by Richard S. Ginell
Though incredibly busy running RCA Victor's Nashville operation, Chet Atkins still found some time and enterprise to perform some musical experiments on his own. It was a simple idea, really, replacing the two lower strings on his electric guitar with the E and A strings from an electric bass, thus lowering the tone by an octave and creating a fuller balance. With this idea, Atkins' disarmingly easygoing fingerpicking facility threatened to put every bass player in Nashville out of business, but the so-called &Octabass Guitar& evidently wasn't pursued much further. Indeed, only on side one of this LP do listeners hear the new instrument on a series of mostly jazz and pop standards -- including the newly minted Joe Zawinul soul/jazz vehicle &Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.& The bass strings give the tracks a different sound, but since one man is playing two parts in the same unified manner style, listeners will not really perceive the illusion of a genuine guitar/bass duet. The side also contains a polished remake of &Chet's Tune,& the song on which just about every artist on RCA Victor's Nashville roster had pitched in on to surprise their label boss earlier that year. Side two is simplicity itself; delicate, lovingly caressed solo acoustic guitar tracks with only an occasional celesta or hi-hat cymbal set in the background. Give &Gonna Get Along Without You Now& the most points for likeability on this low-key side. All told, this is one of Atkins' more pleasing collections from that era.