Me And Jerry

At the dawn of the '70s, Jerry Reed was starting to eclipse Chet Atkins as America’s most famous fingerpicker. However, any rivalry between the two musicians was purely imagined. Atkins always welcomed the opportunity to collaborate with his peers and mentor younger players, and his 1970 duet album with Reed is a warm and relaxed affair that emanates friendship and respect. Because Reed was primarily an acoustic player, this album is all-acoustic, giving listeners a rare opportunity to hear Atkins away from the studio gadgetry that was his stock-in-trade for most of the '60s. Even with all the precision inherent in the playing, there's something wonderfully loose about these renditions of “Tennessee Stud,” “Old Man River,” and “Wreck of the John B,” as though Reed and Atkins happened to run into each other in the studio and decided on the spot to improvise on some old favorites. While the slippery fingerpicking seen in “Cannonball Rag” is what made these two famous, it's their rendition of George Harrison’s “Something” that emphasizes the timeless grace of their techniques.