Nashville Sound
Nashville Sound is a mixture of classical country music with pop music influences through a largely unified production technique and uniform arrangements.
General
In this context, the term “sound” in the professional world and the music industry is used to describe a largely identical sound image in music recordings by different performers. Occasionally, a connection is made to a location, such as the Motown sound or Mersey sound , in order to clarify the origin of the pieces of music. The music recordings and hits counted as part of the Nashville sound, however, have only one real thing in common: they were recorded in one of the many recording studios in Nashville. In terms of sound, arrangement and instrumentation, however, they are often heterogeneous .
History of origin
The Nashville Sound was seen as the answer to the ever increasing rock 'n' roll , which exerted an irresistible attraction, especially for the consumer-loving youth. The trade press consistently dates the beginning of the Nashville sound to November 7, 1956, when Ferlin Husky recorded his hit Gone . Another milestone was the recording of Four Walls by Jim Reeves , which was made on February 7, 1957. Ingredients intensified in the production of Oh Lonesome Me / I Can not Stop Loving You for Don Gibson with Chet Atkins on December 3, 1957. As long as Elvis Presley recorded with producer Steve Sholes in the New York RCA Studios, the result was usually Rock & Roll or Blues . When RCA opened its state-of-the-art Studio B in Nashville in 1957 and Elvis also began producing here, the influence of the Nashville sound was unmistakable for him. He recorded there for the first time on June 10, 1958 and played A Fool Such As I among others . The Nashville Sound became more noticeable after his military service from March 20, 1960, when here u. a. Make Me Know it and Fame And Fortune emerged. Chet Atkins was appointed director of the studio and he also produced a large number of studio recordings. The studio is one of the world's most important studios with over 35,000 titles recorded here, including more than 1,000 top ten hits in the USA and 150 Presley recordings (more than he recorded elsewhere: Sun Records , RCA New York, Radio Recorders Hollywood, American Sound Studios ).
The Time magazine reported in 1960 that Nashville had already replaced Hollywood as the second most important plate production center to New York. About 20% of the hits of 1959 had their origin in Nashville. Country music now has an urban look, because the traditional pedal steel guitar has given way to the saxophone. Over 100 music publishers, over 200 composers and more than 1,000 instrumentalists stayed in the city. Der Spiegel inventoried a total of 20 recording studios, whose customers would contribute 26 record companies with 4 pressing plants for the marketing of records worth € 200 million (1965). The RCA recording studio was later renamed “RCA Nashville Sound Studio”, as can be seen from Willie Nelson's LP Yesterday's Wine , recorded there on May 3rd and 4th, 1971.
Personnel basics
In particular, the Nashville Sound is associated with a number of people who were and are responsible for the intonation of the sound as studio musicians in the background . It is focused in particular on the RCA and Columbia Records recording studios in Nashville, where the core of the so-called Nashville A-Team was based from 1956 . Producers such as Chet Atkins, Owen Bradley , Bob Ferguson, Bob Foster or Bob Moore ensured - mostly independent of the performers to be recorded - at the same time for a largely uniform cast of studio musicians. These included Chet Atkins, Harold Bradley, Ray Edenton, Grady Martin and Hank "Sugarfoot" Garland (guitar), country composer Boudleaux Bryant (rhythm guitar), Pete Drake (steel guitar), Bob Moore (double bass), Jethro Burns (mandolin), Howard Carenter, Lilian Van Hunt and Brenton Banks (violin), Hargus "Pig" Robbins and Floyd Cramer (piano), Boots Randolph (saxophone), Carl Garvin (trumpet / clarinet), Danny Davis and William McElhiney (trumpet) and Murray M. "Buddy" Harman (drums). There was also a background choir, mostly recruited from the Anita Kerr Singers . This line-up resulted in largely homogeneous productions with light pop music structures.
Music genre
Stylistically, the Nashville Sound can be classified as country pop . It has therefore led to a more intensive crossover into the higher-selling pop hit parade . In addition, there was the informal, relaxed atmosphere in the recording studios, which tended to leave out the classic country instruments fiddle and banjo and replace them with the saxophone and mandolin. The “head arrangements”, that is, spontaneous and improvised - not notated - scores in jam sessions that actually belong to pop or jazz were typical . The singing was less nasal and no longer in a high pitch, without sluggish pronunciation and at the same time suppressed southern accent ("sowbelly accent"). The Nashville Sound, however, retained other attributes of country music, namely simplicity, sincerity, and warmth.
Further development
In The Nashville Sound: Bright Lights And Country Music , published in September 1970, author Paul Hemphill rightly points out that non-country performers such as Buffy Sainte-Marie (LP I'm Gonna Be A Country Girl Again , July 1968) or Bob Dylan (LPs Self Portrait , June 8, 1970 and Dylan , November 19, 1973) had occasionally produced in town in search of the Nashville Sound. At the beginning of the seventies, "outlaws" like Waylon Jennings or Willie Nelson brought country music back to its original roots, relied less often on the employed producers and increasingly resorted to their own studio musicians, especially because of the almost unchanged group of people involved in the recordings Had lost individuality and dynamism. As a result, the Nashville Sound lost its musical dominance, but remained in the music world. Although the term could never be properly explained by insiders in the music industry , it remained a catchphrase of the media and thus an automatic advertisement for the city.
The Nashville Sound meant the stars were disempowered . The producers and the session musicians gained influence. It did happen that instruments were subsequently added to or removed from a recording without the knowledge of the interpreter. The artist could often not prevent the change caused by background choirs. Some musicians eventually rebelled and left Nashville for Austin , Texas (see: Outlaw Movement ), or produced their records in independent recording studios. The era of the dominant Nashville sound came to an end in the mid-1980s, but some approaches have survived to this day.
Individual evidence
- ↑ REUTER'S from March 17, 2011, Country Singer Ferlin Husky Dies at 85 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Time magazine of November 14, 1960, Music: Hoedown on a Harpsicord
- ↑ COUNTRY FESTIVAL: The cow calves . In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 1966 ( online - Mar. 14, 1966 ).
- ^ Paul Kingsbury, The Encyclopedia of Country Music , 1998, pp. 371 f.
- ↑ Time Magazine, Nov. 27, 1964, Country Music: The Nashville Sound
- ^ Chris Gibson, John Connell: Music and Tourism: On the Road Again. 2005, p. 56
- ^ Chris Gibson, John Connell: Music and Tourism: On the Road Again. 2005, p. 57 ; Quote by Chet Atkins
