Atkins Is All Fun and Games at Ambassador

Chet Atkins’ concert at the Ambassador Auditorium on Saturday night should have been accompanied by an 800 number: “The Nashville Guitar Sound With 100 Pop Hits!”

Atkins didn’t quite make it to the century mark, but he did make a valiant attempt to touch every base he could--from the Beatles, Elvis and Ellington to a climactic medley in which he abandoned his customary guitars for a high-stepping set of self-described “lacerating variations” on country fiddle.

It was all light-hearted fun and games, and not much more. Atkins shifted from acoustic to electric guitar, playing a blues lick here, a bluegrass reference there, moving only occasionally into his trademark Nashville swing style. He added a vocal or two--most notably on a droll reading of “Frog Kissin’ “--and told a few good-old-boy stories appropriate for long evenings around the pot-bellied stove.

But the Atkins of Nashville legend--the guitarist who was the youngest person ever elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, who produced Elvis Presley’s recordings of “Hound Dog” and “Heartbreak Hotel,” who has won Playboy Magazine’s jazz (!) poll four times and recorded with such players as George Benson, Lee Ritenour and (most recently) Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler--was nowhere to be seen.

Even overlooking the surprising number of apparent wrong notes (only one of which he cited, humorously, to reviewers as data for their critiques--but thanks, anyway, Chet), it was a performance without any particular sense of purpose.

Accompanists Darryl Dybka on keyboards, Paul Yandell on guitar, Johnny Johnson on bass and Randy Hauser on drums were largely limited to laying down an anonymous stream of rhythm. Often, they sat quietly on selections that were limited--for no apparent musical reasons--to one or two back-up players.

Two guest artists (mandolin player Evan Marshall and songwriter Randy Goodwin) made cursory appearances that added variety, but little spark to an evening whose energetic, and most audience-involving high point, was a medley of patriotic songs.