an oral history of country-record production first to Parker Smathers at Wesleyan University Press. He was supportive from the get-go, as was Daniel Cavicchi, editor of the Music/Interview series. Lauren Seidman, Bronwyn Becker, Richard Hendel, and Leslie Starr turned my manuscript into a book, and they made every step of that process a joy. Other people helped me indirectly but significantly. A conversation with Robert Ray leaves me full of ideas and thoroughly energized. We spoke about possible structures for this book, and his suggestions moved me to clarity. Greg Seigworth is my best friend. We’ve talked about record production many, many times; it’s difficult to assess the nature and depth of his contributions to most everything I write. The best stuff in this book is almost always the end result of good questions that he and a few other friends prompted me to formulate. Finally, I want to thank Pam for being in my life. She’s not that big on Tammy Wynette or Merle Haggard, which is kinda-sorta okay, I suppose. She’s crazy about Wynonna and the Dixie Chicks; I’m fine with that—to a degree. We both love Lucinda Williams, Shelby Lynne, and Buddy Miller. We both think Otis Redding is country, just like Carla Thomas said he was. And we both liked banana sandwiches long before we knew Elvis did too. “Ain’t we got love?”
INTRODUCTION
Cowboy Jack Clement knew a thing or two about record production. He made the first recordings of Jerry Lee Lewis, while his boss, Sun Records’ Sam Phillips, was away at a music-industry event. Here’s something Clement told me:
I was the guy in there running the board, but I was also in charge of the session, telling the musicians what to do. That made me a producer, but the word “producer” wasn’t even extant at that time, as I recall. Sam would be doing the same things. But they didn’t put producer credits on records at that time. I think RCA is the first one that did that with Chet Atkins. That’s the first I ever heard of putting “produced by” on a record. That wasn’t going on in 1956. I think that started happening in 1957 or ’8, something like that.
We won’t get a better clue for understanding early record production. Clement makes two points: first, there was record production before there were “record producers”; second, the term “record producer” refers to an awareness, a recognition of record production. On the one hand, there are the duties of production (the tasks). They’ve been around for a long time, ever since recordings were first marketed in the 1890s. On the other hand, there is the designation “producer” (the term).
Chet Atkins clarified the designation for me. He said his boss, Steve Sholes, head of RCA Victor’s country-and-western division, was the one who “started listing personnel.” He added, “That was his [Sholes’s] doing. He wanted to put the producer. He wanted to list the engineer, too, on each single, but they wouldn’t do it. The record company claimed there wasn’t enough room on the record [label] to print all that stuff,” but soon enough, most of “that stuff”—the recording credits—appeared on record sleeves and jackets. Who had brokered the 1955 deal that brought Elvis Presley to RCA Victor? Who was performing the tasks of production, even if he didn’t hold the title of “producer”? Why, it was Steve Sholes. Atkins, again:
Steve used me on most everything he did. He’d call me and tell me to record a certain song with a certain artist. I just did it like he did it. I’d already been hiring the musicians for him. I was kind of his assistant for quite a while. So I’d imitate Steve. I owe everything to Steve.
To this comment add a series of events that answers why and, perhaps, how the title “producer”—and not “director”—came into general use. In August 1956, Presley headed out to Hollywood to work on his first movie, Love Me Tender. He’d already released his first album, Elvis Presley (March 1956). Its jacket listed no personnel, though anyone who cared to know would’ve understood Sholes’s role in its making. He was the all-important head of A&R (artists and repertoire). Working with recording engineer Bob Ferris, Chet Atkins might have fulfilled duties that now look like production (e.g., he assembled the band), but Sholes was the executive tasked with making all of the big decisions. For example, at his first session for RCA (January 10, 1956), Presley recorded three songs he had routinely performed: “I Got a Woman,” “Heartbreak Hotel,” and “Money Honey.” Sholes allowed Presley to record this familiar material, but he’d already planned a follow-up session for the very next night. At that session Presley sang two songs—“I’m Counting on You” and “I Was the One”—from a list created by Sholes. Significantly, both of these numbers were published by a subsidiary of Hill & Range, the firm that had helped underwrite the deal that brought Presley to RCA. From the five songs recorded during these two sessions, Sholes selected “Heartbreak Hotel” backed with “I Was the One” as the first single. To calculate the revenue the single generated, one has to enter the morass of RIAA certification. Suffice it to say, it vindicated Sholes’s high-stakes wager. Immediately, the $35,000 RCA had paid for Presley’s Sun contract—at that time the most money ever spent on a pop singer—seemed like a bargain. Notice, then, Sholes’s tasks make him resemble a “producer” more than a “director” in the Hollywood sense of those titles.
Getting back to Love Me Tender, I want to speculate. In the movie Presley sings four songs written by Ken Darby, the film’s “musical director.” In Elvis Presley: A Life in Music—The Complete Recording Sessions, Ernst Jorgensen describes the soundtrack recording sessions and lists the following technical credits: Lionel Newman (producer), Ken Darby (arranger), and Bob Mayer/Ken Runyon (engineers). Thus, while movie credits read “music by” Lionel Newman—David Weisbart had produced the actual movie for Twentieth Century-Fox—credits on the soundtrack album designate Newman as “producer.” He composed the soundtrack to Love Me Tender; he produced the original soundtrack album (the OST). If you will, the engineer, who actually compiled the soundtrack album by cobbling together musical selections from the film, directed the OST. Hence, Newman’s designation as “producer” makes complicated but perfect sense.
In 1957, RCA named Sholes pop singles manager and, in 1958, pop singles and albums manager. Perhaps Sholes appropriated the term “producer” from its use on OST recordings. If not, he simply recognized that his role in making records was directly analogous to that of Pandro Berman and Hal Wallis in making movies, and he decided to formalize this arrangement (no doubt for financial reasons). Therefore, when Atkins moved into Sholes’s old position in Nashville, he became a producer and not, perhaps more logically, a “director of recording.”
• • •
That enigma solved, let me describe the organization of this oral history of country music production. The book’s chapters identify four distinct eras—four paradigms, really—that structure the story of recording. Each era is characterized by an emergent technology that redefined production, effectively remaking the role of producer. There is, however, one constant that unifies this history. Musicians make music. Producers make recordings. In a nutshell, that’s their job.
Thus, I’ve organized chapters around recordings—songs and albums—arranged chronologically by original release dates. In most cases, producers provide commentary on their own recordings or on their own working methods. Occasionally, people intimately acquainted with the productions of others provide commentary. For example, Don Law Jr. remembers his father’s story. Don Pierce points to A&R pioneer Ralph Peer’s understanding of publishing as production. Harold Bradley, who has played sessions with pretty near everybody, speaks especially of his brother, Owen. Another guitar great, Reggie Young, focuses on sessions with producers Chips Moman and Jimmy Bowen. Bobby Braddock describes writing songs—“He Stopped Loving Her Today” and “Golden Ring”—for Billy Sherrill. Several producers, especially of the earliest recordings referenced, speak from their experiences preparing classic material for reissue.
All quotations in this oral history derive from interviews that I conducted, recorded, and transcribed (over a period of twenty years). I begin the story of country production with an overture. In it a panel of experts defines the role of record producer. (The experts are real; the panel is simulated.) This topic is expanded in the interludes that preface chapters 2 and