Saturday, March 09, 2013

The Ballad of Poor Jean

More incredible guitar this time from 1955. Here's Chester Atkins with his patented fingerpickin arrangement of the classic French song, the popular title in English is The Poor People of Paris, but this is because of mis tranlaltion (Pauvre Jean sounds just like Pauvre Gens. The original song is called in French, La goualante du Pauvre Jean...) I owned a Gretsch Chet Atkins Coungtry Gentleman guitar circa 1968, natural wood finish, gold plated nasty Gretsch pick ups and Bigsby bar, semi hollow body with the painted on f holes so it wouldn't feed back like a MF...it even had a snap on cushioned belt buckle guard on the back....it was the loudest guitar I ever owned...Gretsch invented the concept of turn it up to 11! Chester was the tech director of Gretsch....

2 comments:

bj said...

"Hey There Chit Akins .... Would You Make Me A Star?" My Daddy used to sing this song(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6Sav_0vYNU) AT me when I was practicing on my Silvertone 1448 (http://compare.ebay.com/like/370773565208?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar) ....
Chet records were a fixture in my parents' Grand Old Opry home while I was growing up. "The Boy Can Play" ... as my Daddy used to say, meaning Chet ... not so much ME.

microdot said...

The first band (1965) I was ever in when I was a 15 year old wannabee keyboard player in Detroit...I had some kind of cheap Italian electric organ called a GEM...but the guitarist had the koolest Sivertone green semi hololw body....ther bass player had a great Fender precision, he was a great 16 year old bassist...but I realized the only reason he was in the band was because he wanted to fuck my little sister. The drummer was incredible at 16 years old he was a crazy Greek kid, my best friend Dimi Kazakos who looked like Frank Zappas nasty little brother. The lead singer was the little brother of the guitarist, whowas my buddy...a real punk who had this Eric Burdon kind of thing going. I was sad to hear that he died of a heroin od about 8 years ago. He was a Vietnam vet and never really reconnected after he got back....