Nashville Cats

Book excerpt: The "Nashville Cats" were a group of session musicians who bounced from studio to studio along Nashville's "Music Row," providing the instrumental backing tracks for countless recordings in the mid-20th century. Including music industry titans like Chet Atkins, Anita Kerr, and Charlie McCoy, these versatile Cats not only established the city as a well-known hub for recording popular music, but also defined the era of country music known as the "Nashville Sound."Drawing upon a rich array of previously unexplored primary sources and original oral histories, Nashville Cats: Record Production in Music City, 1945-1975 is the first account of the role that these musicians, along with recording engineers and record producers, played in shaping the sounds of country music during one of its most definitive periods. This era produced some of the genre's most celebrated recording artists, including Country Music Hall of Fame inductees Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, and Floyd Cramer. The Nashville Sound attracted musicians like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen to the city's studios, and marked the establishment of a recording industry that has come to define the city of Nashville in the national and international consciousness. Author Travis D. Stimeling explores how the Nashville system came to be, how musicians functioned within it, and how the desires of an ever-growing and diversifying audience affected record production practices. Through interviews with key players of the period and close analysis of hit songs, Nashville Cats provides an exciting look into this prolific era of music history.