Chet was born on a farm near Luttrell Tennessee. His parents separated when he was just six years old, and his early years were spent working on the farm with his younger brother. He moved in with his father in Georgia when he was ten. His father was a jobbing musician during the twenties and thirties.

Chet got his first guitar around the age of eight, a cheap Sears Roebuck model with a broken neck and unplayable action. His earliest guitar influences were Les Paul and Merle Travis. The finger picking style of Merle Travis had a great influence on Chet.

On leaving home, Chet worked as a session guitarist and fiddle player at radio stations across the USA. He found his guitar playing in greater demand than his fiddle skills, and decided to concentrate on the guitar. He signed to RCA Victor records in 1947, and moved to Nashville in 1950, where he oversaw RCA’s Nashville operations until retirement in 1982.

Django Reinhardt was another of Chet’s influences, and Chet met Django in 1946 and got his autograph at the Civic Opera House in Chicago.

Chet retains a life long passion for the guitar:

“I still can’t keep my hands off a guitar – and I’ve been playing for years and years – because I love it. I still sometimes fall asleep with a guitar in my arms”.

Sources :

• Wikipedia.
• Secrets from the Masters: Conversations with Forty Great Guitar Players by Don Menn.
• Wired for Sound: a guitar Odyssey. Melhuish and Hall, 1999