three tracks that I think are arguably the most essential -- but I'm interested to know what all of your thoughts would be regarding this question. Thanks!

[Eddie Estes]

Tenderly
Little Rock Getaway
Dark Eyes

I still feel that recording of Tenderly was one of Chet's all time best he ever did!

[Ray Bohlken]

That is a wonderful album. The 3 songs I would mention are Tenderly, Dark Eyes, and Arkansas Traveller. I think Little Rock Get Away is in that league, too, but I just like the song Arkansas Traveller better. It was fun to listen to the album again. I think I am going to listen to some more LPs today.
Ray

[mark reinhart]

These are all great responses, and very much in line with my thoughts regarding what the album's most essential tracks are. There is one other that I feel I have to add to the list -- "Minuet" marked the very first time in history that Chet used a classical guitar on one of his recordings.

I found that picking out Chet's greatest work from 1946 through 1955 was a much easier task than picking out his greatest work from 1955 to 1960. In those early years, Chet was finding his form -- but once he truly matured as an artist, it could be argued that pretty much EVERY note he played could be considered among his greatest! How will I ever get through all of Chet's work from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s? Doing this book is going to be both a very tough and a very fun job!