Chet Atkins’s “Jitterbug Waltz” Inspires a Nashville Ballet Performance in the Hall of Fame Rotunda

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and Nashville Ballet celebrated the centennial birthday of the late Country Music Hall of Fame member Chet Atkins by co-creating this original ballet performance video, set to Atkins’s recording of “Jitterbug Waltz” from the 1959 album “Chet Atkins in Hollywood.”

Museum trustee and Atkins protégé David Conrad envisioned the video performance,
and Nashville Ballet Artistic Director and CEO Nick Mullikin choreographed and co-directed a dance that brings Thomas Hart Benton’s “Sources of Country Music” painting to life in the Hall of Fame Rotunda. Starting in near complete darkness, the song and dance build as more of the Rotunda is revealed, including the bronze plaques of those who have earned country music’s highest honor. Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, Mother Maybelle Carter, Merle Travis. These are the greats who came before Atkins, joined in this space by later virtuosos like Jerry Reed, who were inspired by the man known as “Mr. Guitar.”

One hundred years after his birth, it’s still clear that no other country instrumentalist has achieved the same renown as Atkins. His influence on country, rock, and jazz musicians endures. And his dedication to his craft and the elegance of his playing inspired the movements and storyline of the dancers depicting the couple at the center of the Benton masterwork, which, serendipitously, was commissioned by the Museum in 1973, the same year Atkins was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

As the music culminates in a flourish of arpeggiated chords and the song fades, the dancers find themselves face to face with Chet Atkins’s plaque flanked by his trusted tools—the 1954 Standel 25L15 amplifier and the original prototype of what became the Gretsch Chet Atkins Hollow Body 6120 model electric guitar, both of which are currently on display in the Museum’s "Sing Me Back Home: Folk Roots to the Present” exhibit.

Today, June 20, 2024, marks what would have been the hundredth birthday of the guitar player and producer from a tiny East Tennessee town who played his way to Nashville, where he is forever enshrined in the hallowed Hall of Fame Rotunda, the perfect backdrop for this one-of-a-kind collaboration between Nashville Ballet and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

The video is underwritten by David and Karen Conrad, with additional support from Metro Arts and the Tennessee Arts Commission.

To learn more about the life and legacy of Chet Atkins, visit: https://www.countrymusichalloffame.or…

For upcoming events and to learn more about the Nashville Ballet, visit: https://www.nashvilleballet.com/

For tickets and information about the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, visit: https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/

CREDITS

Executive Producers: Warren Denney, Lisa Purcell, and Kyle Young
Co-Directors: Chad Driver, Nick Mullikin, and Luke Wiget
Choreography: Nick Mullikin
Dancers: Shaiya Donohue and Cassandra Thoms
Director of Photography: Chad Driver
Content Director: Sam Farahmand
Content Producers: Emma Kieffer and Austin Lott
Rehearsal Director/NB2 Director: Maria Konrad
Director of Production: Melinda Dobson
Director of Project Management: Sydney Gilbert
Costume Design: Mycah Kennedy
Make-up: Mycah Kennedy
Hair: Colleen Garatoni
Cutter/Draper/Stitcher: Alison Taylor
Editor: Chad Driver
Colorist: Perry Trest
Lighting Director: Jeff Gordon
Lighting Designer: Walter Mote
Music Licensing: Michael Alberts