Friday, November 2, 2012
Moving Pictures Golden Nugget: Nashville: Music Row 1978 Historic Film
Posted by Adam Gold on Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 3:00 PM
In 1978, bands like Joy Division and Siouxsie and the Banshees were on the cutting edge of music and pop culture, gigging out at a London club called The Nashville Rooms, and The Clash was making Memphis-style pompadours look pretty fuckin’ cool. But if we’re to use, say, Robert Altman’s Nashville as a barometer, Music City wasn’t all that fashionable in the mid- to late '70s. You could just as easily make that case with the video above, a short documentary capturing Music Row circa 1978 that comes courtesy of the Historic Films Archive.
Just compare then-Nashville-residing top-Australian country singer Reg Lindsay’s pomade-slathered comb-over to current resident top-Australian country superstar Keith Urban’s expertly sculpted, two-toned coiffure. OK, bad example. Still, some things haven’t changed. Nashville still undoubtedly boasts competent guitar pickers by the thousands, and country music publishers are still the largest music publishers south of the Mason-Dixon Line — impressive seeing as how, in the better of the world, there is hardly a music industry left to speak of.
Also, I don’t care what anyone says, Don King (the songwriter, not the boxing promoter) is hip as shit, even if he’s no Joe Strummer in the cool department. King's featured prominently in this li'l nugget as well. Peep the clip to see Carter-era country crooner King cut a track in the studio, feast eyes and ears on rare footage of Roy Acuff on the Opry stage and catch a glimpse of an old-school Nashville skyline in a couple of swell establishing shots.
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