How Many Chet Atkins Albums Do You Really Need?

My music room has custom LP shelving that covers a wall which is 17 feet long and 9 feet high.  I have approximately 120 linear feet of shelf space, designed to hold about 8,000 records.  When we moved into the house, I had about 3,000 records and thought I would never run out of room.  Seven years later, I literally can't wedge any more records onto the shelves.  And there are about 150 records piled up on the floor with nowhere to go.

An "after" picture once I started to clear out some albums working from the left

For a while I tried to delay the inevitable by moving groups of LPs that I don't listen to very often to overflow shelves in the garage.  First to go were the classical and big band albums.  Next were the vocal and light jazz albums.  Then I moved the soundtrack albums, "various artists" collections, stereo demonstration discs, comedy albums, assorted box sets -- all out to the garage.  At this point all the low hanging fruit was gone, and there was nothing left but the "core" collection of classic rock and jazz.  There appeared to be no solution except to build a bigger house.

Well, ok, there was one obvious solution -- I could quit buying so many records.  But a man has to know his limitations, and not buying records is one of mine.  After a period of indecision, I finally decided I had to go through the collection and get rid of some of the thousands of records that I like having around, but that I almost never listen to.  Some of them are former favorites that I've grown out of, and many others are strange and sundry albums that I picked up at estate sales or thrift stores for 50 cents or a dollar apiece.  Among these are a bunch of fun and even classic albums by Doris Day, The Lettermen, Jonah Jones, Eydie Gorme, Melanie, Jerry Vale, The Limelighters, Johnny Mathis, Andre Previn, and so on.  I do occasionally listen to some of these old gems, but life is short, and I realized that I was sacrificing a lot of shelf space on the off chance that I might have an uncontrollable urge to hear Al Martino's heartfelt version of "Torna A Surriento" off the classic The Italian Voice Of Al Martino album (above left).  So, I pulled out several hundred of these orphans and plan to see if one of the local used record dealers will buy them or maybe give me some store credit for the whole bunch.

So far I hadn't touched any of what I consider my core collection - the thousands of classic rock and jazz albums that I listen to 95% of the time.  However, it finally dawned on me that I don't need every album by every artist that I like.  

Which brings me to the title of this post: How many Chet Atkins albums do you really need?  Before you take a swing at me with your Gretsch hollow body guitar (Chet Atkins signature model), let me start by saying I'm a big fan of Chet Atkins.  In the 50s and 60s, he was the man -- a virtuoso on the electric guitar and a seminal figure in the development of modern recording technology.  [Fun fact:  Chet was one of first musicians to have a full-fledged professional recording studio in his home -- partly visible on the LP cover above.]  But as much as I like Chet Atkins, I don't listen to him very often -- maybe a few times a year at most.  And when I do have a yen to hear some Chet, I almost always listen to one of the same four or five favorite albums.  Hmm, maybe I don't really need 22 Chet Atkins albums.  The thing is, all of Chet's albums are pretty good.  But, to be honest, most of his 91 albums (!) sound pretty similar.  Almost every one is a tasteful collection of (then) current pop and country hits, show tunes, maybe a few standards, all done in the breezy and seemingly effortless Chet Atkins style.  And of course nearly all backed by a crackerjack group of "Nashville Cats," which is to say some of the top session players in the business.  In addition, the sound quality on many of them (mostly on the RCA label) is outstanding.

Ready - Take One

Once I got going, it was fairly easy to pare down a number of other artists as well.  A good example is Erroll Garner.  I love Erroll Garner and have 41 of his albums.  But like Chet Atkins, the majority of the 140 albums (!) that Garner released have a certain sameness.  By and large they feature a selection of show tunes, popular standards, and tracks from the great American songbook, all done in the incredibly inventive and imaginative Erroll Garner style.  But (like Chet Atkins), as much as I dig Erroll Garner, I just don't play his albums all that often.  And when I do, I usually reach for the same five or six discs that I like best.  As a result, I have albums by Garner that I'm pretty sure I haven't heard in 10 years.  If I keep a core collection of, say, 8-10 LPs, (including the fabulous Ready - Take One, above left), that gives me room for another 30 or so albums.  (I should also point out that I have 87 Erroll Garner albums ripped to my hard drive in case I do want to hear a particular title.)

In a slightly different exercise, I next started going through my collection looking for albums that I don't really like, even though they are by artists that I generally do like.  Case in point: Elton John.  Elton's first five or six albums are classics, great music that I bonded with in my teens and enjoy hearing regularly.  However, after about 1975, Elton's output is mostly all downhill.  But I kept buying his albums for decades because I kept thinking: The early albums were so good, surely he'll get his groove back soon, no?  Alas, no.  (Ditto Rod Stewart, Frank Zappa, Jethro Tull, Cat Stevens, etc., etc.)  I have 31 albums by Elton John, but I only ever listen to the early ones -- Elton John, Tumbleweed Connection, Honky Chateau, Don't Shoot Me.  I haven't listened to Victim Of Love since I found it in a $1 bin 20 years ago.  Cripes, no wonder I'm out shelf space.  So, 20 Elton albums are headed back to the $1 bin at my local used record store.

I'm making progress, but it's not all smooth sailing.  For instance, I pulled out the ten albums I have by The Youngbloods, most of which I haven't listened to in years.  They seemed like perfect candidates for the garage or maybe even the big heave-ho.  But before I sent them into exile, I thought I'd listen to a few sides.  You can probably guess what happened next.  I ended up playing nearly all of them and deciding that they are really quite good. Led by bassist/vocalist/songwriter Jesse Colin Young, The Youngbloods never reached superstar status (their only top ten hit was 1969's anthemic "Get Together"), but they were a talented band that released some solid records.  So I've spared them from the ignominy of the garage for the time being.  And even though I didn't gain any shelf space, a side benefit of my efforts to thin out the collection is that I've re-discovered a number of excellent, neglected albums that I haven't heard in a long time.

Long story short, I've moved about 1,500 records out to the garage or into boxes ready to take to the used record store.  My shelves feel downright roomy.  Which means, of course, that it's time to buy some more records!

Enjoy the music!