Volume MMVI • Number 2 • April-June 2006 - Nashville Musicians ...

12 The Nashville Musician April-June 2006
History of Music Row unfolds in writer’s forthcoming publication
By WALT TROTT
Nothing bugs me more than to read some
music writer’s background information on
say Hank Williams or Boudleaux Bryant,
dramatically describing their haunting Music
Row, looking for a break - when no such
neighborhood then existed.
Now, candid author-songwriter Michael
Kosser sets ’em straight with his book “How
Nashville Became Music City USA: 50
Years of Music Row” (Hal Leonard Publishers,
$22.95), due in bookstores in June
2006.
We read an advance copy of this 368page
panorama, Kosser’s focus on the rise
of fabled Music Row, heart of the country
music industry, where blessedly the beat still
goes on.
Literally it’s Country Music 101, a fitting
text for a class by Belmont University
Professor Don Cusic (among those cited in
the book), not merely to inform music students
about the industry’s inner sanctums,
but enlighten them regarding potential heartbreak
accompanying success on the Row.
Mike Kosser came to town to be a
songwriter in 1971, and enjoyed cuts by
such stars-of-the-day as Freddie Hart
(“Thank God She’s Mine”), Kitty Wells
(“Full Grown Man”), Tommy Overstreet
(“Don’t Go City Girl On Me”), T. G.
Sheppard (“Daylight”), Joe Sun (“High and
Dry”) and The Kendalls (“It Don’t Feel Like
Sinnin’ To Me”).
He went on to write books, among them
“Those Bold & Beautiful Country Girls,”
“How to Become a Successful Songwriter”
and co-authored (with Wilbur Cross) “The
Conway Twitty Story: An Authorized Biography.”
Michael also wrote mystery novels
(under a pen name) and, as Kosser, the
books “Autumn Thunder,” “Walks On The
Wind” and “Warriors’ Honor,” all about Native
Americans.
We have not seen his latest book’s illustrations,
but we are assured there’s a rare
picture of the early Bradley Film & Recording
Studio & Quonset Hut which spurred
the building of Music Row.
When country music was in its doldrums,
the first wave of 1950s’ country-derived
rock and pop was helping to resuscitate the
genre, as recorded by innovative producers
a la Owen Bradley, Don Law, Steve Sholes,
Ken Nelson and Chet Atkins. Then the migration
started towards that neighborhood
between Division street and Wedgewood
avenue running down 16th and up 17th avenues,
soon to be annointed Music Row.
According to Kosser: “Music Row began
in 1955 when two brothers (Owen and
Harold Bradley) built a studio in one of the
many little homes that lined 16th and 17th
avenues south. Most of those homes are still
there, but today they house recording studios,
music publishing companies, record
companies, management companies - all the
supporting businesses that make a commercial
music industry go . . . ”
Kosser dedicates his book to Donna
Hilley, who isn’t really cited much on the
ensuing pages, though we suspect much of
the information regarding giant Tree publishing
was her doing. As Michael notes:
“For 20 years I have dreamed of writing this
book. A single phone call from her, made it
happen. I am forever grateful.”
The author includes a “Cast of Characters”
which informs us Who’s Who among
his knowledgeable sources. Inevitably one
ponders why this dude, and not some character
a little more illuminating? For instance,
why singer-songwriter Marty Brown instead
of maybe Tracy Lawrence, though admittedly
both experienced colorful introductions
to the Nashville music scene. Thankfully,
there’s also a planned index, particularly
helpful, especially with trade reference
books.
Woven into Kosser’s text are potted biographies
of some leading lights on the
Row, past and present, which prove both
informative and interesting, although by
their conciseness cannot claim to be comprehensive.
Indeed Kosser’s one-stop information
source calls on a variety of industry veterans
to help propel the 50-year flight from a
nostalgic Nashville Sound yesteryear, to the
contemporary state-of-the-art scene now
flourishing. Among these are publisher Bob
Beckham, label honcho Mike Curb, artist
Brenda Lee, songwriter Bobby Braddock,
A Team musician Harold Bradley, producer
Allen Reynolds, recording engineer Glenn
Meadows, backing studio vocalist Gordon
Stoker, former record promoter Bob
Saporiti, one-time A&R chief Martha Sharp,
and historian Ronnie Pugh.
A 29-chapter table of contents assists
the reader in knowing what section of the
industry Kosser’s dissecting next. The writer
offers facts, provocative thoughts and funny
stories about the exciting business of making
music, and doesn’t get bogged down
with too many statistics.
BOOK REVIEW
As Kosser points out, Owen and Harold
Bradley bought an old house at 804 16th
Avenue South for the sum of $7,500, with
the idea of building a permanent recording
studio. Harold told Michael, “Owen had
knocked out most of the middle floor, so
that basement studio was a small studio, but
it had a high ceiling. When we were recording,
when you added to the basic rhythm
section - Boots Randolph and the Anita Kerr
Singers or the Jordanaires - you didn’t have
the isolation and the music would start
bleeding into the singer’s mic . . .”
Musician Buddy Killen picks up the description:
“The board was just a little console
like you’d use at a radio station and
I’m sure he added a little thing or two to it.
He added that room out there where we all
sat around and played. Wasn’t much separation,
but it’s an amazing thing how good
the sound was comin’ out of there. And he
put in a little echo chamber . . .”
The hits they cut there certainly would
make country music history, among them
“Gone,” “Singin’ the Blues” and “White
Lightning.”
Almost immediately after the Bradleys
had transformed the house into a studio, they
added a quonset hut to the back of the building,
writes Kosser. They purchased a prefabricated
metal building kit like those used
for military units in World War II, and had
it assembled out back.
When it comes to sound, a nebulous, subjective
quality, hard to define even for the
experts, we can learn from pioneers like
Owen Bradley. His common sense makedo
method to suppress unwanted sounds
inside their metal building was to build a
square louvered piece, which was hung by
chains, and then stuffed stage curtains up in
there to keep the sound from reflecting.
According to Jerry Bradley, Owen’s son,
“When CBS bought it, Goddard Lieberson
(head of Columbia) and a couple of pinstripe-suit
guys . . . all came down. Owen
and Harold decided to sell it to them. The
executives wanted to know, ‘How do you
get that sound? What’s up there? It doesn’t
seem like it oughta work. How are you guys
making it work? We wanna know what’s up
there?’ They told them, ‘This is just an old
curtain.’
“Anyhow, they did the closing, they
wrote the checks and Daddy has left the
property, but he left something back in the
studio and he went back in. He saw these
two executives, one was on a ladder and the
other one was lookin’ up over the louvers
there, and he told the other one, ‘Hey there
ain’t nothin’ but curtains up here.’ Daddy
said, ‘I told you.’”
No doubt Bradley’s simple solution not
only improved the process in a primitive but
innovative way, while succeeding in cutting
hours from session time.
The “mom and pop” operations that once
graced the Music Row landscape have since
been mostly devoured by corporate
Goliaths. Arguably, the scene today is more
sophisticated and competitive, boasting
greater resources to deal with the breadth
and scope of the 21st century’s international
marketplace.
Insider stories include singer-songwriter
Johnny Cash’s whimsical reply to producer
“Cowboy” Jack Clement, prefacing a comment
to Cash thusly, “In my humble opinion
. . . ,” whereupon Cash retorted, “Cowboy,
there’s nothin’ humble about your opinion!”
Regarding studio suitability, producer
Robert Johnston recalled revisions implemented
for his Columbia collaboration with
visiting artist Bob Dylan, causing consternation
among Nashville studio executives:
“CBS has the quonset hut down there. And
then they had a big room (Studio A) with
little doors to isolation rooms, where they
put everybody, and the sound would be
(crap). And I went in there with Ed Grizzard,
and I got a saw. We stripped it, took everything
outside and had the fire department
burn it, and put the drums against the middle
of the wall, and put everybody else around
there, so they could walk around and see
each other. I put Dylan behind glass so he
wouldn’t leak, but so everybody could see
him.” Less repercussive was singer Guy
Clark’s disdain for couches in studios.
Multi-instrumentalist Kyle Lehning,
who had played in the studio for Waylon
Jennings, remembered being invited on an
Outlaws’ tour, supposedly to back Waylon’s
wife Jessi Colter.
“He and Tompall (Glaser) and Jessi went
out on the road together. Tompall said,
‘Waylon wants you to play electric piano
behind Jessi. So here’s the record, learn the
tunes and do it.’ So I learned Jessi’s show.
Waylon’s band backed her up, and I played
a Rhodes (Fender electric piano) and an
ARP (synthesized string ensemble). She finished
her set and was walking off the stage,
and I was walkin’ off behind her. The band
stayed out there and Waylon was in the
wings gettin’ ready to come on, ’cause there
was not going to be a break. It was like,
boom, Jessi’s done, here comes Waylon.
“So I’m walkin’ off behind Jessi and
Waylon says, ‘Hoss, where you goin’?’ I
said, ‘Well, I’m done with the set,’ and
Waylon says, ‘No, you’re gonna play with
us now.’ And I said, ‘Waylon, I don’t know
the tunes.’ He said, ‘Man, there’s only three
chords!’ . . . and he was right, his songs only
had three chords in ’em, but he put them in
the most interesting places.”
Second generation musician Jerry Bradley
in essence attended the Owen Bradley-Chet
Atkins’ School of Music a few
years before finding his own producer’s
niche at RCA in 1976, via his #1-ranked
“The Outlaws,” considered country’s first
platinum album (which actually doubled
that achievement), charting a remarkable
253 weeks. It showcased Waylon & Willie,
along with Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser.
Kosser wondered what prompted Nashville
label head Bradley to produce the landmark
album? “Hell, to keep my job! They
were a bunch of outlaws and they were
bookin’ out as outlaws . . .”
On Jerry’s watch at RCA, he brought
in major assets like Alabama, and was at
the helm when Dolly Parton decided to
make her professional break with Porter
Wagoner, an RCA contract star-producer.
Bradley also offers Kosser insight into
how he stalled Chet’s departure from RCA,
’
Michael Kosser when he was new to Music Row.
after learning Atkins was bowing out: “I was
recording somebody in the studio and I call
(RCA president) Rocco Laginestra and I left
word with his secretary that when Rocco
comes in, you tell him to call me before he
calls Chet . . . About 2:30 Rocco called . . .
I said, ‘Chet wants to quit and I think he’s
serious.’
“Rocco said, ‘What do you think we
oughta do?’ I said, ‘Well, he’s like our Nipper
(RCA’s trademark dog), I don’t wanna
let him go. I think he’s really serious, but
he did tell me that he might stay on as a
consultant if he had an office . . . and just a
little bit of a salary, but he didn’t want to do
the day-by-day anymore’ . . . Chet never
knew the whole story to the day he died. I
never did tell him.”
When Jerry Bradley departed RCA, he
went with Gaylord Entertainment to briefly
head up their short-lived 16th Avenue
Records label, and then primarily looked
after their valuable Acuff-Rose song catalog.
The author also interviewed Jimmy
Bowen, controversial rocker-turned-record
executive, who made his mark on the coast
before making his way to Nashville.
Bowen: “In order for Nashville to grow,
the studios had to be in competition with
each other, so that they would have to bring
in all the new technology and get in on the
cutting edge of the technical side of the business.
You had to find people of a like mind.
Glenn Meadows (of Masterfonics Studios)
was. He believed that Nashville could catch
up with everybody else technically . . . before
we started to make the change, the dollars
in country music were so small that the
studios couldn’t buy all the latest gear, like
the New York and L.A. studios.
“They’d sell a hundred thousand albums,
they’d throw a party. And where I came from
in pop music, a hundred thousand albums,
even then, was looked down on as a failure.
So everything had to be changed to sell millions.”
Label chief Jim Foglesong recalls when
Stan Silver first brought him the music of
unknown Donna Fargo: “Well, I heard the
thing and I was determined not to let him
out of the office until we had a deal. ‘Happiest
Girl in the Whole USA’ sold over a
million singles. We put out an album, sold
over a million copies. The second single
‘Funny Face,’ actually outsold ‘Happiest
Girl’ by a hundred thousand or so . . . and of
course ‘Happiest Girl’ and ‘Funny Face’
were both crossovers, so we got the pop
promotion people involved. Donna was the
darling of the whole company (Dot).”
Foglesong also signed the Oak Ridge
Boys to ABC, the next label he worked at,
and then while at MCA inked the likes of
Reba McEntire and George Strait. Meanwhile,
birddoggin’ the heels of Foglesong
was Bowen, who replaced him there, and
then did the same at Capitol, where
Foglesong had breathed new life into the
careers of Dan Seals and Tanya Tucker, and
signed Sawyer Brown and Garth Brooks,
before his contract ran out.
As Kosser observes, “Music Row is a
tough place for record executives.
Foglesong spent nearly two full decades
running record labels on Music Row, and
he survived everything the business threw
at him. Everything except Jimmy Bowen.”
Absorbing, too, is Kosser’s chapter on