With his unique guitar-picking style, Chet Atkins (1924-2001) produced music from country to jazz in a career spanning over 50 years, making him the most recorded solo instrumentalist in country music history. His talent for finding and nurturing new recording stars and introducing new sounds earned him a second career as a record company producer and executive.

Chet Atkins was born Chester Burton Atkins on a farm near Luttrell, Tennessee, a small town about 20 miles north of Knoxville, on June 20, 1924. His parents, James Arly Atkins and Ida Sharp Atkins, each had children from a previous marriage. The family was large and poor. With a father who was a music teacher, piano tuner, and evangelist singer, a mother who played piano and sang, and siblings who played instruments, Atkins was surrounded by music from birth. At the age of six he played his first instrument, a ukulele, replacing broken strings...