The 2010 Chet Atkins Appreciation Society (CAAS) Convention has come and gone for another year. This was my tenth year to have had the good fortune to perform at it. Ten years? Yikes, where does the time go?

Kicking the week off on the night before CAAS began, Tuesday (July 6), Artisan Guitars held their annual Chet Atkins Tribute evening in Franklin, TN. Over the past five years this show has developed in to a pre-convention tradition. I was honoured to be asked once again to perform as part of that evening, sharing the stage with Muriel Anderson, John Knowles, Thom Bresh, Tommy Emmanuel, Sean Weaver, Andy Walberg and Earl Klugh. Whew! That’s an evening of pretty heady company.

There are so many great players every year at CAAS that you can’t possibly take them all in in one year. So every year I’m making “new” discoveries of players I’m hearing for the first time, even though they may have been there before. The highlights of the “new guys” for me year would include Adam Palma from Poland via Britain playing some terrific fingerstyle funk; the duo of Loren Barrigar and Mark Mazengarb played some stunningly great guitar duets; and Bobby Cochran who displayed a most tasteful and discrete use of a looper pedal to play some fine rockin’ guitar.

If you’re a lover of the guitar, be sure to put CAAS on your list of to-dos. Four days of great guitar music and company. It’s held each July in Nashville. Full details can be found at the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society website