Nashville Recording Industry

  • Written by Don Cusic

The Nashville recording manufacture actually began afterwards World State of war II, although at that place were several earlier events and factors that played a significant role in its success. During the 1920s and 1930s recording executives traveled across the land, making field recordings of local talent. The birth of gimmicky country music is considered to have occurred in August 1927, when Victor executive Ralph Peer recorded the Carter Family unit and Jimmie Rodgers in Bristol. Peer and other recording executives visited several southern cities, but made only one terminate in Nashville; in September 1928 Peer recorded a number of Grand Ole Opry acts. Zero came of the effort, and neither Peer nor any other field recording executives returned.

During World State of war II local entrepreneurs, including WSM executive Jim Denny, established minor recording companies that catered to the influx of soldiers and enabled service men to record greetings and letters for their families at home. The major "recording" studios belonged to radio stations and recorded transcriptions for broadcast and advertisements. The starting time recording session for a major label occurred in WSM's Studio B, when Eddy Arnold recorded iv songs for Victor on December 4, 1944; he recorded again the following July. WSM employee Jim Bullet, who founded Bullet Records, also recorded some sessions at WSM's Studio B.

The real showtime of Nashville recording studios came in 1946, when 3 WSM engineers, Aaron Shelton, George Reynolds, and Carl Jenkins, launched Castle Recording Studios. Castle initially used the WSM studios, before setting upwards a studio at the Tulane Hotel in 1947. The studio recorded radio commercials for local businesses also as recording major label artists. Decca's Paul Cohen became the first A&R homo to record regularly in Nashville; he recorded Ernest Tubb and Red Foley in August 1947. The same twelvemonth, the Nashville studios had its first "million seller" when the Francis Craig Orchestra recorded "Near Yous" at the Ryman Auditorium. The song became the theme vocal of Milton Berle'south Texaco Theater show. In addition to Castle Studios, the Brown Brothers Transcription Service and Thomas Productions likewise did recording sessions.

The mail-World War II recording industry in Nashville was aided by a number of factors. After 1946, the Thou Ole Opry dominated country music as the result of its network exposure on NBC and the decline of its major competitor, the National Barn Trip the light fantastic on Chicago's WLS. Major record labels, including Mercury, Capitol, RCA Victor, Columbia, and Decca, opened offices in Nashville to tap the talent pool attracted by the Opry and those musicians generally employed by WSM for its musical shows. After, in 1956, the death of Dallas studio owner Jim Beck sent a number of Texas country music acts to Nashville. The Nashville local of the American Federation of Musicians under George Cooper gave area musicians an opportunity to play because it did not require members to demonstrate the ability to read and write music, a requirement in many other locals. Owen Bradley and Chet Atkins emerged as corporate leaders for Decca and RCA and based the land divisions of these labels in Nashville. Perhaps most chiefly, the Nashville songwriting community, spurred past the strong publishing outlets, created a body of top quality songs.

In 1954 Owen and Harold Bradley moved their recording studio to Sixteenth Avenue Due south to become the first business organisation on what would be known as "Music Row." Bradley'south studio was in a Quonset Hut, built to picture show songs for Television receiver. The initial venture proved unsuccessful (although subsequently this same format would be used for music videos), but the recording facility succeeded and soon attracted business organization from Decca and Columbia. RCA Victor used the Brown Brothers' Studio, built in the early 1950s for an advertising agency, before constructing their own studio in 1954 on McGavock Street in space rented from Methodist Television, Radio, and Picture Commission. Chet Atkins managed the McGavock Street facility.

In 1957 RCA built the first permanent tape visitor office on Music Row; this later became known every bit Studio B. In 1961 they expanded the original edifice and three years later on built an adjoining building, which housed executive offices too as Studio A.

In 1958 Owen Bradley took over as Decca'south head of country music. In 1962 Columbia purchased Bradley's Studio and fabricated it the label'southward headquarters; Bradley so built Bradley's Barn in Mount Juliet. By this point, there were a number of studios in Nashville, and the "Nashville Audio" had developed around a small-scale grouping of musicians who played on the majority of Nashville recording sessions. As the major labels established permanent offices in Nashville, the need for recording studios grew, and contained studios soon outnumbered label-endemic studios.

By the 1960s, Nashville was firmly established as the heart for state music recording, although it had a creative challenger in Bakersfield, California, with the "Bakersfield Sound," a honky-tonk style antithetical to the smoother "Nashville Sound." The Nashville Sound eliminated fiddles and steel guitars in favor of strings and a basic rhythm section of pianoforte, guitar, bass, and drums. The Nashville Sound'southward "A Team" of session musicians consisted of a core group: guitarists Harold Bradley, Grady Martin, Ray Edenton, and Hank Garland; bass player Bob Moore; pianists Floyd Cramer and Harold "Pig" Robbins; drummer Buddy Harman; steel guitarist Pete Drake; fiddler Tommy Jackson; saxophonist Boots Randolph; and harmonica player and "utility homo" Charlie McCoy, who played on the bulk of sessions with Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley the major producers overseeing many of these sessions.

The major studios in Nashville at that time were at RCA and Columbia. RCA Studio A was a big studio, capable of recording an orchestra, while RCA Studio B, built in 1957, was the smaller but pioneer recording facility where many hits were recorded by artists such as Elvis Presley, Waylon Jennings, the Everly Brothers, Don Gibson, Charley Pride, Boil Arnold, and Roy Orbison. Columbia had three studios. The Quonset Hut was the original studio built by Owen Bradley in 1956 on what later became known as "Music Row." Subsequently additions created Columbia Studio A and Columbia Studio B. The RCA Studios recorded most of the acts on the RCA label roster while the Columbia Studios recorded those on Columbia, Epic, Capitol, and Mercury. Johnny Greenbacks, Sonny James, Roger Miller, Charlie Rich, Tammy Wynette, George Jones, Marty Robbins, and Johnny Horton recorded hits in the Columbia studios.

During the 1960s, Nashville and country music became synonymous. In 1958, the Country Music Association was formed; in 1963 the Land Music Hall of Fame was created, and in 1967 the original edifice that housed the Country Music Hall of Fame opened at the head of Music Row. All of these events solidified Nashville'due south claim as the capital of land music. The music increasingly found a dwelling on television during the 1960s. "The Jimmy Dean Show" premiered on ABC in 1963, and Roger Miller hosted a show on NBC in 1966. In 1968, the "Country Music Clan Awards Show" was first televised, and by the finish of the 1960s at that place were network shows hosted past Glen Campbell and Johnny Cash as well every bit "Hee Haw," a popular one-act show based on country music. There were too syndicated shows hosted by Porter Wagoner, the Wilburn Brothers, Flatt and Scruggs, and others.

The period 1963-74–from the death of President John Kennedy to the resignation of President Richard Nixon–is loosely described equally "the Sixties." During this period, the counter-culture dominated musical news. From the Beatles and the British invasion to psychedelic music, the youth civilization heard this soundtrack as they demonstrated against the Vietnam war, marched in protestation against "the institution," pushed for Civil Rights, and immersed themselves in "sex, drugs, and rock-northward-ringlet." Country music was a counter to the counter-culture; it represented the "silent bulk," Middle America, and a bourgeois strain in American civilisation. One of the reasons for the popularity of country music during this menstruum is that it spoke to a whole generation of Americans who could not chronicle–in fact, often detested–the counter-culture. This was best expressed in the patriotic and pro-American songs of this menses, particularly Merle Haggard's "Okie from Muskogee." Although Haggard was non a Nashville creative person (he recorded in California), his song set the tone for the political leanings of most of the country music audition and was reflected in the recordings that came out of Nashville.

Although country music represented a "bourgeois" musical civilization during the 1960s, the "Outlaw Movement" of the mid- to late 1970s, led by Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, invited young people into state music. Here is where the counter-culture caught up with state music as musicians grew their hair long and increasingly used rock-blazon instrumentation on their recordings, which often featured a heavy drum and bass.

During the 1970s, artists increasingly wanted to choose where they recorded instead of having to record in the label-owned studios, so the major labels sold or closed their studios as independent studios flourished. The Opryland theme park provided an important Nashville-based training ground for hereafter artists.

Although Nashville is known for state music, a varied group of artists recorded in Nashville studios. Early stone acts such as the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, and Gene Vincent recorded in Nashville during the 1950s. In 1966, Bob Dylan recorded much of his Blonde on Blonde album in Nashville, and Dylan's example convinced other pop/rock artists to record in the city, erasing some of the prejudices the rock world held against "Music City, U.s.a.." Simon and Garfunkel, Joe Tex, Roy Orbison, Perry Como, Carol Channing, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Elvis Presley recorded in Nashville during the 1960s and 1970s. Nashville also became the center for the recording of gospel music, both blackness gospel (primarily at Woodland Studios) and southern gospel. Past the end of the 1970s, a number of contemporary Christian artists recorded in Nashville, including Amy Grant, Sandi Patty, and the Imperials. Within a decade, Nashville was the center for contemporary Christian every bit well equally country music. As studio technology avant-garde during the 1980s, an increasing number of Nashville-based artists and songwriters built studios in their homes and recorded there.

During the 1990s, both country and contemporary Christian music thrived in the city. The introduction of the compact disc (CD) in the early 1980s led consumers to switch to the new format, spurring sales of itemize too every bit current releases. The editors of Billboard magazine, the major trade publication, turned to computer counts of sales to compile its influential charts of hits; this switch in technology concluded the prejudice against country music by many retailers and distributors who reported sales numbers to the trade magazines. The new charts showed that country music competed with the top rock, popular, and rap acts in terms of sales, which in turn encouraged retailers to stock more state music, particularly by the peak-selling acts, and created more than sales as consumers found the country artists they liked. The rise of Wal-Mart to become the dominant retailer during the 1990s was a boon to country music. Wal-Mart's willingness to stock country music and welcome the state consumer, who felt uncomfortable in the mall record store staffed by young rock fans, was another reason for the increase in sales of country music recordings.

Country music was never more assisting or more dominant than during the mid-1990s as more than radio stations played state music than any other format; many artists regularly sold over a one thousand thousand copies of an anthology; the genre's share of overall music sales rose to almost xx percent; and stars such every bit Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Shania Twain, Tim McGraw, Clint Blackness, Reba McEntire, and Billy Ray Cyrus emerged to compete with stone stars in recording sales and concert audiences. Artists and executives were attracted to Nashville during this period equally the music manufacture saw explosive growth. However, the net-based music-sharing service known every bit "Napster" was created in 1999, computers with CD burners became widely bachelor, and the sales of recordings took a plunge. This new technology soon had an bear on on Nashville, although country consumers generally caught on to the new technology later than stone fans.

Gimmicky Christian music, connected to the conservative political motility in the country, likewise grew exponentially during the 1990s. Benefiting from the fact that Wal-Mart (and other mass merchandisers) stocked the CDs, the genre became widely known and accepted. Artists such as Michael Westward. Smith, Steven Curtis Chapman, Kirk Franklin, and Yolanda Adams sold as well equally rock or country acts. In Nashville, the gospel music industry employed more people than the country industry primarily because the Christian distribution system was housed in Nashville while the distribution network for country was part of the major characterization operations based in New York or Los Angeles.

During the 20-starting time century, the picture show O Blood brother, Where Art Thou created a new sensation of old-time country and bluegrass music every bit the moving-picture show appealed to a non-country audition who purchased the soundtrack anthology. The State Music Hall of Fame moved downtown in 2001, and the new century'due south showtime saw the audio of mainstream country recordings becoming closely aligned with the sound of stone and popular music, specially the rock and popular of the 1970s and 1980s.

The Nashville recording industry adapted to all of these changes. After Opryland closed, Belmont University and Middle Tennessee State University became the main talent pool for executives and musicians in the Nashville music manufacture, although other colleges also supplied interns, artists, musicians, and executives. The songwriter community in Nashville (and the song publishing manufacture) remained strong, becoming the new Tin can Pan Aisle of the music industry.

Nashville remains firmly established every bit one of the 3 major recording centers in the United States (the others are Los Angeles and New York). It has a vibrant creative community, a well-educated music industry workforce, and the ability to concenter top artistic talent from all over the world. Nashville was named "Music City, Us," in the early 1950s and since that time has earned that sobriquet. "Music City" became the brand for Nashville, advertised in Sleeping room of Commerce campaigns as well as being used in informal conversations. By the twenty-get-go century, the Nashville recording industry was not simply a local business with a national touch; it was the image that the city of Nashville presented to the world.