Jerry Reed Guitars & Gear: The Complete Guide to “The Claw” and Nashville’s Wildest Fingerpicker

Most of the world knows Jerry Reed as Burt Reynolds’ truck-driving partner in Smokey and the Bandit, the guy who sang “East Bound and Down” while grinning behind the wheel of a Kenworth and generally having more fun than anyone else on screen. The guitar world knows him differently: as the man who developed a syncopated, claw-style fingerpicking technique so specific and so advanced that Chet Atkins — the most important country guitarist of the twentieth century, the man who essentially defined what Nashville guitar playing meant — awarded him the honorary designation of C.G.P. (Certified Guitar Player). Atkins only ever gave that designation to two people: himself and Tommy Emmanuel. Jerry Reed was the third. Think about what it means to have Chet Atkins hand you a certificate confirming that you play the guitar to his satisfaction. Then think about what it means that Atkins did it for a man who was simultaneously a major country recording artist, a Grammy-winning songwriter, and a movie star.

Jerry Reed Hubbard was born March 20, 1937, in Atlanta, Georgia. His parents separated four months after his birth; he and his sister spent seven years in orphanages and foster homes. At an early age he told his grandparents: “I am gonna be a star. I’m gonna go to Nashville and be a star.” He wrote that on a piece of paper and kept it. He kept his word. He moved to Nashville as a teenager, signed with Capitol Records, wrote songs that Elvis Presley covered (“Guitar Man,” “U.S. Male” — and Reed played lead guitar on both of those Presley recordings), recorded his own crossover hits (“Amos Moses,” “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot”), won three Grammy Awards, and had a film career that included Smokey and the Bandit, The Waterboy, and The Survivors. He died on September 1, 2008, at seventy-one years old.

What defined him as a musician was not any of those biographical facts. It was his right hand. The specific claw-like posture of his picking hand — thumb extended in front of the fingers, fingers curved into the strings, thumb and fingers working in simultaneous but independent alternating patterns — produced a sound and a musical architecture that no other guitarist achieved before him and that only a handful have seriously attempted since. Tommy Emmanuel, Eric Johnson, Brent Mason, John Jorgensen, Steve Morse: the list of players who cite Jerry Reed as a primary influence includes some of the most technically complete guitarists alive. All of them will tell you the same thing: Jerry Reed was doing something that looked achievable, sounded warm and accessible, and was actually one of the hardest things in the history of the instrument.

Background: From Atlanta Orphanage to Nashville’s Funkiest Fingerprints

Reed’s arrival in Nashville as a teenager coincided with the height of the Nashville Sound era — the period when Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley were producing records that blended country music with pop strings and smooth production values to make country palatable to the widest possible mainstream audience. Reed existed inside this commercial infrastructure but was never really of it. His musical instincts were too funky, too rhythmically unpredictable, too rooted in Atlanta blues and gospel textures to sit comfortably within the Nashville Sound’s smoothed-down aesthetic.

The pivotal relationship was with Chet Atkins. After Reed signed with RCA Records, Atkins became his producer and creative partner. Atkins’ famous instruction to Reed was characteristically simple: “Just be yourself in the studio.” This was the advice that unlocked everything. Atkins recognized that Reed’s value was in his idiosyncrasy — in the funky, syncopated, down-home-greasy quality of his playing — and that the worst thing that could happen would be to make him sound like everyone else. Their collaborative albums — Me and Jerry (1970, Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance), Me and Chet (1972), and Sneakin’ Around (1992, another Grammy) — are among the most joyful and most technically impressive guitar duo recordings in country music history. Two distinct personalities, two distinct techniques, producing music that neither could have made alone.

His songwriting was as important as his playing. “Guitar Man” became an Elvis Presley hit in 1968 — with Reed playing lead guitar on the recording, creating the specific guitar voice that Presley’s performance required. “U.S. Male” followed, again with Reed on lead. The fact that the man who wrote the songs also played the guitar parts on the most famous recordings of those songs — and that those guitar parts are themselves works of art — tells you something specific about the integration of songwriting and playing that Reed achieved better than almost anyone.

The film career was real, not promotional. Smokey and the Bandit (1977) made him a household name beyond country music, and the success of “East Bound and Down” as the film’s theme gave him a crossover hit that had nothing to do with the guitar playing his peers revered. He continued performing and recording through the 2000s, and his final Grammy came in 1993 for Sneakin’ Around — evidence that his guitar partnership with Atkins remained vital and excellent even in his late career.

The Rig: Jerry Reed’s Guitars, Amps, and Key Instruments

Guitars

Baldwin Classical Guitar with Prismatone Pickup (Primary Instrument, Career Signature): The most important and most distinctive instrument in Jerry Reed’s career was a Baldwin classical guitar fitted with a Prismatone piezo pickup — an instrument so specific to his tonal identity that the Unique Guitar Blog described it as his instrument with the emphatic statement: “Reed always went back to his Baldwin.” The Baldwin company, better known for pianos and organs, produced a line of guitars in the 1960s as a subsidiary enterprise, and their classical models were quality instruments with the specific tonal character of nylon-string construction. Reed had his Baldwins significantly modified, including having a radical cutaway added by a Nashville music store to allow upper-fret access, and a Florentine cutaway added to another model — physical changes that transformed the classical guitar’s standard profile into a working instrument accessible across its full range.

The Prismatone piezo pickup is the key to understanding his amplified tone. Piezo pickups detect the vibration of the guitar’s top and saddle directly, rather than the magnetic field of steel strings — which means they work with nylon strings (which have no magnetic properties at all) and produce a specific tonal character: brighter, more acoustic-sounding than a magnetic pickup, with a particular clarity and separation between strings. The Prismatone’s specific design was so well-balanced tonally that Reed famously needed no EQ or preamp — he plugged directly into his amplifier and began playing. The combination of nylon strings’ warm, round fundamental character and the Prismatone’s clear, acoustic-style transient response produced a sound unlike any other country guitarist’s: not the twangy steel-string Telecaster of Nashville convention, not the warm jazz archtop of players like Hank Garland, but something genuinely original — nylon-string warmth with direct-contact transient clarity, amplified without coloring through the Prismatone’s transparent circuit.

Word spread about the Prismatone pickup throughout Nashville. Chet Atkins sought out one of Reed’s Baldwins, and when Reed gave his Baldwins to Atkins’ sideman Paul Yandell, the instruments passed into a lineage of players who understood their specific value. Tennessee luthier Mel McCullough built copies called “The Clawmaster” for players who wanted the specific physical configuration of Reed’s instrument. A craftsman named Sam Kennedy continues to produce Prismatone II pickups for players who want the specific tonal character Reed had.

Kirk Sand Custom Guitar (High-Quality Modern Alternative): Alongside the Baldwin Classicals, Reed used custom guitars built by Kirk Sand — a luthier based in Laguna Beach, California, who builds among the finest nylon-string and classical guitars in America. Kirk Sand instruments appear in multiple television performance footage of Reed from different periods, suggesting that he maintained a working relationship with Sand as his primary custom-builder when the vintage Baldwins were unavailable or impractical for specific contexts. Sand guitars share the nylon-string tonal character of the Baldwins while offering superior modern construction quality and greater consistency of scale and playability.

Fender Telecaster and Stratocaster (Television and Session Work): Despite his primary commitment to nylon-string instruments, Reed appears on multiple television programs playing Fender electric guitars — a 1992 clip from The Jerry Reed Show shows him playing a Fender Telecaster; footage from the George Jones Show has him on a Fender electric; photographs place him in studio contexts with a Fender Stratocaster. These appearances reflect the practical reality of television music: the house guitar was often whatever was available, and Reed’s technique translated to steel-string electric instruments even though it had been developed and refined on nylon strings. The characteristic claw-style alternating thumb-and-finger approach works on any guitar — the specific tonal character changes, but the musical architecture remains identifiable as Reed’s.

Gibson Les Paul Custom (Late 1970s, Live Performances): A Gibson Les Paul Custom in Tobacco Burst appears on the cover of Reed’s live album Half Singin’ & Half Pickin’ and on the Marty Robbins Spotlight television appearance from the late 1970s. The Les Paul represents a significant departure from his usual nylon-string approach — a humbucker-equipped solid-body electric that produces an entirely different kind of warmth. For large live performances where the nylon-string’s natural acoustic character could be lost in the amplification system, the Les Paul’s more conventionally amplifier-friendly tone may have been a practical choice.

Peavey T-60 and Aria Pro II TA-100 (Endorsement Period): Various television appearances document Reed playing a Peavey T-60 — Peavey’s flagship electric guitar model of the late 1970s and early 1980s — and an Aria Pro II TA-100 Titan Artist, a guitar he shares in documented photographs with Glen Campbell. These endorsement-period instruments suggest that Reed was commercially flexible in his guitar choices for performance contexts, using whatever manufacturer relationships he had developed at specific career stages, while maintaining the Baldwin Classical as his core tonal identity for recordings and serious performances.

Ovation Classical (Television): Television footage from the Glenn Campbell Goodtime Hour shows Reed playing an Ovation classical guitar — one of the round-back synthetic-bowl-back instruments that Ovation produced specifically for amplified acoustic-electric performance. The Ovation acoustic-electric was among the most practical amplified acoustic options of its era due to its built-in pickup system and its feedback-resistant round back, which Reed’s television appearances on the Campbell show apparently required.

Fingernails as Gear: Jerry Reed’s fingernails were as much a part of his equipment as any guitar or amplifier. The specific tonal character of claw-style fingerpicking depends on nails of the correct length, curvature, and filing shape striking the strings. Too short and the tone loses the bright, clear attack that separates notes in fast passages; too long and they catch on strings unpredictably. Reed maintained his right-hand nails — thumb and three fingers — as precision tools, shaped for the specific angle and contact point of his picking technique. This is a detail that serious Chet Atkins- and Travis-style fingerpickers understand viscerally: the nails are part of the instrument, and their maintenance is part of the practice routine.

Amps

Baldwin Amplifier (Original Setup, Prismatone Era): When Reed first adopted the Baldwin Classical with Prismatone pickup, he reportedly purchased a Baldwin amplifier to match — the same company’s solid-state amp that was designed to complement the Prismatone’s specific output characteristics. The Baldwin amplifier, like the Prismatone pickup itself, was optimized for the acoustic-electric transient character of the piezo pickup rather than the sustained, magnetic-pickup character of standard electric guitar amplification. This combination — Prismatone pickup with its acoustic transient response into a Baldwin amplifier designed for that pickup — produced a specific sound: direct, immediate, acoustically textured, with the warmth of nylon strings and the clarity of piezo transduction.

Peavey Ultra 60 (Primary Live Amp, Later Career): By the time Peavey’s amplifier division was established and the Ultra 60 was in production, Reed had adopted it as his primary live amplifier — a choice consistent with his Peavey T-60 guitar endorsement and his relationship with the American manufacturer. The Peavey Ultra 60 is a solid-state amplifier with a three-channel preamp (clean, crunch, and ultra) providing 60 watts of power. For live country and variety performances, the solid-state amplifier’s consistency and reliability — it sounds the same at every venue, in every temperature, without the variability of tube circuitry — was a practical advantage. The clean channel, which Reed would have used for his fingerpicking approach, provided the warmth and clarity the Prismatone pickup required.

Ampeg Amplifier (Television Session, Porter Wagoner Show): Porter Wagoner Show footage documents Reed playing a Gibson Les Paul through an Ampeg amplifier — a combination that suggests a specific configuration for a television music context where the available house amplification included an Ampeg. Ampeg’s amplifiers produce a distinctive, slightly compressed warmth that worked well with humbucker-equipped guitars in television sound settings.

Effects

No Standard Effects Chain: Jerry Reed’s signal chain was essentially: guitar, Prismatone pickup, direct or through a minimal amp, and nothing else. The Prismatone pickup’s clean, balanced output — so well balanced that it required no EQ or preamp in Reed’s own assessment — meant that additional processing would have complicated rather than enhanced the tonal picture. His sound was the nylon strings, the Prismatone’s transduction, and his right-hand technique. There was no compressor, no delay, no reverb beyond whatever the room or the amplifier’s natural character provided.

This is the most important single fact about Reed’s gear for anyone trying to understand or replicate his tone: the effects are his fingers. The dynamics, the articulation, the tonal variation between passages — all of it is produced by the physical reality of nails-on-nylon-strings. An effects chain cannot add what is missing from the technique. A effects chain would only obscure what the technique is actually doing.

Playing Style & Tone Philosophy: The Claw Explained

Jerry Reed’s claw-style fingerpicking technique is the most idiosyncratic and the most technically demanding approach to country guitar in the Nashville tradition. Understanding it requires separating it from the Chet Atkins/Merle Travis alternating-thumb-bass tradition that preceded it, while acknowledging that that tradition is where Reed’s technique began.

The Travis/Atkins approach: the thumb plays a steady alternating bass pattern on the low strings (alternating between root and fifth, or between adjacent bass strings), while the index and middle fingers pluck melody notes on the treble strings. The thumb and fingers operate independently, the thumb maintaining rhythmic steadiness while the fingers carry melodic content. This “two hands in one” approach creates the illusion of two simultaneous musical voices — bass and melody — from one guitarist.

Reed’s departure from this approach was not in abandoning the two-voice concept but in radically complicating it. Where Atkins and Travis produced clean, separated bass and melody voices with identifiable chord shapes underlying the arrangement, Reed created what Premier Guitar describes as “multiple riffs and fragments of chord shapes, combined and played in competition with one another.” He would construct a complex melody, then construct an equally complex bass line, and then fill in between with “contrapuntal harmonies” — multiple competing voices simultaneously. The result was not two voices but three or four, all interlocking, all rhythmically syncopated against each other, with no single voice obviously dominant.

The physical right-hand posture — the “claw” that gave him his nickname — has the thumb extended forward in front of the fingers rather than tucked behind or level with the index finger. This Atkins-style hand position (as opposed to the lute-style position more common in classical playing) allows smaller, more efficient picking movements for alternating bass patterns, producing louder tone with less wrist motion. For a guitarist playing the volume of rhythmic and melodic content that Reed’s compositions demanded, efficiency of motion was not an aesthetic preference but a physical necessity.

The dropped-D tuning he favored for many compositions — including “The Claw,” “Struttin’,” and others — moved the sixth string down from E to D, providing a low D bass note accessible by the thumb without fretting, and expanding the bass register available for his bass line constructions. The open D also changes the harmonic coloring of the entire guitar, giving chords a different resonance and allowing fingerings that would be impossible in standard tuning.

His left-hand technique was equally sophisticated and equally non-standard. Rather than working from recognizable CAGED chord shapes — the standard framework for most fingerpickers — Reed’s left-hand movements were described by Premier Guitar as “incredibly non-linear”: complex melody and bass lines created independently, then filled in with harmonic content, producing left-hand movement that defied standard chord-shape analysis. Watching Reed play, you cannot easily identify what chord he is playing, because he isn’t playing a chord so much as three simultaneous independent lines that happen to be harmonically compatible.

How to Sound Like Jerry Reed

Approaching Jerry Reed’s tone requires a nylon-string guitar (classical or nylon-string acoustic-electric) with a quality piezo or acoustic pickup, a clean amplifier, and most importantly: significant time spent developing the specific right-hand claw-style technique that is the actual source of his sound.

Guitar: A nylon-string acoustic-electric is the authentic starting point. For the specific Baldwin/Prismatone character: Godin’s Multiac series (including the nylon-string models) provides the best modern equivalent of a well-amplified nylon-string in a performing context. The Yamaha NTX series, the Cordoba Stage, and the Taylor NS series are all viable alternatives. The key specification is a narrower nut width than standard classical — Reed’s Baldwins had cutaways and narrower necks than traditional classical instruments, making them faster and more accessible for the hybrid country-fingerpicking approach. For steel-string electric with the Atkins-style technique applied: a semi-hollow or hollow archtop with warm pickups approaches the tonal territory.

Amp: Clean, with the specific clarity that allows every note in a complex fingerpicking arrangement to be individually audible. A Peavey Classic series, a Fender Twin Reverb, or any clean tube or solid-state combo without natural breakup is appropriate. The Prismatone’s balanced output requires no EQ treatment — plug in and play. The amplifier’s job is transparency, not coloring.

Amp Settings (Clean Tube or Solid-State Combo):

For the technique: The claw-style right hand — thumb extended in front of the fingers, Atkins-style posture — is non-negotiable. Begin with simple alternating bass and melody patterns (Chet Atkins’ approach) before attempting Reed’s contrapuntal complexity. Develop right-hand nail length and shape appropriate for nylon-string plucking: the nail’s leading edge, not the fingertip pad, contacts the string. Study “The Claw” in standard notation and tablature — it is the clearest demonstration of Reed’s approach and the most studied piece in the claw-style repertoire.

Influence & Legacy

Jerry Reed’s influence on guitar playing runs in two directions that rarely intersect in public consciousness. The first is his direct influence on serious country and fingerstyle guitarists: Tommy Emmanuel, who is the most celebrated Atkins/Travis/Reed-style fingerpicker in the world today, cites Reed as primary; Eric Johnson, Brent Mason, John Jorgensen, and Steve Morse all acknowledge the Reed debt. The specific claw-style technique — the contrapuntal multi-voice approach, the syncopated rhythmic complexity, the non-linear left-hand methodology — is his specific contribution to the fingerpicking tradition, and it has been absorbed by every serious practitioner of the style since his recordings became available.

The second direction is his influence on the concept of the complete musician — guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer, and entertainer simultaneously. The Grammy awards span three different categories: instrumental performance (with Atkins), country vocal performance (for “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot”), and country instrumental performance (for Sneakin’ Around). This breadth of Grammy recognition across separate categories confirms what anyone who spent time around Reed understood: he was not a guitarist who happened to sing, or a singer who happened to play guitar. He was a complete musician who happened to be outstanding at every dimension of the job simultaneously.

His connection to Chet Atkins — both as a protégé who received the C.G.P. designation and as a creative partner on multiple Grammy-winning albums — places him at the center of Nashville’s most important fingerpicking lineage. His connection to Grady Martin and the Nashville A-Team places him in the broader context of Nashville’s session musician culture. And his influence on Jimmy Bryant and the western swing guitar tradition that preceded him completes his position within country guitar history: a player who absorbed what had come before, transformed it into something entirely his own, and passed it forward to players who continue to develop it today.

Chet Atkins gave the C.G.P. designation to himself, to Tommy Emmanuel, and to Jerry Reed. The company is exclusive. The achievement is real. And the Baldwin Classical with its Prismatone pickup, the claw-shaped right hand over nylon strings, the contrapuntal complexity of “The Claw” in dropped D — all of it represents one of the most complete and most distinctive guitar personalities in the history of American music.

• Grady Martin’s Nashville A-Team session guitar legacy at #115
• Jimmy Bryant’s western swing guitar mastery at #117
• Brad Paisley’s modern country guitar approach at #112

Frequently Asked Questions: Jerry Reed Guitars & Gear

What guitar did Jerry Reed play?
Jerry Reed’s primary and most important guitar was a Baldwin classical nylon-string with a Prismatone piezo pickup — modified with a radical cutaway for upper-fret access. The Prismatone pickup was so well-balanced that Reed plugged directly into his amplifier without EQ or preamp. He also used Kirk Sand custom nylon-string guitars, a Fender Telecaster and Stratocaster for television appearances, a Gibson Les Paul Custom in late 1970s live contexts, Peavey T-60 and Aria Pro II guitars during endorsement periods, and an Ovation Classical for certain television performances. His fingernails — shaped and maintained specifically for claw-style fingerpicking — were as much a part of his gear as any instrument.

What is “The Claw” technique?
“The Claw” refers to both the shape of Jerry Reed’s right picking hand and the fingerpicking technique it produces. The thumb is extended forward in front of the fingers (Chet Atkins-style posture), and both thumb and fingers operate independently and simultaneously — thumb playing bass lines on the lower strings while multiple fingers handle melody, harmony, and contrapuntal lines on the treble strings. Reed’s specific development of this technique went beyond the Atkins/Travis alternating-bass model: he constructed complex independent melody and bass lines and filled in with contrapuntal harmonies, creating three or four simultaneous voices. The dropped-D tuning he favored for many compositions gave him a low D bass note that further expanded his bass-line possibilities. The piece “The Claw” is the canonical demonstration of the technique.

Why did Jerry Reed use a nylon-string guitar for country music?
Reed’s adoption of the Baldwin classical guitar with Prismatone pickup as his primary instrument was driven by tonal preference and technical compatibility. The nylon-string’s warm, round attack and the Prismatone’s acoustic-style transient response produced a specific sound unlike any steel-string country guitar — warmer in the fundamental, clearer in the articulation of complex fingerpicking passages. The nylon strings also suited his claw-style technique: the lower string tension allowed faster and more precise plucking with the nails, and the strings’ non-magnetic character was perfectly matched to the Prismatone’s piezo transduction. The result was a country guitar tone that was uniquely his.

What amp did Jerry Reed use?
Reed’s original amplification setup used a Baldwin amplifier that complemented the Baldwin Classical guitar and Prismatone pickup. In later years his primary live amplifier was the Peavey Ultra 60 — a solid-state 60-watt three-channel amplifier used on its clean channel. The Peavey’s consistency and reliability suited a touring musician who needed identical performance across different venues and climates. Television appearances document him through various house amplifiers including Ampeg. His core amplification philosophy was transparency: the amp’s job was to amplify the guitar’s natural sound, not to color it.

What is the Prismatone pickup and why is it important?
The Prismatone is a piezo-type pickup designed for classical and nylon-string guitars. Unlike magnetic pickups (which require metal strings), piezo pickups detect physical vibration of the guitar’s top and saddle directly, making them compatible with nylon strings. The Prismatone’s specific design was unusually well-balanced across the frequency range — so balanced that Reed required no EQ or preamp between pickup and amplifier. This transparency preserved the natural tonal character of the nylon strings and the Baldwin guitar body. Reed’s use of the Prismatone spread throughout Nashville: Chet Atkins sought out Reed’s Baldwins, and the pickup became well-known among fingerpickers. Sam Kennedy currently produces Prismatone II pickups for players seeking the specific character.

Did Jerry Reed play guitar on Elvis Presley’s recordings?
Yes — Jerry Reed played lead guitar on both of the Elvis Presley recordings of his songs: “Guitar Man” (1968) and “U.S. Male” (1968). Reed wrote both songs and then was hired to play guitar on the recordings, providing the specific guitar voice that Presley’s production required. The combination of Reed as songwriter and lead guitarist on the definitive recordings of his own compositions is unusually complete: the person who conceived the songs also executed the guitar parts that made them famous.

What is the C.G.P. designation and why did Reed receive it?
C.G.P. stands for Certified Guitar Player — an honorary designation that Chet Atkins awarded to guitarists he recognized as having achieved the highest level of mastery in the fingerstyle country guitar tradition. Atkins awarded it to himself and to Jerry Reed, and later to Tommy Emmanuel — a total of three recipients in the designation’s history. Atkins’ award of the C.G.P. to Reed was a recognition of the specific technical and musical achievement of Reed’s claw-style technique and his contribution to the fingerpicking tradition that Atkins himself had been most responsible for defining. The Grammy he shared with Atkins for the instrumental album Me and Jerry (1971) documents the creative partnership that underpinned the recognition.