How producers shaped the Nashville sound

The Nashville sound was a smoother kind of country music that replaced rough honky tonk with strings, choruses, polished vocals and pop tempos, in an effort to revive sales after rock and roll rose. How did producers shape this change, and what can their choices help us understand about Nashville country? The lessons follow production's role in shaping a smoother sound for wider audiences.

2 articles, 1 book · about 9 min of reading and viewing

The reading path

1. Read
   the evolution of country music in nashville during the 1960s · Wikipedia · 4 min read

   Nashville's pop song structure became more pronounced and morphed into countrypolitan, a smoother sound typified by lush string arrangements with a real orchestra and often background vocals provided by a choir. Producers Billy Sherrill and Glenn Sutton were among its architects, and countrypolitan music sold well through the later 1960s into the mid-1970s.

2. Read
   

   Owen Bradley - Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum · Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum · 5 min read

   Owen Bradley, a country music producer, was an architect of the Nashville Sound, a key part of country music's evolution in Nashville during the 1960s. Owen Bradley put singers out front, using rhythm sections of guitars, bass, drums, and piano for basic support. The resulting music was easily accessible to a wide range of listeners.

3. Book
   

   Country Music: A Cultural and Stylistic History · Bookshop.org

   Country Music by Bill C. Malone follows country music from its folk roots in the rural South through the early days of radio to the beginning of the twenty-first century.

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