2001
Chet Atkins died after a long battle with cancer. An influential guitarist & producer who helped create “The Nashville Sound,” he entered the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1973 and earned a Lifetime Achievement award from the Grammys. A stretch of Interstate 185 in southwest Georgia (between LaGrange and Columbus) is named “Chet Atkins Parkway.” Clint Black’s album Nothin’ but the Taillights includes the song “Ode to Chet”.