Album Review

Stephen Thomas Erlewine [allmusic.com]

Released a year after Me & Jerry, Me & Chet is decidedly more produced than its predecessor -- there are traces of strings and wah-wah guitars, modern rhythms bubbling underneath the surface -- but the pleasures remain the same. It's still a gas to hear Reed and Atkins trade off licks, to intertwine their lines so smoothly it'd be hard to tell where one began and one ended, if they weren't separated into their own speakers (Jerry on the left, Chet on the right). Me & Chet doesn't rely on pop hits the way Me & Jerry does -- ''Mystery Train'' and ''I Saw the Light'' are the two big hits here, sitting next to Liszt's ''Liebestraum,'' Cindy Walker's ''Flying South,'' and a fair number of copyrights by Jerry, along with Chet's ''Nashtown Ville'' -- so the focus is almost entirely on the picking, which remains a pure pleasure to hear.