Your Nashville Stories

May 14, 2008 3:29 PM

In the March and April 2008 “Feedback” columns and MixLine e-newsletters, we asked readers to tell us about their most memorable Nashville sessions and about how the scene has changed over the years.

I have lived in Nashville for 14 years now. I moved from New York City in 1994 due to the changing music scene in that city. I also lived in Los Angeles from 1989 to 1993 and didn't feel as at-home as I had hoped. So, Nashville seemed like the next place to try.

I find a lot of different music styles here. I've had the good fortune to do pop, rock and some country.

My most memorable Nashville sessions were with Matchbox Twenty. The band loved being here, and string sessions at Ocean Way Nashville Recording Studios were fantastic.

The musicians in Nashville are some of the most talented and professional I have ever had the pleasure to work with. They are the reason sessions go as fast as they do here. It's hard to find a city where so many diverse and wonderful artists live. It makes Nashville a very unique place to call home.
David Thoener

When cutting song demos in Nashville for my music publishing company, I routinely outline a few of my production ideas for a song with the session players before the first take. This is especially important considering that the musicians only hear a mockup of the song and review the chord chart once before we hit the Record button. But during one session at County Q Productions in April 2007, I wondered if I'd gone too far.

After discussing in meticulous detail all of my ideas for one particular song — including specific chord inversions, a walk-up, six instrumental hooks and instructions on which two guys would play 4-bar solos and where — the seven musicians all gave me a poker face, stood up and silently walked out of the control room and into the tracking room. I looked at my watch and realized I'd burned 20 minutes of studio time just talking! The players — Dan Dugmore (pedal steel), Pat Flynn (acoustic guitar), Larry Franklin (fiddle), John Jarvis (piano), Doug Kahan (bass), James Mitchell (electric guitar) and Paul Scholton (drums) — were all seasoned pros. But still, I wondered if I'd hamstrung them with too many details instead of just letting them play.

To my amazement, and from the very first downbeat of the first take, these guys nailed every idea I'd talked about like they'd been playing the song together for years! Every idea worked like a charm, and the recording sounded like a record from the get-go.
Michael Cooper
Michael Cooper Recording

I'm a producer/engineer/mixer from the Philadelphia area, and in the past three years I've done several recordings in Nashville.

My first experience was working at Starstruck Studios on the Suzanne Gorman record for Range Records. That was an amazing experience and a remarkable facility, although very costly. The musical director on all of my Nashville sessions has been Wayne Killius. He is an amazing drummer and excellent arranger. I can't imagine doing a session without Wayne. I don't know of anywhere in the world [where] you can track an entire record in an 8-hour session. We go in and record all of the music, then I go back home to track vocals and mix.

I love Nashville! If I could find a job, I would move tomorrow.
Kevin Wesley Williams
Soundmine Recording

I witnessed my favorite session while in high school. I worked in a band that was going to make a custom CD late one night at a studio using session musicians. I knew Willie Rainsford was going to be the bandleader and piano player. He had played on Alabama's “Old Flame,” which was a song we were doing, so we were all very excited. I just knew if I watched him, I could figure out the secret to this “session musician” thing.

He came in with nothing but a briefcase. He sat it on the piano bench and I looked over his shoulder as he opened it. In the briefcase was everything he needed to complete the job, what I call the “four p's” of the old Nashville session world: a pencil, notebook pad, cassette player and a pistol.

I played bass in Nashville professionally from 1985 to 1996 and saw the scene change a lot as lots of West Coast guys moved in as country boomed in the '90s. It flooded the talent pool and changed the dynamics of the networking, making it a lot harder on local talent. When country music started to decline a bit, everybody felt the pinch.

I also hated to see the Opryland theme park disappear. It employed more than 100 musicians a day. Where else in Nashville could four French horn players work every day?
Trevor Reddick

Sometime in the late '70s, I was a small-town songwriter and budding recordist working at home with a 4-track Tascam reel-to-reel and a box with knobs that almost qualified as a mixer. My vast microphone collection comprised a Shure SM57. My demo was crude, but somehow contained the one fleeting ingredient I can only describe as “potential.”

I went to Nashville to record a couple songs with a music publisher/producer from Kansas City to whom I had been submitting my masterpieces for a publishing deal. The songs were okay, but I wasn't the up-and-coming star to record them. He talked me into spending about $1,500 for studio time, and my family and I went on vacation from Southwest Wisconsin to Nashville.

I actually got my $1,500 dollars' worth because I saw firsthand how a “real” recording studio and engineer should operate. I saw the value of using “real” instruments and quality recording equipment. I have since evolved into a somewhat seasoned and thoughtful recordist with a 24/96 digital studio and good mics, and essential outboard gear.

The best lesson of all: I learned the value of the word “humble.”
Tom Bennett
Solo Studio

We had just completed the Third Army Talent contest at Fort McClellan, Ala., where I lucked out with the singing honors. We were to report in to Atlanta the next day so I sneaked away AWOL on a bus to take an early morning flight to Nashville for the day and my first RCA Victor recording date. It was Valentines Day, February 14, 1953, and I had been in the Army for six months hoping to stay with my writing and singing. Steve Sholes had signed me the Summer before in New York with the help of publisher Al Gallico and some of my original songs. This would be the only time we would be able to record in Nashville for another six months.

My Victor signing was the summer of 1952, when the Grand Ol’ Opry first played New York (and bombed) at the old Broadway Hotel Astor. New York was far from ready for country yet. I was playing there with the relief (pop) band and got to know all the Opry people, Roy, Minnie, Red and all, and Red’s manager, Col. Tom Parker. I guess my country singin’ was still coming through pretty good. But I must say I was truly inspired by the Opry gang and Parker wanted to manage me. Sholes talked me into going back home to Texas and he set it up where I would go up to the Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport to groom and work out, and build a following before I would record in Nashville. So after two years in New York and half losing my accent, it was back to my country roots. As luck would have it, my draft notice met me in Beaumont. I was only able to do about three spots on the Hayride in my new boots and Stetson, and then off to 18 weeks basic training before I could go to Nashville to record. Laryngitis had already cancelled one recording session right after basic.

Well, I was up all night with maybe an hour’s sleep and I headed over to the studio. It was the one they used before Studio B. Sholes was down from New York. Chet Atkins was the leader and pretty much took control. Owen Bradley was on piano, Charlie Grean on bass, Grady Martin on rhythm guitar, Jerry Byrd on steel and Tommy Jackson on fiddle. They were Sholes’ set studio players. It turned out to be a split session with Porter Wagoner; an hour and a half for him and an hour and a half for me, four sides each. He was first and I can’t forget how he tried to intimidate me. At 21, I was kind of scared of everybody anyway, so he succeeded. It was his second session for Victor. It was simply marvelous to watch for the first time, a big quarter inch mono tape machine taking down everything instead of going straight to disc. And my singles were just about the last of the 78’s.

After throwing out all but one of my own songs, Sholes had me do a cover on Seven Lonely Days. My song, That Long Long Road of Love, I felt, would really sound cool if we modulated and went up a half tone on the second verse, so I made that suggestion. No, no, no a thousand times no from Chet. It was as if I was from some alien planet, or putting a curse on Country (and Western [during those times]) music. But I think it would have probably been some kind of first for C&W music. In fact, I think it would be really interesting to search for and make a big deal out of the first country record ever to modulate up a half tone. I’ll admit that I had been in the New York crowd, and playing and singing pop, and away from Texas for a couple years. So modulating to me was just sort of a natural. But we stayed in the key of G. I got to thinking and wondering later if maybe one of the reasons was that Owen and/or Charlie couldn’t play in Ab. Oh well, we could have gone up a whole tone to “A”. Everybody played in A. And my song had only three chords. More tough luck, that although Tom Parker wanted to manage me, prior contract commitments prevented me from signing with him.

Well, I got back to the base that night just in time and wasn’t court marshaled. A month later I joined forces with Faron Young, Gordon Terry and jazz piano great, Wynton Kelly in the Third Army Show, entertaining the troops, and Faron and I were able to plug our records throughout the Southeast.

Years later, when I ran into Chet and brought up the modulation thing, all he could do was laugh and shake his head, and say, “Well, Don, I guess you were just a little bit ahead of your time.” I yearned to return to Nashville but I never recorded there again. But I spent quite a few years engineering quite a few hits for others at Columbia/Sony in New York. And so, after all these years (count 'em) I'm still singin' country.
Don Meehan

I was mixing at GroundStar one evening with Ronnie Milsap. He wanted to take the mix over to the Woodland mastering suite to be able to listen to the mix on their monitors. So, when we got there one of Woodland's engineers told us Conway Twitty was mixing in the Woodland A control room. At the time Woodland had drapes on the control room windows that they would close off to the studio when a mixing session was going on. I was asked to go in to A and pull the drapes open. And when I did Ronnie Milsap, his producer Tom Collins and a Woodland engineer, Les Ladd had their "hams" pressed up to the control room glass mooning Conway.

Conway got on the studio talkback and asked Ronnie, "Is that some more of that MIlsap magic?" (Ronnie's current record was titled "Milsap Magic".) I don't when I have ever laughed so hard....and so did Conway.
Ben Harris

Several years ago, the movie "The Last Castle" starring Robert Redford was being filmed at the old prison here in town. A friend of mine, Dean Hall, and I were in the movie.

It came to Dean's attention that they were accepting songs for the movie and movie sound track. The deadline: the following morning!

Dean had already written a song that would be perfect for the movie, but did not have a version of it recorded. Rod Lurie, the director gave him till around 6:00 the next morning to put a version in his hands.

Dean came up to me and asked if I felt like doing a little "mercinary recording". At the time, I had a small studio in a building behind my house just outside of downtown Nashville.

And of course, I was up for the challenge.

It was around 10:00 that night before we got into the studio. Dean had been on the phone calling session players to come in while we were driving to the room. Only in Nashville could you call so many people this late in the game and have all of them show up! Not just anyone either, some of this towns most gifted players.

The keyboard player was playing a gig at the time and couldn't be there till around 1:00 a.m. or so. Once he arrived and set up, it was on.

Dean had everything charted out. They went through the song one time then we printed it. Cut Deans vocals and then did a finish mix of the song. We wrapped things up around 5:00 that morning.We had to be on the set by around 6:00-ish to get the song to the right people. We left the studio, drove to the prison...

While we normally were not allowed to drive onto the prison property (we were bussed in everyday), this day though, we drove right up to the side entrance. Dean rushed in and delivered the song. Literally with minutes to spare.

With all of that said, the song made it! Not only was it played during the movie, but it was also played during the closing credits. The song: "Chiseled In Stone".

A great song. And Dean Hall, a great musician and friend. It was a fun job. And definitely what Nashville is all about.
Ronnie Honeycutt
Sound Dragon Studio

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