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Overview
Musicians make music. Producers make records. In the early days of recorded music, the producer was the "artists-and-repertoire man," or A&R man, for short. A powerful figure, the A&R man chose both who would record and what they would record. His decisions profoundly shaped our musical tastes. Don Law found country bluesman Robert Johnson and honky-tonk crooner Lefty Frizzell. Cowboy Jack Clement took the initiative to record Jerry Lee Lewis (while his boss, Sam Phillips, was away on business). When Ray Charles said he wanted to record a country-and-western album, Sid Feller gathered songs for his consideration. The author's extensive interviews with music makers offer the fullest account ever of the producer's role in creating country music. In its focus on recordings and record production, Producing Country tells the story of country music from its early years to the present day through hit records by Hank Williams, George Jones, Patsy Cline, Buck Owens, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Waylon Jennings, and Merle Haggard, among many others.
Includes original interviews with producers Chet Atkins, Pete Anderson, Jimmy Bowen, Bobby Braddock, Harold Bradley, Tony Brown, Blake Chancey, Jack Clement, Scott Hendricks, Bob Johnston, Jerry Kennedy, Blake Mevis, Ken Nelson, Jim Ed Norman, Allen Reynolds, Jim Rooney, James Stroud, Paul Worley, and Reggie Young, among others.
Publication of this book is funded by the Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780819574657 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Wesleyan University Press |
| Publication date: | 07/01/2014 |
| Series: | Music / Interview |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| File size: | 7 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
MICHAEL JARRETT is a professor of English at Penn State University, York. He is the author of Drifting on a Read: Jazz as a Model for Writing and Sound Tracks: A Musical ABC, and has spent an inordinate portion of his life in record stores.
Michael Jarrett is a professor of English at Penn State University, York. He is the author of Drifting on a Read: Jazz as a Model for Writing, Sound Tracks: A Musical ABC and Producing Country: The Inside Story of the Great Recordings and has spent an inordinate portion of his life in record stores. His writing has appeared in collections like The Art of Record Production: An Introductory Reader for a New Academic Field, and New Media/New Methods: The Turn from Literacy to Electracy; as well as in both academic and popular publications, from Strategies and Film Quarterly to Pulse! and Fretboard Journal. He currently resides in Pennsylvania and spends an inordinate portion of his life in record stores.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
CUTTING TRACKS CAPTURING THE PERFORMANCE, 1927–1949
Very soon after 1877, the invention that Edison called a phonograph articulated in such a way as to serve the interests of corporate capital; which is to say, technologies for recording and reproducing sound worked to the distinct advantage of newly formed record companies — not musicians. Entertainment companies, in the guise of their designees, artists and repertoire (A&R) men, managed musical production by controlling all facets of preproduction.
Cutting tracks to disc allowed A&R men only limited control of the production phase of record-making. Hence, they don't talk much about time spent in studios, because production happened outside that space. Early producers were tasked with choosing who (artists) and what (repertoire) to record. They crafted deals more than they crafted sounds. They functioned as agents of "artificial selection," in a Darwinian sense of the term. However invisible (or inaudible) the manifestations of their control may have been, in seeking to ensure the survival and profitability of corporate interests, A&R men profoundly shaped, even defined, country music. They were mediating figures, standing between artist and record company, artist and technology, and artist and public.
* * *
Interviewed in his Hollywood office in 1959, Ralph Peer (1892–1960) informed Lillian Borgeson that the recording sessions he supervised back in the 1920s yielded nothing more than movable pieces in a complex financial game. Records weren't end products, packaged goods, or software necessary for newfangled hardware. And they sure weren't timeless treasures. They were a means to accruing copyright royalties. That's where the real money lay.
As a young man hired to produce "race records," Peer had learned this lesson well. The money he made for the General Phonograph Company's OKeh label could have filled a caravan of red wheelbarrows. In 1923, when Peer and Atlanta businessman Polk Brockman scored a hit recording with Fiddlin' John Carson, they initiated what would later become known as "country music." Peer called it "hillbilly" music. Years later, when Borgeson pressed him to recall the "hillbillies" he'd recorded, Peer responded, "Oh, I tried so hard to forget them."
Presumably, Peer wasn't referring to Jimmie Rodgers or to the Carter Family — unforgettable "discoveries" of his 1927 recording expedition to Bristol, Tennessee. But it's a safe bet he didn't want to talk about country music's patriarchs. His fondest memories undoubtedly revolved around the deal he struck with the Victor Talking Machine Company and any number of talented hillbillies. Compared to the strip-mining techniques favored by other A&Rmen, where songs were bought out-right for measly sums of cash, Peer employed an approach to American song that country scholar Richard Peterson, in Creating Country Music (1997), labeled "deep-shaft mining." At OKeh Records Peer's salary was sixteen thousand dollars a year; not bad for the mid-1920s. At Victor he managed to strike an even better deal. He agreed to work for free! In return, the company allowed Peer to copyright — technically, to hold the "mechanical rights" on — all the music he recorded. Victor obviously knew the Copyright Law of 1909. Every record manufactured earned its copyright owner two cents. Victor reasonably assumed that sales of hillbilly records wouldn't amount to much. They didn't figure on a paradigm shift: Peer using his deal to institute a new regime (Southern Music), one that would forever change American music.
Peer paid musicians a fifty-dollar performance fee for each side recorded, and he offered two contracts. The first guaranteed "royalties." Artists received a half-cent for every record sold (while Peer pocketed a cent and a half). The second contract appointed Peer as the artist's exclusive manager. In no time Peer was a wealthy man and gatekeeper to an industry.
VARIOUS, RCA COUNTRY LEGENDS: THE BRISTOL SESSIONS, VOL. 1 (ORIGINAL RECORDINGS, 1927; COMPILATION, 2002, RCA) AND "A SATISFIED MIND" (1954)
JEREMY TEPPER
Even before there was a term "producer," the producer was the A&R guy who brought the material to the session. There'd be an engineer, but the producer was sort of an executive scout who selected the material, unlike in rock where the producer is, generally, coming from more of an engineering direction; he creates sounds. The term "to produce" in Nashville is more to select the material and match it with the artist.
DON PIERCE
He was a genius, that Ralph Peer, and he was an angel to me. For some reason, he liked me because I would get in my car and go coast to coast and work with distributers and listen to disc jockeys and get to the one-stops. That reminded him of when he was on the road for RCA and how he picked up Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family and others. He deplored the people in his office in New York. He wouldn't even go into the office, didn't even have an office where he had his headquarters in the Brill Building. He said, "Got all these people in there, and nothing's happening. You're the only guy I know of that's out there on the road scratching the way I used to. Come on up and have lunch with me at my house."
He had a place on about 59th, off of Hollywood Boulevard. I went up there. A butler came to the door. I couldn't understand why Peer was interested in me, except he says, "I would like to have my people in New York learn something from you, about what you're doing and how you're able to operate when you don't have any money."
Eventually, he offered me a hundred dollars a week to be a song scout. I said, "Mr. Peer, I appreciate that, but I'm your competitor. I have my own publishing company. If I find a song, I'm not going to give it to you."
"No, here's what I have in mind," he said. "I want my people to see how you function. When you get a song that's a hit, I want you to give me the sheet-music selling rights, and I want you to give me the rights to the song for publishing outside the United States and Canada. I'll take it for the rest of the world. I've got twenty-six branches around the world."
I said, "That sounds like a gift on the ground to me." At that time, when we were starting Starday [Records], that was a lot of damn money. I took him up on it. When I'd go to New York, I'd kind of headquarter in his offices, and tell his people what I was doing.
We came up with a song called "A Satisfied Mind" [written by Joe "Red" Hayes and Jack Rhodes]. Peer was quick — got about five or six pop records out there in New York. Any record that he got from it, he got half the money on it. He sold about twenty-two thousand sheet-music copies on it, and then he had the rights for the rest of the world. He was real happy with his association with me. We did well with that song.
It got recorded by Red Hayes down in Texas. I was traveling through … I got to Midland City in Texas on my way back to California, and I saw Red there. He played that song for me, and I said, "I've got to have it."
He said, "Well, you can't have it unless I make the first record on it." I sent him down to Pappy [Daily] in Houston, and Red made the first record on it. We didn't sell very many, but it got up to that station in Springfield, Missouri [KWTO]. Porter Wagoner heard it, and Red Foley heard it, and Jean Shepard heard it, and all three of them cut it in one week. We had mailed out copies, and they had heard the copy of our record on Starday. They loved the song, and so they all jumped in and recorded it.
Peer could see when [performing-rights organization] ASCAP[the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers] almost committed suicide by taking everything off the air [in the 1942–1944 musicians' strike, protesting radio broadcasting recorded music]. That gave rise to BMI [Broadcast Music, Inc.]. And even though he was probably on the board for ASCAP, he became one of the early founders of BMI. He was that kind of an entrepreneur. He knew what had to be done. For a guy like him to go down and tie up those tunes from Cuba and from Mexico, "Amapola" and "Green Eyes" and all that stuff. That Kansas City, red-headed Swede was one smart dude. Ralph Peer was a music man.
Later on, I discontinued it [the publishing arrangement with Peer] when I started doing business with the Hill and Range people. But we were always on a friendly basis, and I always considered Ralph Peer an angel to me.
CHET ATKINS
Peer made a speech down here [in Nashville] to the Country Music Association. It must have been about '51 or '52. He worked for RCA, you know. He ran their publishing company, and he signed songwriters. He saw potential where they didn't.
I remember one article I read. He said, "I started the race business. I started the hillbilly business." And he was right. He did. He told how he did it. It's interesting. Up to when he came along, people would just record the same songs over and over. Well, he had a publishing company. So he'd ask the artist, "What songs do you want to do?" They'd come in and sing "Ol' Joe Clark" again and all that stuff. He'd say, "Now, you've got to write some songs. Maybe you've got to change. You've got to give me something fresh and different." He did that. He was at Columbia [OKeh], while he did that over there too. He's responsible for country and for rhythm and blues, maybe, because of that.
All music mentioned in this chapter on pre-tape production was originally recorded direct to discs that were, typically, made of lacquer (also referred to as "acetate"). Then, through a multistep process that derived metal parts from the lacquer or master recording, 78-rpm discs were stamped or pressed. That means all historical albums that include tracks recorded before 1950 are compilations. To create these albums, reissue producers work from materials that are as close to the master disc as possible.
VARIOUS, ROOTS N' BLUES: THE RETROSPECTIVE 1925–1950 (COMPILATION, 1992, COLUMBIA/LEGACY)
LAWRENCE COHN
From the late '20s to the late '40s, the recording process was a direct-to-disc process. They [engineers] cut acetates; there were no tapes. Once the acetates were cut, they made impressions, and they got metal parts from the impressions, because the metal parts are much more durable. It was a more simplistic way of recording. There was just one micro-phone. Even Benny Goodman and the big bands in the '30s recorded with only one microphone, an overhead mike. Someone came in here last year, and they turned down working in the studio because it didn't have a ninety-six track capability! I was reduced to hysterics. That's all really bullshit. My God, we used to record the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, with one mike.
Those guys in the '20s and '30s were out there. They were documentarians. They had an ear for talent. They would set up the equipment, they would cut the tracks, and then onto the next person. Some guys were tremendously musical as producers.
Art Satherley went back and forth between country music and blues, and so did Tommy Rockwell, Don Law, and Frank Walker. It seems that none of them had a real specialization. In other words, they were all expected to record and to find rural gospel artists and blues artists, on the one hand, and white string bands on the other hand. They were very selective, and the selectivity was really occasioned by what they thought would sell. To my mind that's the way producers are supposed to be.
When you acquire acetates, where do you get them?
We [Columbia/Legacy] have a huge archive back east at a place called Iron Mountain, which is about a hundred miles north of New York City. That's where all the assets of this company are: metal parts that were recorded in the '20s and '30s; acetates from the late '30s up to 1948, when we started to use tape; and all the tapes. They're stored at this huge facility that looks like something out of James Bond. It's the most incredible thing you've ever seen in your life. That's where they were. They have a whole storage system.
There's a regular procedure that producers go through. Once we decide that we're going to do a project, then I do the research for the sides that I want or, generally, everything the guy recorded. We put in a request. There's a whole methodology that we employ. It goes to the studio in New York. Then it goes up to the facility, Iron Mountain. They search it, and they get the stuff. And then I have it.
I did a thing called The Retrospective, which is a four-CD set. All the '20s, '30s stuff that we found — except for some of the very late '30s blues stuff, around '39, which were on acetate — everything was on metal parts. So the metal parts varied in quality. Some of them looked magnificent and hadn't been played since 1926 or '7. You put them on, and they were terrible. Others looked awful. They were stained, looked like they were ready to be thrown out. You'd play them, and they would be absolutely perfect. There was no rhyme or reason. We had no formula. We had to take every single track individually and set up for each track individually. In other words, we couldn't make a setup that would work for all the things that we were doing. It was just impossible. Obviously, that compounded our work.
BILL MONROE, THE ESSENTIAL BILL MONROE AND HIS BLUEGRASS BOYS 1945–1949 (COMPILATION, 1992, COLUMBIA/LEGACY)
LAWRENCE COHN
The project was my idea. Luckily, I found the original acetates that were recorded at the sessions in the '40s. They were in dreadful shape. There were a lot of tapes that had been done over the years, rechanneled stereo and all kinds of crappy endeavors. I destroyed those things and threw them away. As I said, we'd found the original acetates. They were beat up and scratched. We worked hard to clean them up and get them to where I felt they were really proper.
I remastered the thing three different times, because it was not quite right till the end, and then, of course, it was right. My engineer said I was hallucinating. I was hearing things. He locked me out of the studio at a point. He claimed I was giving him a nervous breakdown.
I said, "Well, I don't know what to tell you. All I know is that it just does not sound the way I want it to."
In the end it came out very well. I found so many unissued alternate takes. I know Bill was very happy. He went on Nashville television, TNN, with the box and said that he felt it was the nicest thing that anyone had ever done for him, for his career. Unsolicited, he sent me an autographed picture saying, "Dear Larry, thanks for a great job." I understand, from a friend of mine, who was his manager for many years, that he saw Monroe do that maybe four or five times in twenty-five years. So I was very proud. I was very happy that I could give it to him before he passed away.
BOB WILLS, THE ESSENTIAL BOB WILLS 1935–1947 (COMPILATION, 1992, COLUMBIA LEGACY)
BOB IRWIN
That's the thing that's most intriguing to me about country performers as opposed to rock 'n' roll performers. And I don't mean this to be disparaging at all toward rock 'n' roll performers, but country guys were nailing this stuff in one to three takes. You listen to Bob Wills lacquers from the '30s and '40s [supervised by Don Law]. It's pretty much — for all intents and purposes — the band producing themselves. When [guitarist] Eldon Shamblin blows a solo, the whole band stops. You hear them laugh, and then they kick up the next take. And like [Wills's band] the Texas Playboys, many country musicians were, number one, in essence producing themselves and, number two, nailing stuff in two or three takes.
In the earlier days, when people were recording to lacquer or to full-track mono tape, I really do believe that, not just in Don Law's case, but with most producers, it was much more in an A&Rcapacity than in a producer's capacity. They let the groups be themselves more. Outside of certain miking techniques, which I'm sure was more the engineer's responsibility than the producer's, I can't hear the producer. I could be wrong about that. Maybe Don Law was sitting there saying, "No, no, no, I don't want that to sound like that. I want the mike over there." But I'm going to bet that most of the time the engineer was doing that. Certainly, once you start hitting the mid-to-late '50s and, especially, the early '60s, you can hear producers' trademarks all over the place. That's not so much the case in the '30s and '40s. People weren't picking producers. Producers were pretty much assigned, or the producers were picking which artists they were going to work with.
Could be his name, but Don Law (1902–1982) illustrates early record production — as a rule. He recalls any number of film directors from Hollywood's studio era: professionals not considered auteurs.
Law immigrated to the States in 1924. By the end of the Depression, he was supervising recording sessions for the American Record Corporation, working with another pioneering A&R man, "Uncle" Art Satherley. When Satherley retired in 1952, Law was appointed head of Columbia's country division. During the '50s and '60s, he produced a full roster of country legends: Lefty Frizzell, Johnny Cash, Flatt & Scruggs, Jimmy Dean, Ray Price, Johnny Horton, Marty Robbins, and the Statler Brothers.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Producing Country"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Michael Jarrett.
Excerpted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Biographical Sketches
Overture: What Is a Record Producer?
CUTTING TRACKS: CAPTURING THE PERFORMANCE, 1927–1949
Various, RCA Country Legends: The Bristol Sessions, Vol. 1 (1927) and "A Satisfied Mind" (1954)
Various, Roots n' Blues: The Retrospective 1925–1950
Bill Monroe, The Essential Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys 1945–1949
Bob Wills, The Essential Bob Wills 1935–1947
Gene Autry, The Essential Gene Autry (1933–1946)
Robert Johnson, The Complete Recordings (1936–1937)
Tex Ritter, "Jingle, Jangle, Jingle" (1942)
The Maddox Brothers and Rose, America's Most Colorful Hillbilly Band, 1946–1951
T. Texas Tyler, "Deck of Cards" (1946)
Tex Williams and His Western Caravan, "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)" (1947)
The Dinning Sisters, "Buttons and Bows" (1947)
Merle Travis, Folk Songs of the Hills (1947)
Dale Evans, "Don't Ever Fall in Love with a Cowboy" (1949)
Interlude: The Producer as Director
TAPING TRACKS: CREATING THE PERFORMANCE, 1950–1966
Lefty Frizzell, Look What Thoughts Will Do (1950–1965)
Martha Carson, "Satisfied" (1951)
Hank Williams, "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive" (1952)
Tex Ritter, "High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me)" (1952)
Kitty Wells, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" (1952)
Elvis Presley, "That's All Right" (1954)
The Louvin Brothers, "When I Stop Dreaming" (1955)
Ferlin Husky, "Gone" (1956)
Merle Travis, The Merle Travis Guitar (1956)
Elvis Presley, "Blue Moon" (1956) and Elvis Presley (1956)
The Million Dollar Quartet, The Complete Million Dollar Quartet (1956)
Billy Lee Riley, "Flyin' Saucers Rock and Roll" and "Red Hot" (1957)
Roy Orbison, The Sun Years (1956–1958)
Don Gibson, "I Can't Stop Loving You" and "Oh, Lonesome Me" (1957)
Jerry Lee Lewis, "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" (1957)
The Everly Brothers, "Bye Bye Love" (1957)
Johnny Cash, "Home of the Blues" (1957)
Bill Monroe, "Scotland" (1958)
Buddy Holly, "Rave On" and "That's My Desire" (1958)
Del Wood, Rags to Riches (1959)
George Jones, "White Lightning" (1959)
Jim Reeves, "He'll Have to Go" (1959)
Buck Owens, "Excuse Me (I Think I've Got a Heartache)" (1960)
Brenda Lee, "I'm Sorry" (1960)
Floyd Cramer, "Last Date" (1960)
Hank Thompson, Hank Thompson at the Golden Nugget (1961)
Jim Reeves, "The Blizzard" (1961)
Elvis Presley, "Little Sister" (1961)
Patsy Cline, "I Fall to Pieces" and "Crazy" (1961)
Ray Stevens, "Santa Claus Is Watching You" (1962)
Bobby Bare, The Essential Bobby Bare (1962)
Ray Charles, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music (1962)
Dickey Lee, "Patches" (1962)
Hank Snow, "I've Been Everywhere" (1962)
Johnny Cash, "Ring of Fire" (1963)
Ernest Tubb, "Thanks a Lot" (1963)
Elvis Presley, "It Hurts Me" (1963)
Dave Dudley, "Six Days on the Road" (1963)
Patsy Cline, "Faded Love" (1963)
Brook Benton, On the Countryside (1964)
Roger Miller at RCA, Platinum and Gold Collection (1960–1961)
Roger Miller at Mercury, Golden Hits (1964–1969)
Merle Haggard and the Strangers, Strangers (1965)
Glen Campbell, Song Demos (1965) and "I Knew Jesus (Before He Was a Star)" (1973)
The Essential Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton, The Essential Dolly Parton, and The Essential Connie Smith (1965)
Chet Atkins, "Yakety Axe" (1965)
Joe Tex, "Hold What You Got," (1965)
Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited (1965)
Charley Pride, "The Snakes Crawl at Night" (1965)
Bob Dylan, "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" (1966)
Jerry Lee Lewis, "Memphis Beat" (1966)
Interlude: Studio Matters
MULTITRACKING: CONSTRUCTING THE PERFORMANCE, 1967–1991
Otis Redding, "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay" (1967)
John Hartford, "Gentle on My Mind" (1967)
The Byrds, Younger Than Yesterday (1967)
Jack Reno, "Repeat after Me" (1967)
Jeannie C. Riley, "Harper Valley P.T.A." (1968)
Conway Twitty, "Next in Line" (1968)
Porter Wagoner, "The Carroll County Accident" (1968)
Johnny Cash, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (1968)
Dusty Springfield, Dusty in Memphis (1969)
Loretta Lynn, "Coal Miner's Daughter" (1969)
Roger Miller, "Me and Bobby McGee" (1969)
Elvis Presley, Memphis 1969 Anthology: Suspicious Minds (1969)
Ray Price, "For the Good Times" (1970)
Kenny Rogers, Kenny Rogers & the First Edition Greatest Hits (1971)
The Allman Brothers, The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East (1971)
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Will the Circle Be Unbroken (1972)
Al Green, "For the Good Times," I'm Still in Love with You (1972)
Charlie Rich, It Ain't Gonna Be That Way—The Complete Smash Sessions (1965–66)x
Charlie Rich, "Behind Closed Doors" (1973)
B. J. Thomas, "Hooked on a Feeling" (1973)
Don Williams, The Definitive Collection (1973)
Tompall Glaser, The Great Tompall and His Outlaw Band (1976)
Waylon Jennings, Lonesome, On'ry and Mean (1973)
Waylon Jennings, Honky Tonk Heroes (1973)
Willie Nelson, Phases and Stages (1974)
Dolly Parton, "Jolene" (1974)
George Jones and Tammy Wynette, "(We're Not) The Jet Set" (1974)
Eagles, Their Greatest Hits 1971–1975
The Earl Scruggs Revue, Anniversary Special (1975)
Tom T. Hall, "I Like Beer" (1975)
The Statler Brothers, "Flowers on the Wall" (1975)
George Jones and Tammy Wynette, "Golden Ring" (1976)
Jennifer Warnes, "Right Time of the Night" (1976)
Jerry Lee Lewis, "Middle Aged Crazy" (1977)
Crystal Gayle, "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" (1977)
Anne Murray, "You Needed Me" (1978)
Mel Tillis, I Believe in You (1978)
Merle Haggard, Back to the Barrooms (1980)
George Jones, "He Stopped Loving Her Today" (1980)
George Strait, Strait Country (1981)
Merle Travis, Travis Pickin' (1981)
Reba McEntire, Unlimited (1982)
Hank Williams Jr., "A Country Boy Can Survive" (1982)
George Strait, "Amarillo by Morning" (1983)
George Strait, Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind (1984)
Reba McEntire, My Kind of Country (1984)
Vern Gosdin, "I Can Tell by the Way You Dance (You're Gonna Love Me Tonight)" (1984)
Mekons, Fear and Whiskey (1985)
Reba McEntire, "Whoever's in New England" (1986)
Steve Earle, Guitar Town (1986)
Lyle Lovett, Lyle Lovett (1986), Pontiac (1987), and Lyle Lovett and His Large Band (1989)
Nanci Griffith, Kathy Mattea, "Love at the Five and Dime" and "Goin' Gone" (198687)
Dwight Yoakam, Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. (1986)
Keith Whitley, "Miami, My Amy" (1986)
Restless Heart, Wheels (1986), and Alan Jackson, Here in the Real World (1989)
Merle Travis, Rough, Rowdy and Blue (1986)
Lucinda Williams, Lucinda Williams (1988)
Michelle Shocked, Short Sharp Shocked (1988)
Clint Black, Killin' Time (1989)
Kathy Mattea, "Where've You Been" (1989)
Kenny Rogers, Something Inside So Strong (1989)
Garth Brooks, Garth Brooks (1989)
Garth Brooks, No Fences (1990)
Suzy Bogguss, Aces (1991)
Marty Brown, High and Dry (1991)
Hal Ketchum, Past the Point of Rescue (1991)
Brooks & Dunn, "Brand New Man" (1991)
Pam Tillis, Put Yourself in My Place (1991)
Reba McEntire, For My Broken Heart (1991)
Jimmie Dale Gilmore, After Awhile (1991)
Interlude: The Writer as Producer—An Interview with Bobby Braddock
ENCODING TRACKS: COMPOSITING THE PERFORMANCE, 1992–PRESENT
Brooks & Dunn, "Boot Scootin' Boogie (Dance Mix)" (1992)
Wynonna Judd, Wynonna (1992)
Joy Lynn White, Between Midnight & Hindsight (1992) and Wild Love (1994)
John Anderson, Seminole Wind (1992)
Cowboy Junkies, Black Eyed Man (1992)
Iris DeMent, Infamous Angel (1992) and My Life (1993)
Eddy Arnold, Last of the Love Song Singers: Then and Now (1993), et al.
Nanci Griffith, Other Voices, Other Rooms (1993)
Various, Tulare Dust: A Songwriters' Tribute to Merle Haggard (1994)
The Mavericks, What a Crying Shame (1994)
John Michael Montgomery, "I Swear" (1994)
Lyle Lovett, I Love Everybody (1994)
Alejandro Escovedo, Thirteen Years (1994)
Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys, Jumping from 6 to 6 (1994), Swingin' West (1995); The Derailers, Reverb Deluxe (1997)
Vince Gill, "Go Rest High on That Mountain" (1995)
The Bottle Rockets, The Brooklyn Side (1995)
Jerry and Tammy Sullivan, At the Feet of God (1995)
Herb Jeffries, The Bronze Buckaroo (Rides Again) (1995)
Blue Mountain, Dog Days (1995)
Faith Hill, It Matters to Me (1995)
Dwight Yoakam, Gone (1995)
Deana Carter, "Strawberry Wine" (1996)
Various, Rig Rock Deluxe: A Musical Salute to the American Truck Driver (1996)
Cowboy Junkies, Lay It Down (1996)
Trace Adkins, "Every Light in the House Is On" (1996)
Joy Lynn White, The Lucky Few (1997)
k. d. lang, Drag (1997), and Chris Whitley, Dirt Floor (1998)
Clint Black, Nothin' But the Taillights (1997)
George Strait, One Step at a Time (1998)
Emmylou Harris, Spyboy (1998)
Jim Lauderdale, Whisper (1998)
Lucinda Williams, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (1998)
Robert Earl Keen Jr., Walking Distance (1998)
Jonboy Langford & the Pine Valley Cosmonauts, Salute the Majesty of Bob Wills (1998)
Vince Gill, The Key (1998)
Randy Travis, You and You Alone (1998)
Dixie Chicks, Wide Open Spaces (1998) and Fly (1999)
Mandy Barnett, I've Got a Right to Cry (1999)
Hal Ketchum, Awaiting Redemption (1999)
The Derailers, Full Western Dress (1999)
The Bottle Rockets, Brand New Year (1999), and Shania Twain, Come on Over (1997)
John Prine, In Spite of Ourselves (1999)
Montgomery Gentry, Tattoos & Scars (1999)
Allison Moorer, The Hardest Part (2000)
The Yayhoos, Fear Not the Obvious (2001)
Tim McGraw, Set This Circus Down (2001)
Norah Jones, Come Away with Me (2002)
Montgomery Gentry, You Do Your Thing (2004)
George Strait, It Just Comes Natural (2006)
Various, Crazy Heart: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2010)
Index
What People are Saying About This
“This is a very readable and informative oral history of the evolution of country music recording. Few books have delved into the role that record producers have played in country music, and fewer still have allowed the record producers themselves to talk about the nuances of their recording processes in such revealing and fascinating detail.”
“Michael Jarrett’s large body of interviews with producers from the country music field is an extremely valuable addition to music history. The large scope of the book—including producers of archival country anthologies (i.e., the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers), to classic country and western of the ’40 and‘60s, to mainstream country from the ‘70s to today, to Americana/alternative country (including 1950s rockabilly and the 1960s-70s hybrid of country soul)—makes it an important tool for understanding the creation of some of C&W’s classic records by its most outstanding artists. In addition, Producing Country provides evidence of the wide scope of country music, its changes in sounds and musical impact over nearly 90 years. Quite an achievement!”
"This is a very readable and informative oral history of the evolution of country music recording. Few books have delved into the role that record producers have played in country music, and fewer still have allowed the record producers themselves to talk about the nuances of their recording processes in such revealing and fascinating detail."—Paul Kingsbury, editor of The Encyclopedia of Country Music and Will the Circle Be Unbroken
"Michael Jarrett's large body of interviews with producers from the country music field is an extremely valuable addition to music history. The large scope of the book—including producers of archival country anthologies (i.e., the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers), to classic country and western of the '40 and'60s, to mainstream country from the '70s to today, to Americana/alternative country (including 1950s rockabilly and the 1960s-70s hybrid of country soul)—makes it an important tool for understanding the creation of some of C&W's classic records by its most outstanding artists. In addition, Producing Country provides evidence of the wide scope of country music, its changes in sounds and musical impact over nearly 90 years. Quite an achievement!""—Holly George-Warren, author of Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry
"Jarrett's study opens the sound-proofed door of the control room where the pilots, chariot drivers, overseers—whatever you call them—steered the recording sessions that defined popular music. It's an impressive gathering of producers that unlocks the secrets of making records.""—Michael Streissguth, author of Outlaw: Waylon, Willie, Kris and the Renegades of Nashville
"This is a very readable and informative oral history of the evolution of country music recording. Few books have delved into the role that record producers have played in country music, and fewer still have allowed the record producers themselves to talk about the nuances of their recording processes in such revealing and fascinating detail."—Paul Kingsbury, editor of The Encyclopedia of Country Music and Will the Circle Be Unbroken
“Jarrett’s study opens the sound-proofed door of the control room where the pilots, chariot drivers, overseers—whatever you call them—steered the recording sessions that defined popular music. It’s an impressive gathering of producers that unlocks the secrets of making records.”