In no other American city does music play as strong a role in finance and image as it does in Nashville, the undisputed capital of country music. This is where most of the people dependent upon country music for a living come to work and record at least part of the time, due to in astonishing mass of studios, publishing companies, publicists, and major and indie labels. Many of these operations are based in the blocks surrounding the Country Music Hall of Fame known as Music Row, an area that serves as the unofficial capital of the country-music establishment. Yet Nashville is much more than the way station for the commerce of country music, although tourist attractions tend to concentrate on some of its gaudiest and star-studded aspects. Outside of the theme parks and souvenir museums is a ton of live music in unprepossessing bars and cafés, where both commercial- and alternative-minded singers and songwriters hone their craft, try new material, or hope for their lucky break, sometimes all at once.
Today much of Nashville epitomizes what is wrong with the music business. Its approach so recording often emphasizes formulaic. unadventurous songwriting; overreliance upon session musicians yields an overly homogenous flavor, and its most commercial face has strayed far from the rural influences that originally gave birth to country. However, no pop or rock fan can dismiss the city's contributions to American music. As the home of the Grand Ole Opry, this is where hillbilly performers with rural-rooted styles first reached a mass audience, via the stage, radio, and television. After the Grand Ole Opry began in the mid-1920s, the music industry steadily gained a greater presence in town via increasing numbers of musicians, publishers, and agents.
Nashville's central southern location is well situated for the purposes of recording country music, many of whose performers were (and still are) from the South. Yet it was slower to take off as a record-making center than many realize. Barely any recording took place until after World War II, though by the late 1940s and 1950s it was instrumental in producing some of the best honky-tonk music, as well as country records with a smoother, more pop-based sound that were becoming increasingly popular with the public. As late as the early 1960s, there were only two major Nashville studios, though by that time some stellar producers and session players had made Nashville their bast, most notably Owen Bradley and guitar virtuoso Chet Atkins. They were chief architects of the "Nashville sound." which sweetened country's twang with strings, backup choruses, and talented musicianship, usually provided by an elite clique of session players. Nashville by the end of the 1960s was the place to break into country music, whether as a performer, songwriter, or instrumentalist if you didn't play the game and record or do business here, you stood hale chance of making it commercially.
I’m a huge 50s, 60s 70s music fan!
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