Working With Chet Atkins – An Interview With Mark O’Connor

Mark O’Connor is a broadly identified qualified fiddler, distinguished in country songs and in classical new music. A child prodigy, O’Connor began studying guitar at age 6. As a teenager he won nationwide championships on the guitar, mandolin as properly as the fiddle. His mentors have been Texas fiddler Benny Thomasson and Jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli. He has recorded solo albums for Rounder, Warner Bros. Records, Sony, and his very own CD line OMAC Documents. He has gained two Grammy awards, a person for his New Nashville Cats album and another for his Appalachian Journey album he did with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer. He was named Musician of the Calendar year by the Place Music Association 6 decades in a row (from 1991-1996).

One of the most sought immediately after Nashville studio musicians in the 1990s, O’Conner’s violin can be read on many hits.

In his vocation, O’Connor has crossed musical genres, composing, arranging, and recording folk, classical and jazz new music. His Fiddle Concerto has obtained above 200 performances producing it just one of the most executed concertos penned in the last 50 many years. He has composed 6 violin concertos, string quartets, string trios, choral performs, solo unaccompanied functions and a new Symphony. He has labored and recorded with a broad wide range of artists, these kinds of as Chet Atkins, James Taylor, Michelle Shocked, Alison Krauss, Bela Fleck, Stéphane Grappelli, The Dixie Dregs and Wynton Marsalis. A person of his most preferred compositions, Appalachia Waltz (showing on the album of the exact title), has been adopted by Yo-Yo Ma as part of his dwell effectiveness repertoire. O’Connor hosts an annual fiddle camp (the Mark O’Connor Fiddle Camp) in Tennessee and annual String Camps in San Diego and New York. O’Connor is at this time residing in New York City.

TR: I know you grew up in Washington. Can you convey to me a little little bit about your early songs influences?

MO: Nicely, Chet Atkins was undoubtedly a single of those people early audio influences. I was a guitar participant very first, beginning about age 6.

TR: Sure, in simple fact I have viewed a movie of you and Chet and Paul Yandell playing on a television display from the eighties. You had been playing lead. A TNN demonstrate I think.

MO: Certainly, that was “Gallopin’ Guitar”. Someone has not too long ago extra that video on my Facebook webpage. I was a classical guitar player initially, and then I also analyzed flamenco guitar and lastly state and bluegrass.

TR: And this is ahead of you ever even touched the violin?

MO: Indeed. At age 11 I obtained actually intrigued in bluegrass and place guitar, and I was capable to definitely draw inspiration from all the terrific guitar players that have been recording in that era of system, Chet Atkins, and Jerry Reed, and Doc Watson and some of the bluegrass guitar players like Tony Rice, and Norman Blake.

I performed a large amount of guitar as a result of my teenage many years, even following setting up the violin. I kept my guitar enjoying up very well and then I recorded an album of all guitar tunes when I was 16 referred to as “Markology.”

And I believe “Markology” could possibly be the most effective guitar perform I’ve at any time done in my complete daily life. I had some unique friends on that album, which include Tony Rice, Dan Crary, David Grisman and Sam Bush. It was the album Chet Atkins read. It was the initially time he ever listened to of me.

Just about a yr following that album was produced, Chet wrote me a letter and he was really, definitely awesome. He explained, “I listened to your album and I genuinely loved it,” and he invited me to occur see him when I was in Nashville.

It took me awhile to get to Nashville to have a meeting with him. I assume I was 22 or so when I last but not least went to Nashville and met Chet in his workplace. I remember the conversation like it was yesterday. I was sitting in Chet’s place of work, and he said, “You are a talented young person. Wherever are you residing?” I reported, “Very well, now I’m living in Atlanta, Ga.” and he mentioned, “Well, you ought to be in Nashville,” and I mentioned, “Nicely, what would I do right here?” and he mentioned: “Anything you want to!”

Of training course I was fully blown absent. He requested me all over again what I required to do and at that point I was kind of dropped for text, so I blurted out, “Very well, I guess be on television,” and as before long as I said that, I felt sort of ashamed simply because I seriously only said it since I did not actually know what to say — I was young and uncomfortable.

But to my surprise he explained, “Effectively, I consider you can do that – I will make a get in touch with.”

So he known as Ralph Emery above at TNN, and the mobile phone conversation lasted only a couple of minutes. He obtained off and he mentioned, “Perfectly, what’s your program the future few of months?” So in just a make any difference of minutes Chet experienced set that very first television visual appearance up for me and that is where I went on with Chet and we performed “Gallopin’ Guitar”.

TR: You have been part of the property band there on TNN weren’t you?

MO:Yes, but that was a lot later on. That was right after I got to be a very very well-regarded session player in Nashville.

After that initial Tv set appearance with Chet I started to do a large amount of session do the job. I bought to be really occupied and I was nominated for Musician of the 12 months for a number of decades, and I suppose that “Galloping Guitar'” is from 1983. I started off my possess display on TNN called “The American New music Shop” in 1989.

TR: So you ended up residing in Nashville from ’83 or so?

MO: Indeed, beginning in 1983. I lived there for 15 yrs prior to shifting away.

TR: Notify me a little bit about how your marriage with Chet changed after that initial break that he gave you with the Tv set show. Did you have other alternatives where by you could play with Chet on phase?

MO: Yes, there were being plenty of options and they came in the way of stay performances as perfectly as studio recordings. He started out obtaining me as a guest on his very own recordings and he even performed on just one of mine, and I try to remember in particular that I performed fairly a bit on an album he did that Mark Knopfler created.

TR: The “Neck and Neck” album?

MO: Yes. It was very interesting to be in a position to get the job done with him, and I also ended up opening up some of his displays on the highway, and after in awhile he had me perform with him in live performance. But I feel the most memorable detail for me to associate with Chet was hanging out in his place of work and discovering.

TR: What was it like when you went to his workplace?

MO: It was truly good. We have been capable to hold out and enjoy and I would hear him consider out new suggestions and new factors on the guitar, and actually, I listened to him engage in some of the coolest things in these private sessions. He typically performed an acoustic guitar in those options, and he would participate in a little differently than what he did in exhibits or in recordings. He would perform some diverse sorts of repertoire that you would hardly ever definitely listen to him play on albums or in his concerts.

What I recall mainly about that is that in his concerts, he would participate in typically extra of his region fashion and a little bit of jazz, and in his albums, he would enjoy a little little bit extra of a present-day fashion, sometimes a delicate jazz fashion, but around his place of work, he would perform definitely type of eccentric, esoteric components — issues that he would be listening to, say, on a document if you transcribed it, or he would function out arrangements or renditions of factors. I don’t forget a large amount of Spanish things, factors with a Latin affect, some classical-oriented stuff and seriously some of the most lovely guitar perform I’ve ever heard.

TR: Do you assume he performed that stuff in the business office mainly because he didn’t feel it was great for commercial launch or that maybe a dwell audience would not like it?

MO: Most likely. I believe that he was very knowledgeable as a producer and as a previous file label head that in get to make a record that was commercially practical, you have to have an audience that you’re attempting to goal, and it’s possible he felt like some of that stuff was just his possess own songs.

Probably he did not essentially require to release it on an album simply because he didn’t seriously know what viewers he would be hoping to go for. But it was genuinely exciting that he was so properly-versed in all of guitar music, and his hunger and his knowledge alongside with his procedure was ready to actually include the comprehensive range of guitar new music – the most that I have ever listened to.

And he genuinely influenced me. I would experiment quite a whole lot with it simply because I myself experienced analyzed guitar and beloved all the diverse models. We experienced a large amount of that in common.

TR: So would you fellas really jam in his office environment, or did you mainly just converse with him? Were you participating in guitar or fiddle as effectively?

MO: A ton of instances, he would play one thing for me, and then he would invariably want me to participate in. I received a perception that he was like a kid in a sweet retail store for the reason that he preferred to participate in anything for me that he’d been doing the job on. He preferred to have an viewers that genuinely appreciated and recognized what he was accomplishing, even if it was just a person man or woman.

I believe each one musician in Nashville appreciated Chet but I believe he felt cozy actively playing seriously distinctive factors for me.

It was also sort of a learn-scholar point, in which he wanted to not only have interaction me in the tunes he was participating in, but also teach me at the same time. That was one thing that I really, truly appreciated and I think he understood that.

TR: Naturally, you felt that skillfully and musically those had been advantageous times for you?

MO: It definitely was. At periods I had to pinch myself. I don’t forget contemplating, “Oh my gosh, I get to go over to Chet Atkins’ position, just hang out for an hour and then he requires me out to lunch and pays for it!” (laughs)

MO: Chet would phone me and say, “Mark, why do not you come and visit me Thursday afternoon,” and so I would just pencil it in my calendar and then clearly show up. When I got there he would say, “Mark, I have bought anything I want to you listen to,” and I in no way understood what it was likely to be.

Occasionally he would play a thing that he’d been working on for a recording or a clearly show, or at times he would just get out the turntable — this was in the ’80’s, so it was just before CD’s. He would get out a turntable and he would enjoy me obscure stuff that he understood about and it was like a audio record lesson each individual time I showed up.

One particular time he played me this remarkable recording of a singer from the 1920’s that I imagine was singing what sounded like, “I’m so lonesome I could cry,” and it sounded just like Hank Williams, but the only variance was it had been recorded about 15 or 20 yrs previously. And I appeared at Chet and I went, “Oh my gosh! Does Hank Williams know him?”

It was an outdated black blues singer. And I claimed, “So you believe Hank Williams bought his design from this male,” and he claimed, “Nicely, it sounds like it, won’t it?” And we were being sitting down there in the place of work and we were getting this epiphany jointly, and I’ve in no way, ever heard that recording because. I you should not know wherever it arrived from or who it was, and nobody’s ever mentioned it prior to or due to the fact to me.

MO: It was just so fascinating each individual time. And we did work on some matters alongside one another. Once in awhile he’d say, “Hey, I want you to participate in on a exhibit with me, so let’s function up a track,” and it could be a Beatles tune, it could be an previous fiddle tune, I never ever understood what he had in mind. And you know I believe his father played the fiddle.

TR: I think he performed piano as well and was a music trainer.

MO: Chet played a minor bit of fiddle himself, and you will find not several persons actually know that because he hardly ever actually did it professionally. But he truly would select up the fiddle now and then for the reason that he cherished it, and it reminded him of his childhood and his forefathers, and so that was an additional link that he and I experienced. So we had the guitar relationship, and then also he had the enjoy of the fiddle that not many people today realized about.

What’s truly attention-grabbing and ironic about Chet as a commercial history producer is that he was 1 of the producers alongside with Owen Bradley that in a perception considered the fiddle not commercial or modern ample, and he commenced making recordings with the strings, what was afterwards identified as “the Nashville sound”.

He cherished the fiddle and was good pals with Johnny Gimble. But ironically, he was kind of responsible for lowering the sum of fiddling in state music for a long period of time. When I showed up to Nashville, the fiddle was pretty considerably out of favor, there was actually no fiddling on recordings any longer, and Chet at that issue was retired from his document govt times.

With the fiddle being out of style he couldn’t definitely support get any session operate for me but that was anything I was able to do on my personal aside from Chet. But Chet truly aided me by finding me on tv, and he place me on his information and he place me on phase.

So out of the blue, I started off to make some headway in the recording scene and I am positive that Chet was pretty impressed with how I aided convey back the fiddle into recordings in Nashville, and I imagine he was extremely, really very pleased and delighted.

TR: There was one thing published about you in the Los Angeles Instances conversing about what a good range of kinds you enjoy., and that you’ve got crossed musical boundaries with the unique models of tunes that you do. Do you truly feel like which is anything you had in prevalent with Chet?

MO: Certainly, I feel so. There is a real parallel. As an instrumentalist, I gained a massive part of my notoriety and recognition from Nashville. It was really an vital association with Chet mainly because he was the conventional-bearer in Nashville. Every thing that I could probably do or obtain was as opposed to Chet and his vocation, which was huge, and I figured that there was no way to at any time accomplish anything at all near as significantly as Chet was equipped to execute.

And so it gave me a lot of gratification that he preferred me and supported me. As prolonged I am attempting to turn into a solo instrumentalist, it was normal to search to Chet. Chet truly is the only one who was seriously in a position to do it to this sort of a profound extent and have a genuine entire vocation with it.

TR: There are so number of folks that have been pretty profitable as solo instrumentalists, and of course you’re a person of them.

MO: It took really a bit of time for me, and the eras were being unique. But it was excellent for me to be ready to say that I realized Chet and I was in a position to engage in with him and learn so much from him. When I came out with the New Nashville Cats album the document firm stated, “Who do you want to do the liner notes,” and Chet was the initially man or woman to occur to head. I was so pleased that he not only did it, but he actually embraced the entire venture, due to the fact that total issue actually just took place simply because of Chet Atkins and what he did for instrumentalists in Nashville.

TR: I have a concern about the instruments on their own, the guitar and fiddle. As a solo instrument, are there some similarities in between them?

MO: They both equally have strings.

TR: Which is the only similarity?

MO: Well technically, it truly is just a whole diverse matter. You might as well participate in piano. It could as effectively be piano and violin, for the reason that it is really so distinct. Now, a whole lot of individuals finish up playing the guitar since it is really a social instrument, you use the guitar to accompany a singer.

TR: Sure.

MO: But very number of people excel as soloists on the two of those devices. Now today is a minimal various, but unquestionably when I was a kid and undoubtedly when Chet was a child, you hardly found a individual that did each devices solo with any success. So it actually is a diverse style of factor, though when I picked up the violin, I presently experienced seven yrs of guitar coaching, so I was equipped to select up points more quickly for the reason that at least my fingers were going and I was pondering about tunes and I knew how to learn audio and my ear was pretty very well along in its ear training, and so things moved substantially more quickly for me than if I would have began cold for certain.

TR: I was going to request you a concern about the way you perform. Naturally, you have all the complex chops for these devices. How does emotion or experience occur out in your actively playing?

MO: Properly, I explain it like this: With the violin, I am able to seize an psychological power that is deep inside me, and I have to choose it again to my childhood. There was a thing about the music and my skill to play back again then that actually served get me out of a wrestle-crammed childhood. It allowed me to get out of poverty, and to enjoy wonderful people today. It was a way out of my home, where by I would have almost certainly been forced into doing the job labor with my family members. I would have been functioning labor form work soon after faculty and not working towards.

TR: You might be chatting about physical labor work relevant to your family members situation?

MO: Yeah, and there was also the truth that I was gifted at age 12 and started out to make revenue with my taking part in – that definitely impressed them, and so they authorized me to enjoy.

TR: You might be chatting about your dad and mom?

MO: My father mainly. My mother was hoping that I would perform, but primarily my father was the a person that needed convincing.

TR: He was the one that built the conclusions in the household?

MO: Properly, you know, times had been tricky and he experienced a son with two palms and a back. He would want me out there undertaking labor and construction and all the stuff he was performing. He labored tricky the entire day, till 10 at night just about every day. I possibly acquired my function ethic from my father. And I recognized what it meant when he authorized me to not have to do what he did.

So I never took it for granted. I practiced and I practiced like there was no tomorrow. I’ve hardly ever, ever neglected people inner thoughts, so when I perform audio even now you can find this sort of emotional depth that I can come across in my violin taking part in that would make me believe of that very little boy that desired to access out and tell the environment that he could truly participate in.

TR: Is this a little something that you attempted to convey to learners in some of your string camps?

MO: Certainly, in particular if men and women are getting a difficult time getting enthusiastic and centered. I genuinely do feel that audio delivers persons jointly. How else could I have received my knowledge with Chet Atkins? It was unbelievable that a 22-yr-previous musician would come to have a partnership with Chet Atkins who was in his sixties at that time. It was only attainable as a result of this exclusive bond of new music. I never ever knew a actual granddad, but vicariously I got a thing very similar by the associations with my more mature musical mentors, which includes Benny Thomasson, Stephane Grappelli and Chet Atkins. I was privileged to be equipped to be all over these function models and I credit score them with letting me to uncover a first rate everyday living to guide. They confirmed you by case in point how to have some kind of moral compass, and to arrive at out to distinct communities. It is crucial to normally be searching to try out to do good matters by audio.

TR: You can do a good deal by way of audio and persons you should not understand it.

MO: Indeed.

TR: What is the strongest memory you have about Chet?

MO: About a several months ahead of Chet died, I bought a phone simply call. I try to remember I was out in the yard. I was living in San Diego at that time, so I experienced remaining Nashville and I was not viewing Chet frequently any longer, and it experienced been really awhile due to the fact I might previous viewed him, and just out of the blue, the telephone rang and they identified as out to me that someone from Nashville was on the cellular phone. So I ran up to the house and acquired the phone, and it was Chet. And I stated, “Oh my gosh! How are you carrying out?” He explained, “Fine. I just desired to convey to you that I really like you,” and it was like the world just stopped — It was just so — it was just so shocking.

TR: He was declaring goodbye?

MO: He was declaring goodbye. It was so heartfelt. And I reported “Chet, I appreciate you as well — you know that.” and he mentioned, “I just wanted you to know that, and how significantly you necessarily mean to me,” and then it’s possible a thirty day period later on, he was long gone.

MO: It’s extremely, very equivalent to what Stephane Grappelli did right in advance of he died. We had been at this area with each other a pair of months in advance of he died and he grabbed my hand and just failed to want to let go.

I definitely believe the mentor-university student romantic relationship is a person of the terrific matters in humanity. And to be capable to expertise it with Chet and also Benny Thomasson and Stephane Grappelli has just been a accurate privilege for me. Those experiences with these mentors are one of the reasons why I set on my fiddle camp and consider to achieve out to little ones right now.

TR: Mark, thank you for taking the time to converse these days.

MO: Thank you so significantly.