The Guitar Man - Boulder Boogie - Guitar [2'52] Listen (real) FREE

Over 500,000 Listens and Downloads

The Guitar Man - Mandolin Grass [3'44] Listen (real) FREE

	Solo Guitar Man - Nashville Guitar -- Full Band [3'03] Listen (real) FREE

Chet had a unique opportunity to promote his recordings. He was the head of RCA in Nashville. RCA  pulled all the stops out when promoting Chet’s Recordings. No other instrumentalist I have ever known of had this kind of clout in the Recorded Music business.

Did RCA spending big bucks to record and promote Chet Atkins Music make him into the Star of Guitar who sold recordings big time, more so than any other instrumentalist in the history of music? Without the super promotion of RCA Chet’s Recordings would have done well, but I doubt that they would have done quite as well as they did with RCA sparing nothing in promoting his recordings. But the promotion alone did not make Chet Popular. If Chet Atkins had not had the music people liked, his records would never have sold and in fact RCA would never have put the big bucks in their promotion. Chet did have the music that people liked and he had all the promotion that was needed to make his recordings popular since he was the head of RCA Records in Nashville.

Why do records sell? They sell because the fans like the music. It's as simple as that.   If the fans do not like the records they won’t sell under any conditions.

Why do so many Steel Guitarist and Standard Guitarist make recordings that do not sell? I think it is for the most part because they are playing music to impress other musicians instead of playing music the fans will love. I believe it is because they have not invited their own music artistry to emerge and have instead copied or imitated players they admire the most. If they have little originality in their music style, they are often playing music licks that have been played by every other player so much the licks have been worn out for years and in reality no one wants to hear the worn out licks any more. When people buy CDs they are often looking for something fresh, something different. This always looking for something fresh and different is what fuels the Recording Industry and this is what gives new Artists the opportunity to become popular.

When a Guitar Player whether he/she has been a backup road musician or a studio musician, plays too much show off music it turns the music fans off, not on. Recorded music fans want to hear meaningful artistic music. Sometimes the simpler music that is played artfully in a fresh and different way will catch the ear of recorded music lovers. It makes no difference to the fan if the music is played fast or slow for beautiful music is what they want to hear.  The Savvy Musician knows when to play many notes and they know what they do not play is often as important as the notes they do play.   Sometimes "Less is More" at least it is better, better music. The best music is what recorded music fans want and the technique or the speed of the Guitar Player does not determine if he/she is the best Guitar Player. The Quality, not the Speed, determines  how good a Guitarist is.

One of the big problems for both Steel Guitar Players and Standard Guitar Players is that they have spent their life being backup musicians. As backup musicians they are the best, but often when it comes to being a featured Solo Star, the great backup Guitarist simply has not worked on being the man, the featured player, who is center stage and not backing up a singer. One must devote much time to perform  essentially Guitar Solos, or the person that is the featured artist for the entire song instead of playing   catchy Backup Licks to make a Singer sound good and maybe doing a short solo on the Vocal Recordings.

The Guitar Players who have had popular recordings that sold were players who love to play Instrumentals and be the featured musician as the singer is featured. They are not happy to spend their entire life playing second fiddle to a singer, not even if they make a huge part of their living backing up singers. The successful Guitar Players, in Steel Guitar or Standard Guitar, want to make their mark on music as an instrumentalist not as a backup musician. They want to show the world the Guitar can stand alone and produce some great music. So Successful Recording Guitarist, Steel or Standard Guitar, work on being a featured Solo Instrumentalist in addition to their backup work behind singers. They give importance to the Guitar as a featured Solo Instrument.

Chet Atkins proved what could be done by an instrumentalist, on any instrument, if the musician would take their instrument serious as a Featured Solo Instrument. Chet failed as a singer in 1946 so he knew that if he achieved stardom it would have to be as a Featured Solo Instrumentalist.

The temptation to be a singer as well as a Guitar Player is great. It’s much easier to get a record contract as a singer than as a Guitar Player. However only the Guitarist who devotes themselves totally to playing Guitar can be at their best on the instrument. If there is an exception to this it would have to be Jerry Reed and Eric Clapton for Both Guitar Players Sing Quite Well. I have to believe that both Jerry Reed and Eric Clapton are both more loved as Guitar Players than they are loved as singers.

It is possible to have recordings that sell in great enough number to be a successful instrumentalist. It has been done by Duane Eddy, by the Ventures, by Chet Atkins. In order to do so one must have that certain something in their playing, they must have originality, and they must devote enough time to being an instrumentalist to develop their Solo Playing to the point that they can deliver music that the fans will love. Unfortunately very few Guitarist realize what it takes to become a popular recording artist. Therefore in comparison to the Number of Popular Singers, there are few really Popular Guitarist Recording Music that sells well enough that they can be considered Stars. In some ways this creates a golden opportunity for those instrumentalist who would devote themselves to being featured instrumentalist who make it in the Recorded Music Business for people truly love Instrumental Music.

Free Downloads by Author of this Web Page

More Free Downloads by Author of this web page - 2

By Robert Lee Johnson Author This Web Page

	The Guitar Man - The River - Lap Steel [4'40] Listen (real) FREE

	Solo Guitar Man - Texas Telecaster Swing - Full Band [3'27] Listen (real) FREE

	Solo Guitar Man - Baritone Guitar Blues -- Full Band [2'43] Listen (real) FREE

Classical and Jazz are both primarily instrumental music. The singers do not rule in these two Genres of Music. However there are very few featured instrumentalist recorded in the Genre of Classical Music. Yo Yo Ma, a Cello Player, has become super popular as a featured instrumentalist. Yo Yo Ma has received 15 Grammies and his record sales are very high. This proves that the Genre of Music does not matter when it comes to becoming a successful instrumentalist for Classical Music has a very small audience and the Cello is not considered to be one of the best Solo Instruments, yet Yo Yo Ma has huge record sales and is a very popular concert artists. Why is this so? Because Yo Yo Ma has that certain something in his playing of the Cello that produces music that Fans Love. The Example of Yo Yo Ma becoming super popular as a Cello Player should prove to all musicians that it is possible to record instrumental music that the fans will love. And it proves that if one plays music with that certain something they can become a Star who plays strictly instrumental music.