Owen Bradley and Chet Atkins, two of the architects of what was called “The Nashville Sound” probably got tired of defining it ad nauseam for reporters over the years, and eventually gave flippant answers, with Owen saying “It’s three echo chambers turned up to ten” and Chet, upping the snark by rattling the change in his pocket, saying, “That’s the Nashville sound.”
Don Cusic, a music history professor at Belmont University (Nashville, TN), probably holds the broadest view of what constitutes the Nashville sound that has ever found its way into print. Teaming up with the visionaries at Reedy Press, they have presented it in a magnificent coffee table book, that is as interesting to read as it is stunning to behold. The huge photos and graphics contained in the 232 LP-album-sized pages.
The profusely illustrated timeline focuses on what has been known as “Music City” since 1950, but stretches the view from the way it is now to 196 years earlier, when Davy Crockett joined the Tennessee state legislature (and later the US Congress) and brought his fiddle with him. Did you know Davy also took that fiddle with him to the Alamo? Apparently Walt Disney didn’t.
You can open this book to any page and any era, and find things of interest, some obscure enough to win you a bar bet or two; the author gives bucketloads of credit and recognition to many. Be they huge stars or the legions of folks behind the scenes who contributed to what really is the Nashville sound: The sound of all types of music. Details on rare record labels, venues, studios, session players, landmark recordings, booking agents, publishers, performance organizations and perhaps most importantly, songwriters, run throughout. As the saying goes around tunesmith town, “It all starts with a song.”
With Christmas in July just around the corner, this fully-indexed book would make a great gift for the season or any old reason. If actually shelved on your coffee table, I would strongly recommend keeping it out of harm’s way when beverages are served, for it is both a real piece of work and a piece of art.
—Ken Spooner
Be the first to comment!