Street Dreams

This 1986 album has a production sheen to it that makes it totally of its time, and it doesn't necessarily wear too well because of it. Too many synthesizers and contemporary touches simply detract from the main reason you bought it in the first place -- to hear Chet Atkins play his patented fluid guitar. Although Atkins usually sounds wonderful on gut-string guitar, here his sound is pinched and curiously restrained, being particularly roped in by the tunes written by Daryl Ybka, which account for six of the ten songs here. Only the quiet solo closer, Atkins' own "Honolulu Blue," does his soul come up for air and his individual style emerge from this commercialized dross.