Home
Up
Rock 1: Guitar & Piano
Rock 2 Guitar & Piano
Blues: Guitar & Piano
Jazz: Guitar & Piano
Country: Guitar & Piano
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Country guitar and piano
excellence
Our page
of country guitar and piano excellence expands the realm of the
stereotype of country music. This would include its roots of the Nashville scene,
bluegrass, rock bands that emphasize country leanings that emphasize
pedal steel or mandolin, and related
items.
In many
respects country music takes elements of many musical styles to form
its own category of music. It removes the earthiness feel of bluegrass by
electrifying the acoustic instruments given them a punch. The
aspects of rock country music incorporates is a taste of nashville with cleaner guitar tones, plenty of
acoustic guitars, and often using instruments such as pedal steel,
mandolin, and/or fiddle within their songwriting. To the nashville sound
they added more punch in the beat and changed the shift in composing
from pop and instrumental excellence, to the framework used in
popular rock songs. Placing
more of an emphasis on songwriting rather than showing off the instrumental
skills gives it more of a commercial appeal.
Chet
Atkins / Charlie Daniels
/ New Riders of the
Purple Sage
|
|
Chet Atkins is one of the best guitar
players period. He is best known as a Country and Nashville player.
However, he ventured into Jazz, Pop, Gospel, and Blues with
stellar results. He could also impersonate Django Reinhardt as
well as anyone else, no easy task. You can tell in Chet's
playing that Django was an influence. He covered a few
of his songs through the years, too bad he didn't record a
whole album.
He headed up RCA's Nashville division, and
besides working as a Session player he discovered talent, one
of whom is Floyd Cramer who graces many Chet Atkins albums
with his excellent piano contributions.
Chet Atkins catalogue is quite expansive. Below are recommendations of some
his recordings that we enjoy. Some of Chet Atkins collaborations with
other guitar greats are among his best offerings, and in that
tradition we
recommend his albums with Les Paul, Jerry Reed, Merle Travis, and Mark
Knofler.
|
|
|
|
Guitar
Legend The RCA Years -
This is our number one Chet Atkins compilation recommendation
packing 50 songs onto two discs. |
|
| The
Essential Chet Atkins spans nearly 40 years and has 20
tracks of bluegrass, country, jazz, blues, pop, and more. |
|
|
|
Chester & Lester
/ Guitar Monsters is
includes the two Chet Atkins and Les Paul collaborations.
Their 1976 album Chester & Lester
won a Grammy, Randy Goodrum on piano.
|
|
|
Me & Chet / Me & Jerry
compiles the two classic albums that guitar
legends Chet Atkins
and Jerry Reed made. |
|
|
Charlie Daniels could have just as easily fallen into
our rock category. His music really meshes a combination of country,
blues, and rock, which is topped off with inferences of bluegrass to
yield a sound of it's own.
Charlie
Daniels title track from his 1976 "Saddle Tramp"
sure has inferences of the Allman Brothers. One of his better
songs.
With an
abundance of good music spread over so many albums we find that one
of the greatest hits collections is a great way to go. There are single, double, and triple disc options.
|
|
|
|
The
Ultimate Charlie Daniels Band is a superb two disc
collection of Daniels career. It includes the classic "Saddle
Tramp" as well as the hits. |
|
A
Decade if Hits: There are quite a few Charlie
Daniels single disc collections, none are comprehensive, but
orientations. |
|
|
|
Roots
Remain is a three disc box set and a fairly definitive collection
of Charlie Daniels catalogue. |
|
How
Sweet The Sound - 25 Favorite Hymns And Gospel Greats: If
you like gospel songs you'll enjoy this double disc of Charlie
Daniels' renditions. |
|
|
The New
Riders of the Purple Sage country rock sound take their roots, and perhaps their
success from their collaboration with some members of the Grateful
Dead. Their friendship was fruitful in 1970 and 1971 during which
time the New Riders of the Purple Sage opened up many concerts for
the Grateful Dead, would feature Jerry Garcia playing pedal
steel while warming up for the lengthy Grateful Dead sets that
would follow. Tapes of these shows are not too difficult to
track down.
They not
only shared the staged, but also collaborated in the studio. Jerry
Garcia was a major contributor on the New Riders of the Purple
Sage's first album and took a minor part on their second album.
Likewise, David Nelson performed
on one track, "Cumberland Blues," on the Grateful
Dead's Workingman's
Dead album, and several Purple Sage members appear on American
Beauty. Their friendship continued through the years,
and David
Nelson joined Garcia's short lived band The
Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band that took New York's Broadway by storm in 1988
playing acoustic guitar, back-up vocals, and lead vocals on a few
songs.
|
|
|
|
Live:
Worcester, MA 4/4/73
This two disc live performance has G Dead pianist Keith Godchaux sitting in for the set.
A fairly definitive collection. |
|
|
New
Riders of the Purple Sage -Their self titled debut album
features the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia on pedal steel,
etc., Commander Cody on piano, and more. The
2003 reissue has bonus tracks. |
|
|
|
|
