This book’s focus on country records ought to prompt any number of observations in readers, but for now, I’ll anticipate two. First, you’ll see that producers have their hot streaks, as does country music as a whole. For example, speaking of Nashville in 1962, Jerry Kennedy declared, “This whole town exploded.” His claim is substantiated in the text. Moments, cycles, and trends—all manner of patterns—should materialize in the reading of this history. Second, you’ll see that every paradigm of production contains within it all past paradigms. New ways of working never completely supplant old ways: methods accrue; they don’t replace previous methods. Thus, during an era when digital editing enables producers to comp (composite) vocals, some producers use the newest technology, for all intents and purposes, as if the tools for cutting vocals direct to discs made of wax had finally been perfected. Then again, any given technology can always do more than a culture will allow; as a corollary to this rule, new technology is always employed to realize fully the potential of—to prop up the ideology that supported—the old technology.
Chapter 1 (1927–1949) opens with a recollection of Ralph Peer, the famed A&R man who superintended country music’s big bang—the 1927 recordings of Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, and other musicians at the Bristol Sessions. Thus, it refers back to a time that also witnessed the adoption of electrical recording. This chapter ends as magnetic tape replaces acetate discs as the recording medium of choice. Chapter 2 (1950–1966) sees the A&R man become the producer. His overarching ideal is to create conditions that evoke perfect performances. Chapter 3 (1967–1991) marks the era of multitrack recording, a full realization of what tape can do. Chapter 4 (1992–present) could be labeled “the digital era.” My late start date calls attention to the near-ubiquitous use of multitrack digital recording that followed the release of ADAT recorders in 1992.
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Several recording artists discussed in these pages do not readily fit prevailing notions of country music. The Dinning Sisters, Robert Johnson, Otis Redding, Joe Tex, and Al Green will never be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. That’s fine. To admit them would weaken or efface a border crossing that country music, as an institution, actively guards. It would prompt us to ask, not the commonplace question, “What counts as country?” but rather, “What doesn’t?”
Nevertheless, I’ve included a few nonconventional artists and recordings in this history. I’ve done so for four reasons. First, I want readers to notice that producers often don’t see (or that they simply ignore) borderlines, or that—as was the case of Don Law and Robert Johnson—the genre distinctions listeners now regard as commonsense hadn’t been created, or that, at the very least, when Willie Mitchell had Al Green interpret a country song, there was some wisdom (money to be made) in blurring accepted boundaries. Second, country producers take no oaths of genre fidelity. Readers ought to notice that the same guy who produced Robert Johnson also gave us classic recordings from Lefty Frizzell and Johnny Cash. Or that to Buddy Killen and Joe Tex, countrified funk wasn’t an oxymoron. Third, there are lessons to be learned about country production when, for example, Ken Nelson narrates a story about recording the Dinning Sisters, a pop group. Fourth, I want readers to push definitions—if only a little bit. I’m aware that Dusty in Memphis flies under the banner of “blue-eyed soul,” but give it half a chance, and it will play like one of the greatest country records ever made.
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I really enjoy reading Heartaches by the Number: Country Music’s 500 Greatest Singles, by David Cantwell and Bill Friskics-Warren. Unlike almost every other book devoted to country, it lists producers and frequently acknowledges their importance to the process of creating records. The list of recordings it compiles is subjective, but it’s rarely quirky. Though one might argue that it emphasizes older recordings, the book supplies a handy canon of country. Count the producers who worked on those 500 recordings, and the length of that list is astonishing. It’s so short. Of the songs listed, 36 credit no producer. For their work on the remaining 464 songs, a little more than 170 people earned production credit. That number is, however, slightly inflated because it includes co-productions. Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd, and Arif Mardin produced Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man.” That’s three producers, one recording. Drop names that appear only once, and the list shrinks from 170 producers to 58; drop names that appear only twice, and the list goes to 37; drop names that appear only three times, and we’re left with 24 producers. But here’s the kicker: these 24 producers worked on 313 of the 464 credited recordings! That’s close to 70 percent.
As you might expect, the 51 people I recorded for this oral history represent a big chunk of history and a whole lot of great music. As many of the names won’t be familiar even to avid country fans, I’ve provided brief biographical sketches of the producers and others I interviewed for easy reference.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
Producing Country was built from my interviews with the following people:
DAVE ALVIN (1955)
In his playing (with the Blasters, X, and solo) and in his productions (for the Derailers and Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys), Alvin manifests a vision of country that’s two thousand scorched miles west of Nashville.
ERIC “ROSCOE” AMBEL (1957)
Ambel’s guitar playing with the Del-Lords and the Yayhoos is more rock than country, while his production work with the Bottle Rockets is more country than rock.
PETE ANDERSON (1948)
For many years, Anderson, a guitarist of distinction, was Dwight Yoakam’s go-to producer.
CHET ATKINS (1924–2001)
After Steve Sholes moved up the corporate ladder in 1957, Atkins became RCA’s man in Nashville. He and Decca’s Owen Bradley are widely regarded as the chief architects of the Nashville sound, the urbane style of country that found a mass audience.
JAMES AUSTIN (1946)
In his former position as vice-president of A&R at Rhino Records (whose parent company is the Warner Music Group), Austin produced many historical reissues.
JIMMY BOWEN (1937)
Before Bowen, Nashville producers cut songs that, with luck, became hits. Taking his cue (and his budgets) from pop, Bowen produced albums that generated hits and changed Nashville forever.
BOBBY BRADDOCK (1940)
Braddock produced Blake Shelton’s first five albums. In 2011, he was elected, as a songwriter, to the Country Music Hall of Fame.
HAROLD BRADLEY (1926)
Owen Bradley’s kid brother is the most recorded session guitarist in the history of American music, a constant presence on Nashville’s music scene for more than fifty years.
THOM BRESH (1948)
Merle Travis’s son is also a producer, writer, actor, and guitarist.
TONY BROWN (1946)
Someone once summarized the historical eras of Nashville production in the following manner: Bradley, Bowen, and Brown. While at MCA, Brown produced George Strait, Wynonna Judd, Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, and Vince Gill.
STEPHEN BRUTON (1948–2009)
The brief on this Texas producer says that he was the model for Jeff Bridges’s character in the movie Crazy Heart.
BLAKE CHANCEY (1962)