Chet Atkins Picks the Best is the thirty-second studio album by guitarist Chet Atkins. At the Grammy Awards of 1968, Chet Atkins Picks the Best won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.
This budget-priced, four-disc set from the Real Gone Music label arrives stocked with eight complete, remastered albums (two on each disc) from the legendary guitarist and producer, including Chet Atkins' Gallopin' Guitar (1952), Stringin' Along With Chet Atkins (1953), Session With Chet Atkins (1954), In Three Dimensions (1955), The Finger Style Guitar (1956), Hi Fi In Focus (1957), At Home (1957), and In Hollywood (1957).
One of the most influential guitarists of the 20th century, as well as a legendary musician and producer within country music. Without Chet Atkins, country music may never have crossed over into the pop charts in the '50s and '60s. Although he recorded hundreds of solo records, Atkins' largest influence came as a session musician and a record producer. During the '50s and '60s, he helped create the Nashville sound, a style of country music that owed nearly as much to pop as it did to honky tonks. And as a guitarist, he was without parallel.
Picks on the Hits is the forty-third studio album by guitarist Chet Atkins, released in 1972. It was nominated for the 1972 Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance but did not win. Chet's duet release with Jerry Reed Me & Chet was also nominated in the same category. The CD reissue by Pair Records adds eight additional tracks from Picks the Best and leaves off "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" and "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard".