This is one of several threads devoted to the GDP's coverage of the 2008 CAAS Convention. The others are linked here:
Introducing the Gretsch 6120CGP
Paul Yandell & Friends Play the 6120CGP
Tribute to Paul Yandell
Saturday Night Concert Coverage
CAAS Video Coverage
Why we revere Chet
And what a week it promises to be.
It's 4:40 in the A of M at the fabulous Music City Sheraton in Nashville; the doors officially open around noon for the annual Chet Atkins Appreciation Society convention. I'm finally through a busy day of travel and preparation, pics are processed and ready to post, and I'm relaxing in a palatial room surrounded by Gretsch boxes.
All is quiet.
Four days of intensive immersion in everything Chet-and-related follows. Already I've heard guitar-playing that makes me want to deadbolt my guitar cases, and that's just from attendees playing acoustics in the lobby.
This event is famously laid-back and gently administered. There's surely an official program with docket of scheduled events, but I've yet to see it. None shows up on the official CAAS website. (This is OK; I'm happy to take it as it comes.)
I know there are seminars, workshops, clinics, scheduled performances, the certainty of finger-shriveling jams everywhere throughout the hotel from conference rooms to lobby to guest rooms, and a Saturday night concert finalé. I don't know who's playing that event; I'm confident it will be amazing.
Last year's attendance was approximately 2,000, with pickers and Chet fans coming from around the world.
What seems to be the main concourse is set up with tables for private vendors selling Chet records and memorabilia; at least one room is set aside for more commercial vendors. That's where Gretsch will be sharing display space with Broadway Music from Knoxville – who will be selling Gretschs (and other gear) straight off their display.
So you wanna see some pics? Here's how it's gone so far.
It was an easy and pleasant 4-hour drive from southern Indiana across Kentucky (almost always a beautiful state to drive through). Hills, farms, fields, trees, sunshine and shade. I snapped pics with the iPhone...
.
By 5:45 local time or so, I'd arrived at Gretsch's local offices at the Soundcheck facility near downtown. Soundcheck is an enormous rehearsal and artist-services operation based in a warehouse sorta building in an industrial area down by the river. It includes full-dress soundstages for bands to rehearse before touring – everything from A-list big names to supporting acts to just-getting-it-togethers.
There are loading docks and large locked individual rooms for storage, and also an extensive suite of offices for companies serving artists' gear and professional needs.
That's where Jason Herndon maintains Gretsch's Nashville artist relations office. When I called prior to arriving, he was listening to surprise visitor Phil Keaggy put an Annie Jr. through its paces.
Jason's office and display space is something like a small full-line music store dedicated to FMIC products. I got a couple blurry pictures of his Gretsch supply...
.
And then, since Joe and apparel-n-swag-meister Tim Thiel were being delayed by storms in airports across the land, it was time for Jason and I to load 13 Gretschs and five boxes of swag into the van for transport to the venue. He didn't think the stuff would all fit. I had confidence.
.
Yup, even with the three guitars, lap steel, amp, and miscellany I brought.
The Music City Sheraton is on McGavock Pike, not far from Opryland and even closer to the airport, sited on a hilltop and accessible through a scenic gate and long winding drive.
.
The hotel has an enormous lobby, a live pianist playing and singing jazz (remember those days?), a suite of meeting rooms from here to there, and seemingly hundreds of guest rooms. Sprawling, as they say.
While we waited for the people from Broadway Music to put up their display, Jason and I unloaded the van into a side hallway and broke out the guitars for tune-up and set-up.
This won't be like a NAMM show, where it's too noisy to hear the instruments and not everyone's a player. Here, it won't be dealers placing orders from samples. It'll be hot players picking out guitars for themselves – so I thought we ought to make the guitars sing.
Of course I was expecting every box to contain the legendary 6120CGP. Alas, no box did. (I'm told it's coming tomorrow.)
But that doesn't mean there were no surprises. Besides a rare 6120 in gleaming gloss black (that's Jason tuning it), how about a Chet Atkins Solidbody 1959 model?
You know...plain maple top, no brand, no f-holes, Filtertrons? Ever seen one? I hadn't.
.
We finished that pleasant task (and a couple of the guitars I unpacked stood out as really exceptional in response and projection) and I looked around a bit.
.
Long about 11:15, Joe's flight finally arrived. After making connections at the airport, checking in and scoping out the situation in the display area, it was time for the obligatory run to an all-night Wal-Mart for last minute supplies.
Wal-Mart in the south late at night. Yup. It's a whole nother world, is what it is. A graduate class of anthropologists could work up thesis material. That's all I'm sayin'.
Then it was 2:30 in the morning – which is, of course, time to eat. At the drive-through obelisk at Steak-n-Shake (a midwest/midsouth institution unfamiliar to certain California and Arizona types), a lovely soft lilting voice introduced itself as belonging to Chelsea.
She got every single item on the long order right, down to the missing pickles on Tim Thiel's Double Steakburger. AND she promised the tea would be unsweetened! Smart AND dulcet-voiced.
When we arrived at the window, she turned out to be a blonde every bit as pretty as her voice, with a Miss Tennessee smile. BEAUTIFUL, smart, and dulcet-voiced. It just keeps getting better.
She called me darlin' at least twice. She HAD to be talking to me, because the tea WAS unsweetened, and, as we know, that's a certified rarity in the south. FAITHFUL, beautiful, smart, and dulcet-voiced. Man.
Without doubt, a Princess of Southern Womanhood.
A mile or two down McGavock, Thiel got all excited because she put a cherry in his shake. I explained that was standard spec for Steak-n-Shake. Hated to bust his illusion, but after all I heard her first.
I'm sorry we didn't get a picture of Chelsea, but she did tell us to come back. Maybe she'll be working the overnight shift tomorrow too. There's still a chance.
Speaking of work... Joe still had some to do, and it was my solemn responsibility to report to y'all, so after the Steak-n-Shake reverie, it was back to the Sheraton and our respective laptops.
See you in a few hours with pics, audio, and a very cool giveaway announcement.
Now don't bother me for a few hours.
Great start Proteus. Looking forward to following this one. Peace - Z
loved the pics from the road.
