Jerry Reed

Whether you know Jerry Reed from the movies or from his long musical career, it doesn't really matter. The truth is, once you've seen Jerry, you'll never forget him. He is an A-number one, real McCoy, 100 proof, bonafide, authentic, dyed-in-the-wool character of millennial proportions. So, it's not a surprise that his music is, too.

Jerry's songs are so packed with clever smart stuff that they have attracted the attention of the greatest fingerstyle players in the world, especially Chet Atkins.

Chet LOVES Jerry's songs and has recorded almost as many of them as Jerry has.  They are longtime friends and have frequently performed and recorded together.

Although Jerry describes himself as "a guitar thinker, not a guitar player," we will have to beg to differ here. Jerry's fingerstyle playing is so true to the music that he writes that it's difficult to discern which came first. (Does he play like that because he writes like that? Or does he write like that because he plays like that? Impossible to tell.) Don't waste your time worrying about it.

Ask any fingerstyle player what song they’re currently working to master and it's a pretty safe bet they're going to mention some Jerry Reed song. Some fingerstylists major in Reedology! His music is like an addiction! And he keeps writing more! His unbridled imagination staggers and stupefies peers and addicts alike. Kirk met Jerry at a Chet Atkins Appreciation Society convention about 6 years ago. Jerry was there to pay tribute to Chet and to be honored himself by his friend, Mister Guitar. The show was in full swing when Jerry strolled into the exhibit room announcing that he was looking for "that Kirk Sand booth." He had played Chet's Sand Guitar up at CGP headquarters and wanted to meet Kirk and hire him to build a guitar.

Kirk built Jerry a guitar very similar to the one he had made for Earl Klugh with rosewood back and three-inch bent sides. Jerry complained that his thumbpick would hit the top of his other guitars, so Kirk made the new guitar with more clearance between the strings and the soundboard. (I will never forget the Brazilian rosewood on that guitar.)