Chet who and Les what?.Just kidding.....been listening to Chet and Mark
Knoflers cd......just wonderful! Like the tune about Chet changing his
image..wearing leather pants and dark shades...Mark:" your a lil country and
too old".

wrote in message
...
On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 02:29:04 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 02:14:52 GMT, wrote:

On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 01:38:47 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 20:27:31 -0500, "jaypoe"
wrote:

Or guitars and motorcycles of coarse.

I still have a Gretsch Country Gentleman autographed by Chet Atkins.
My favorite quitar of all time is the pre-CBS Stratocaster and the
Ovation Custom Balladeer that I own.

Later,


GUITARS! One wall of my living room is hung with quite a collection.
Mostly
custom built "one-offs". Among them is Les Paul's Les Paul. He gave it
to me
one night after a gig. I'm sure there are other people who can say the
same, as
he likes to trade guitars and war stories. I started playing in 1957. In
a
previous life, I was a pretty busy pick up player on both coasts. I was
also
pretty heavily involved in motorcycles. Even owned a motorcycle shop for
awhile
in California in the early 70's as a sideline. I used to ride solo cross
country
between CA and CT in 4 days each way to visit the folks. Longest single
stretch
ever on one of those trips was from Des Moines, Iowa to Westport, CT in
28 hours
straight through. I had planned to stop overnight in Columbus, OH, but
when I
got there, the guy I was going to visit was out of town. I just kept
going. Look
on a map and see what it was. Those were the days!

When I was still playing, I was traveling through Nashville and
stopped to go to a Oprey show. As it happened, I had my Gretsch with
me and saw Mr. Atkins in a resturant. I just took matters to hand and
walked up to him asking if he would be kind enough to autograph it for
me. He looked at me and said "Son, you bring it here I'll not only
autograph it, I'll play." Took me all of three seconds (ok, maybe
not, but still I hustled out to the car) to get the guitar and the
rest is history. He signed it "To Tom, all the best - Chet Atkins"
and then proceeded to play "Yankee Doodle" and "Moonlight in
Vermont".

I'm looking at it as we speak....er... type.

Later,


Great story! I once told Les Paul a story that Chet Atkins had told me
about
him, and after a great big horse laugh, he said, "Good story... but not
true of
course". These guys are hilarious when you get them going. Les Paul still
rips,
in case you are wondering. Actually, I think the kids now say he "shreds".
His
biggest problem is that his skin has become very tender, and he usually
ends up
bleeding after playing for a while. Not bad consdering all he's been
through
with cardiac surgery, and his famous "permaset" elbow.

BB


Tom
S. Woodstock, CT
----------

Basic Fishing Program:

10 - Fish
20 - Eat
30 - Sleep
40 - Goto 10