Chet: King Picker and Pioneer of the Nashville Sound

 Chet: King Picker and Pioneer of the Nashville Sound by Mark Ribowsky, 352 pgs. © 2026

    

Oh by jingo, this is the second! book about Chet Atkins that was published in the last year. It makes youwonder what's pushing the renewed interest--is there a viral Tik-Tok out there using Mr. Sandman in the background? Nonetheless, if you're a guitar geek or a country music afficionado, there's much to learn from this offering by Ribowsky, who published a spirited, researched bio on the legendary Hank Williams about a decade ago. 

    This book is the origin story of the original guitar hero--born in a holler in rural Tennessee, life was "Steinbeck-ian," living in a one-room country shack with a few siblings. He developed asthma early on (which kept him from entering the army during the draft), but fell in love with the guitar his older brother brought home--a beat-up Silvertone (interestingly, his older brother also had a fine career as a guitar player, performing with the Les Paul Trio for many years). He wanted the guitar so bad that all of his brother's chores in exchange for playing it, which he did until his fingers bled. He would sit at the radio and listen to broadcasts, trying to figure out what guitarists were doing in their playing. 

    His love for the music of Merle Travis influenced his unique thumb-picking style, which incorporated his other fingers to play the higher notes of a melody, something no one else was really doing at the time. He became known for lighting fast guitar licks and attention to detail. Fast-forward to his 20s and he's finally broken through in Nashville with RCA records and has become a highly-sought out producer, working with Elvis, Perry Como, Patsy Cline and countless more. His dedication to developing a "Nashville Sound" helped make Nashville the music capital is widely known as today. He was still working out licks on his guitar well into his 70s, right up until he passed away in 2001. 

Amplified: A Design History of the Electric Guitar

 Amplified: A Design History of the Electric Guitar by Paul Atkinson, 272 pgs. 

This book looks at the guitar as an object through the lens of design. Paul Atkinson, a professor of Design and Design History at Sheffield Hallam University, takes the reader on a thorough deep-dive into one of the most popular and culturally significant instruments of the last century. You may think that the state of the inventor of the guitar is a settled matter, but the truth is far more complex than that. "The emergence of the electric guitar was, like many other inventions, the result of a series of parallel developments." Several groups interested in the development of the guitar were simultaneously experimenting with similar designs and effects at nearly the same time. From there, it was just a rush to the market to get them into musicians' hands. The most popular guitar models in history are knows as the "Holy Trinity"--the Stratocaster, the Les Paul and the Telecaster. These were the models that have outlasted all others in terms of cultural influence, sound and style. Although many luthiers and instrument companies have tried to break this hold on the market, those three models have survived mostly unchanged for the last 50 years, which is likely a testament to how well-designed they were the first time around. Atkinson starts off in the early 1900s, covering Gibson's wide-body archtops (made wide in order to sound louder on big-band stages), to the implementation of electric pick-ups to increase volume, all the way to the 1980s when synthesizers began merging with guitars. While Fender and Gibson loom large in this book (as they should), Atkinson spends ample time reviewing more interesting models that stood-out but never really captured the public imagination. The author is not interested in promoting one brand or style over the other; this is purely a book for the love of the instrument in its many forms. Recommended for adults and teens. 

The Birth of Loud

The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry that Shaped Rock n' Roll, by Ian S. Port, 340 pages

This is a fantastic read for music lovers, guitar players, and pop-culture historians alike, documenting the early lives and creative lightning bolts that brought us the beginning of the modern guitar era. In the 1930s and 40s, after archtop guitars had been electrified with pick-ups and became regular fixtures on big band stages, it became clear that the electrified, hollowbody archtop could only be turned up so loud before the guitar would begin to produce the awful, overloaded signal known as feedback. Western swing guitarists especially, who wanted to compete more with the other instruments on stage, would typically try to crank up the volume on the amplifier to get a louder, more distorted sound, but it always ended in ear-crushing noise. Leo Fender, not a musician but more of a self-described engineer and tinkerer, began to workshop an idea for a solid body guitar. At roughly the same time, Les Paul, a top-jazz and swing player at the time, was also having a similar epiphany. He began workshopping his own ideas, hoping that a more solid-body style guitar would end the feedback problem. Fender's guitar designs would revolutionize the instrument landscape in the mid-1950s, while Paul got a sweet deal with Gibson guitars, sponsoring their newest solid body guitar that bore his name (the Gibson Les Paul) that would eventually become an iconic piece of equipment for 60s and 70s hard rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Cream. This book reads easy and action packed, with short chapters and guitar inventions that quickly became canon for any aspiring player. As much as these two did for guitars in this era, country-picker Merle Travis might be most responsible for the solid body design. He sketched his idea on a bar napkin and gave it to his friend Paul Bigsby, another musician and inventor, who essentially created one of the first solid-body designs. The same design that Leo Fender would shamelessly steal from. With Fender's designs sweeping the country, they stole the market share out from under Gibson and helped influence the golden age of guitars. 

Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning

 Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning by Gary Marcus, 261 pages

A great violinist finished playing a moving piece. Afterwards, an audience member came up to him and said "I would give my life to play like that." And the violinist replied, "that's exactly what I did." As a child, the violinist woke up at 5 a.m. every day to begin working on his craft, lasting until the evening hours and he did that for most of his young life. 

While most of us listen to an accomplished, versatile musician and think to ourselves, wouldn't it be nice to be able to play like that, the reality is that we can still develop some musical capabilities during our lifetime, regardless of age or abilities. Guitar Zero is not just a book for guitar players, but a book for any readers who have an interest in what it takes to become a musician. Marcus, a professor of psychology and the director of the NYU Center for Language and Music, decides on this 40th birthday to begin following his boyhood dream of learning to play the guitar. On the way, he investigates the way musicians learn and what happens to the brains of musicians as they're learning their craft. As we follow along with him trying out lessons, signing-up for a kids band camp, and interviewing heavy hitters like Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and jazz phenom Pat Metheny, we learn more about the science behind becoming a musician--how learning music triggers similar parts of the brain that utilize language, the various theories that debate whether music was a byproduct of our evolution, and finally, how talent is not innate. Yes, dear reader! You too can learn an instrument today, even if you've told yourself your entire life that you have no musical talent. Marcus' book demonstrates that true musical talent is a direct by-product of countless hours of practice and dedication. And while you don't need to dedicate your life to it necessarily and wake up every morning at 5 a.m., Marcus reminds us that there are no shortcuts. You've just got to get started. By the end of his journey, Marcus has learned his instrument, can play chords easily and transition between them. He even writes a personal song for a family member who is dying of cancer. While this book does focus on guitar and how it differs from other instruments, Marcus touches base with other instrumentalists as well. This is an easy read for anyone looking to know a bit more about the science behind music education and how it can impact your life in a positive way. Older teens and adults.