TK 50 TK

Next March, The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will open an exhibition titled

Dylan, Cash and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City. As students of popular music may know, Bob Dylan—arguably the single most important pop figure since Elvis Presley—came to Nashville in 1966 to record his epochal Blonde on Blonde album with producer Bob Johnston. In the wake of Dylan’s Nashville sessions, Dylan-influenced singers and songwriters began coming to town to record with the city’s famed session players. In a way, the post-Dylan era in Nashville was an example of pop’s circularity, since Dylan had drawn inspiration from folk, country and pop—the very musics that Nashville had been churning out since the early 1950s.

It was indeed a rich era in Nashville music, and I’ve put together a list of 50 albums cut in Music City U.S.A. between 1966 and 2008, with most released between ‘66 and 1981. Some of these are famous, some are perhaps infamous, and all are worth your attention—I've striven to ignore obscurity for its own sake. In many cases, Dylan’s influence is obvious—if you were a singer-songwriter in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Dylan was the lodestar. But I think that Nashville was, and is, a special case. While rock ‘n’ roll dominated the ‘60s, country music took a different path.

I interviewed a few of the musicians who helped shape the post-Dylan era in Nashville. You'll see their observations on the processes of recording in Nashville as you go down the list. I got a chance to talk to some of my musical heroes (and yes, heroines) to put together this snapshot of a musical sensibility.

So, here are 50 albums that illustrate what I call Nashville’s folk-country-pop cusp, cut in town or its environs. In some entries, I refer to a song or songs that we couldn't find video or music for, and I hope that will encourage you to seek out the original records. Have fun.

1. Moldy Goldies: Colonel Jubilation B. Johnston and His Mystic Knights and Street Singers Attack the Hits (Columbia, 1966)

After producer Bob Johnston finished Bob Dylan’s 1966 Blonde on Blonde, Johnston brought together Mac Gayden, Charlie McCoy, Kenneth Buttrey and others to cut a series of absurdist cover versions of tunes current in 1966, including Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.” As Johnston told me in 2012, “I had just done Dylan, and ‘Rainy Day Women’ and all that shit, and I thought, what a great thing, we'll use that band and get them all fucked up and take it sideways, and that's what we did.”

2. Gary Burton, Tennessee Firebird (RCA Victor, 1967)

An early example of avant-garde country-jazz fusion, Tennessee Firebird is richly textured, and the interplay between Charlie McCoy’s bluesy harmonica licks and the cool-jazz lines of vibraphonist Burton and saxophonist Steve Marcus makes “Walter L.” a great track on a fascinating album. As on Moldy Goldies, Dylan’s influence is omnipresent: the album features versions of his “I Want You” and “Just Like a Woman.”

3. Ian and Sylvia, Nashville (Vanguard, 1968)

Sylvia Tyson’s vibrato-laden vocals may be an acquired taste, but she did fine here with Dylan’s “This Wheel’s on Fire. ” The high-grade Music City backing of bassists Norbert Putnam and Bob Moore, along with Kenneth Buttrey’s sensitive drumming and the guitars of Jerry Reed, Fred Carter and Harold Bradley, make this a listenable folk-rock collection.

4. The Beau Brummels, Bradley’s Barn (Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, 1968/Rhino, 2011)

One of the American progenitors of power pop, The Beau Brummels cut this at Owen Bradley’s famous studio in Mt. Juliet with Norbert Putnam, guitarist Wayne Moss and other Nashville cats. The 2011 Rhino reissue includes outtakes and a 1968 interview with the band.

5. Moby Grape, Truly Fine Citizen (Columbia, 1969)

“Well, if it ain’t Moby Grape,” says a Southern-fried male voice in the radio ad for Truly Fine Citizen. Actually, it was barely Moby Grape: this Bob Johnston production was done with three of the original five members and bassist Bob Moore.

6. John Stewart, California Bloodlines (Capitol, 1969)

Producer Nick Venet brought former Kingston Trio member Stewart to Nashville to cut California Bloodlines with a brace of great session players. Among them was Nashville singer and songwriter John Buck Wilkin, who played rhythm guitar and sang background with his mother, country songwriting legend Marijohn Wilkin. “My mom was good friends with Nick Venet, and when he came to town with John Stewart, we got together in a motel room and worked out those parts,” Wilkin says. With Kenneth Buttrey and Norbert Putnam laying down a fat groove, the record peaks with “Never Goin’ Back,” during which Stewart namechecks all the musicians on the session.

7. Alexander “Skip” Spence, Oar (Columbia, 1969)

Recorded at Columbia Studios in Dec. 1968, Oar is the former Moby Grape guitarist and singer’s testament. Overdubbing all the instruments, Spence intoned such songs as “Broken Heart” and “Diana” with the sincerity of a man roasting a squirrel over a campfire.

8. Lawrence Reynolds, Jesus Is a Soul Man (Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, 1969)

“They say he's a square, that Jesus is nowhere/Jesus is a soul man, and I'm sure sold on him,” sang Alabama-born Reynolds on this gentle folk-rock album's title track. A 1969 hit single, “Jesus Is a Soul Man” was his shot at fame, though he also recorded for the Astro label. Reynolds died in 2000.

9. Dee Mullins, The Continuing Story (Plantation, 1969)

This list mostly avoids straight country, but the work of Texas-born Mullins exemplifies how country attempted to address late-’60s social problems. Dylan himself could not have improved upon Mullins’ incredible “California, the Promise Land,” which found the narrator and his father in deep trouble in the land of sunshine and oranges.

UNABLE TO FIND

10. Mother Earth, Make a Joyful Noise (Mercury, 1969)

Vocalists Tracy Nelson, R.P. St. John Jr. and Ronald Stallings sing the heck out of the group’s original material and Allen Toussaint’s “What Are You Trying to Do” and “Wait, Wait,Wait.” Professional songwriting gives way here to more idiosyncratic expression: St. John’s surrealistic “The Fly” and “Then I’ll Be Moving On” are masterpieces.

UNABLE TO FIND

11. Area Code 615, Trip in the Country (Polydor, 1970)

This record is notable for its most famous track, “Stone Fox Chase,” a country-funk instrumental that was later used as the theme for the British Broadcasting Corporation’s pop-music television show, The Old Grey Whistle Test. (It also inspired the name of Nashville music venue The Stone Fox.) The group played San Francisco’s famed Fillmore West in 1970: “We were probably the only band to play The Fillmore with music stands so we could glance down and see what the chords were,” says the group's bassist, Norbert Putnam.

12. Rob Galbraith, Nashville Dirt (Columbia, 1970)

Galbraith worked as an A&R person for Columbia Records, and cut Nashville Dirt after producer Billy Sherrill heard one of his funky, soul-inflected originals. Galbraith’s relaxed vocals combine with his distinctive rhythm-guitar licks and session bassist Henry Strzelecki’s fat lines.

13. Dennis Linde, Linde Manor (Intrepid/Mercury, 1970)

Today, the Texas-born Linde is probably best known for writing such hits as “Burning Love,” definitively recorded by Elvis Presley. But Linde, who died in 2006, was Nashville’s equivalent to Todd Rundgren—an experimental pop musician. Produced by Jerry Kennedy and Billy Swan at Wayne Moss’ Cinderella Studios, Linde Manor features horn arrangements by Bergen White. DJ Shadow sampled the title track on his 1996 trip-hop full-length, Endtroducing.

14. Great Speckled Bird, Great Speckled Bird (Ampex, 1970)

Moderately famous as Todd Rundgren’s first production credit, Great Speckled Bird was a Nashville version of the kind of folk-rock Fairport Convention was making at the same time. “Rio Grande” was about a cocaine bust, while “Smiling Wine” was straight country.

15. Bergen White, For Women Only (SSS International. 1970/Rev-Ola, 2004)

In his long, distinguished career, Bergen White has been an arranger and nonpareil background singer. He was a member of Ronny and the Daytonas, whose John Buck Wilkin-penned “G.T.O.” made the pop charts in 1964. Cut at Cinderella Studios, For Women Only is a soft-pop album in the mode of Bread or The Sandpipers.

16. Bergen White, Finale (Private Stock, 1975)

Finale is the only unreleased record on the list, though Private Stock did issue some singles from the sessions that produced it. His version of Dennis Linde and Briane Clarke’s “She Won’t Let You Down” is great power pop. Linde also wrote the amazing finale to Finale, “Lookout Mountain,” a pseudo-Appalachian folk-country-pop song about Confederates and Yankees fighting in 1863.

UNABLE TO FIND

17. John Buck Wilkin, In Search of Food, Clothing, Shelter and Sex (Liberty, 1970)

After hitting as singer and writer of Ronny and the Daytonas’ “G.T.O.,” Wilkin created a chamber-pop album of exceptional beauty. In Search of Food demonstrates how a Nashville-bred musician referenced the rock culture of 1970—”Apartment Twenty-One” mentions listening to The Rolling Stones.

18. John Buck Wilkin, Buck Wilkin (United Artists, 1971)

Wilkin’s second solo album was recorded at Cinderella Studios and Columbia Studio A. Wilkin looks at stardom on “Down on Music Row” and fuses British Invasion-style performance and American art song on the amazing“Star Spangled Girl.” The LP’s cover images were shot at Percy Warner Park.

UNABLE TO FIND

19. Riley, Grandma’s Roadhouse (Mo-Fok 1971/Delmore Recording Society 2010)

Another record cut at Owen Bradley’s Mt. Juliet studio, Grandma’s Roadhouse is country-rock fusion at its most compelling. North Carolina native Riley Watkins had met future country singer Gary Stewart in Florida, and Stewart played in Watkins’ band before making the move to Nashville. Grandma’s Roadhouse features Stewart singing the hard country of “Drinkin’ Them Squeezins,” but it’s mostly Creedence Clearwater Revival-style country-rock.

20. Tom Ghent, Yankee’s Rebel Son (Kapp, 1971)

After starting Quadrafonic Sound Studios in 1970, session bassist and record producer Norbert Putnam and keyboardist David Briggs cut this record, with Putnam at the helm. Country star Nat Stuckey had already taken Ghent’s “Whiskey Whiskey” into the charts, and Yankee’s Rebel Son combined soul grooves with horns, organ and harmonica. “Follow It All the Way Down” was a great BTO-style boogie, while “Monroe Girl” found Ghent searching for a woman who had “no phone in her home.”

21. Dianne Davidson, Backwoods Woman (Janus, 1972)

From West Tennessee, Davidson did a soulful rendition of Alex Harvey and Larry Collins’ “Delta Dawn” on this record, and Mac Gayden added sensitive bottleneck-guitar accompaniment. She also shone on her own “Appalachian Boy,” which featured Weldon Myrick’s pedal-steel licks.

22. Eric Andersen, Blue River (Columbia, 1972)

After Norbert Putnam produced Joan Baez’ 1971 million-selling Blessed Are at Quadrafonic Sound Studios, Columbia Records president Clive Davis flew Putnam to New York. “He said, ‘Look, kid, I want you to produce all the folkies on CBS,’” says Putnam of his meeting with Davis. “I said, ‘Clive, I’m from Muscle Shoals, and I’d really rather do black singers.’” Davis was persuasive, and Putnam produced Blue River, a folk-pop album that established Andersen’s reputation.

23. Buffy Sainte-Marie, Moonshot (Vanguard, 1972)

Another Norbert Putnam production, Moonshot gave Sainte-Marie her only top 40 hit, a version of Townes Van Zandt and Mickey Newbury’s “Mister Can’t You See.”

24. Dan Fogelberg, Home Free (Columbia, 1972)

Once again, Putnam gave a folk-pop musician an appealing Nashville veneer on Home Free. Not a hit at the time of its release, it has grown in stature over the years, and Fogelberg’s subsequent work with Putnam would establish the folk-country-pop synthesis that helped to set the tone for the '70s.

25. Bob Frank, Bob Frank (Vanguard 1972/ Light in the Attic 2014)

From Memphis, Frank briefly attended Vanderbilt University before cutting this self-titled record with producer Cletus Haegert and a troupe of session cats that included Charlie McCoy. Bob Frank is remarkable for its unsentimental tone—”She Pawned Her Diamonds for Gold” and the astounding “Judas Iscariot” are the work of a great humorist.

26. Jubal, Jubal (Elektra, 1972)

In the early ‘70s, rock groups were expected to be both rootsy and eclectic, and Jubal fit the bill. Nashville songwriters and singers Rob Galbraith and Dennis Linde contributed songs, while drummer Randy Cullers, guitarist Alan Rush and vocalist Terry Dearmore added pop-rock elements. Dearmore's “Really Not a Rocker,” is a dead ringer for a power-pop track released by Memphis’ Ardent Records at the same time.

UNABLE TO FIND

27. Earl Richards, The Sun Is Shining (On Everybody but Me) (Ace of Hearts, 1973)

While the rest of the pop world was imitating Dylan, Nashville country musicians kept doing their things. Still, The Sun Is Shining reflected some of the changes that had occurred since 1966. “Walking in Teardrops” is essentially Southern rock, while “Mother Nature’s Daughter” begins and ends with a New Orleans piano lick.

28. Bill Wilson, Ever Changing Minstrel (Windfall/Columbia, 1973; Tompkins Square, 2012)

Indiana native Wilson came to Nashville in early 1973 to work with producer Bob Johnston. Cut with a band that included Mac Gayden, Charlie McCoy and guitarist Charlie Daniels, Ever Changing Minstrel is the Nashville studio system at work—a Dylan fan like everyone else, Wilson wrote songs that reflected a hardscrabble existence, and the band backed him flawlessly.

29. Paul Kelly, Don’t Burn Me (Warner Bros. 1973)

The Florida-born Kelly had scored with 1970‘s “Stealing in the Name of the Lord,” a hit single about the hypocrisy of church leaders. He cut this fine, restrained soul album with producer Buddy Killen and a brace of session players that included Reggie Young.

30. Toni Brown and Terry Garthwaite, Cross-Country (Capitol, 1973)

Recorded at Cinderella Studios in Oct. 1972, Cross-Country features pioneering female rockers in country mode. After cutting three albums as Joy of Cooking, keyboardist Brown and singer Garthwaite traveled to Nashville from their California homes to work with a crew that included bassist Dennis Linde, fiddler Vassar Clements and the ubiquitous Charlie McCoy. “I’ll never forget it—the first time when we laid down tracks, they were just calling out the chord changes,” says Brown, who now lives in Northern California. “They didn’t have any charts or anything. I was like, ‘OK, these guys know everything.’” They created pop-country fusion in songs such as Garthwaite’s “When All Is Said” and Linde’s “I Don’t Want Nobody (‘Ceptin’ You),” which Linde had recorded on his 1970 Linde Manor.

31. Toni Brown, Good for You Too (MCA, 1974)

After cutting Cross-Country, Brown went to Chip Young’s Murfreesboro studio and made a subtle country-pop record. “This was really much funkier,” Brown says of the musicians who played on her second Nashville record. It should have been, since Tommy Cogbill, Reggie Young and Jerry Carrigan added Memphis-to-Nashville grit to such material as Brown’s “Big Trout River,” a song about how families can’t always get along.

32. Bonnie Koloc, You’re Gonna Love Yourself in the Morning (Ovation, 1974)

Another record cut at Quadrafonic Sound Studios, You’re Gonna Love Yourself in the Morning should have been the Iowa-born singer’s breakthrough. Koloc had already cut a series of albums, and came to Nashville at the behest of her label. “I really needed a hit, so the president of Ovation decided that we should go to Nashville,” says Koloc, who now lives in Decorah, Ia. “They found [producer] David Briggs, and he really knew what he was doing. He was the first one who made the record for my voice.” Koloc’s version of Donnie Fritts’ title track and her own “Roll Me on the Water” are now considered classics.

ONLY FOUND RECENT LIVE VIDEO

33. Jack Nitzsche, Jack Nitzsche/Three Piece Suite (Reprise 1974/Rhino 2003)

Originally set for 1974 release on Reprise Records, Jack Nitzsche was shelved until its release on a limited-edition CD almost 30 years later. Cut at Cinderella Studios, Nitzsche’s solo record featured the former Phil Spector associate and master arranger and producer in Beach Boys mode. The Rhino set includes 1972 demos Nitzsche cut at Quadrafonic, including the incredible “Carly,” about Carly Simon.

UNABLE TO FIND

34. The Country Cavaleers, Presenting the Country Cavaleers (JBJ, 1974)

This is the most obscure album and group on the list. For more on the long-haired, anti-drug, pro-Jesus Country Cavaleers, see my 2014 Perfect Sound Forever article, interview and discography. Suffice to say, this Florida-bred duo pushed the limits of Beatles-influenced country-pop on Presenting, which was apparently made to sell at their shows. Presenting’s songs are weird country-meets-Hard Day’s Night hybrids, and “Turn on to Jesus” is Jesus-rock done Everly-Brothers’ style.

35.

UNABLE TO FIND

35. James Talley, Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, but We Sure Got a Lot of Love (Capitol, 1975)

This record has an immense reputation, and it’s deserved. The Oklahoma-born Talley wrote narratives that described hard times and disaster—”Give Him Another Bottle” is about a man who has lost everything—but the Western Swing-inflected music eased the pain without cheapening his insights.

36. Larry Jon Wilson, New Beginnings (Monument, 1975)

Produced by Rob Galbraith and Bruce Dees, New Beginnings described the travails of being a liberal Southerner in the ‘70s better than perhaps any other record ever made in Nashville. From Augusta, Ga., Wilson wrote about his Southern heritage and the way the outside world—including New York taxi-drivers—failed to understand it.

37. Larry Hosford, A.k.a. Lorenzo (Shelter, 1977)

California singer-songwriter Larry Hosford cut 1976's Cross Words with a group of musicians that included Leon Russell, George Harrison and Moby Grape guitarist Jerry Miller. Hosford recorded part of Cross Words at Mt. Juliet’s Bradley’s Barn with guitarist Billy Sanford, bassists Bob Moore and Tommy Cogbill, and drummer Buddy Harman. The followup, A.k.a. Lorenzo, used some of the same musicians at Bradley’s Barn. Hosford’s vocals harked back to the ‘50s and Homer and Jethro.

UNABLE TO FIND

38. Billy Swan, I Can Help (Monument, 1974)

If anyone on this list exemplifies what made Nashville music great in the ‘70s, it’s Billy Swan. He was the Music City equivalent of Nick Lowe or Ian Gomm—a performer whose subversive tendencies were masked by a seemingly bland exterior. If you haven’t heard Swan’s epochal Sun Records-style title single and its teasing Reggie Young guitar intro by now, I suggest you take a listen immediately.

39. Billy Swan, Billy Swan (Monument, 1976)

Billy Swan is pure pop for now people, Nashville style. Cut at producer Chip Young’s Murfreesboro studio, it’s a masterpiece of absurdist rock ‘n’ roll. As critic Robert Christgau wrote in his review of the record, “The well-meaning optimism and the insecure persona mesh perfectly, and the tunes are pleasurable throughout, whether he stole them from the Sun catalogue or wrote them himself.”

???

40. Steve Young, Renegade Picker (RCA, 1976)

Although he may be best known for writing “Seven Bridges Road”—the song has been cut by such luminaries as Iain Matthews, The Eagles and Mother Earth—Young recorded this superb country-rock album with Mac Gayden, bassist Michael Leech and steel-guitar virtuoso Buddy Emmons, among others.

41. Mac Gayden, Skyboat (ABC, 1976)

The great Nashville-born guitarist cut his 1972 McGavock Gayden with Bob Johnston, but it has never been released in the United States. Skyboat shows off Gayden’s ability to be both accessible and experimental—the 10-minute “Diamond Mandala” is sort of the Nashville equivalent of a Popul Vuh record from the same time.

42. Jack Clement, All I Want to Do in Life (Elektra, 1978)

No list of Nashville records would be complete without this album by one of the city’s most notable musicians. A masterful songwriter, singer and guitarist, Cowboy Jack Clement was also a futuristic conceptualist, and he anticipated the style of current outlaw country singer Sturgill Simpson on the record‘s“We Must Believe in Magic.” After a long, distinguished career, Clement died in 2013.

43. Scooter Lee, A Louisiana Lady (no label, 1979)

Another obscurity, produced by Porter Wagoner. Drummer Jerry Carrigan, steel guitarist Weldon Myrick and pianist Hargus Robbins sound at home with disco on “Ain’t No Need to Rush the Feeling” and “You Don’t Have to Go out Looking Any More.” Copies of this LP go for over $100 these days, but I found it in Nashville for 99 cents.

UNABLE TO FIND

44. Chance, In Search (Macho, 1981/Paradise of Bachelors, 2013)

The greatest record ever made in Nashville by a former cue-card man for Johnny Cash, In Search is full of frustration. Chance Martin’s liner notes for the 2013 reissue are as entertaining as the record—maybe more, though I like the degraded Average White Band-style funk of “Son of Gunn.”

UNABLE TO FIND

45. Swamp Dogg, The Mercury Record (1981)

Soul singer, songwriter and producer Jerry Williams Jr. had already contributed to country history with his “She’s All I Got,” which both Nashville-born singer Freddie North and country outlaw Johnny Paycheck had taken into the charts in 1971. As Swamp Dogg, Williams cut a 1981 country record in Music City that remained unreleased until Williams included it on 2007‘s The Excellent Sides of Swamp Dogg, Vol. 5.

UNABLE TO FIND

46. Joe Simon, Glad You Came My Way (Posse, 1981)

Porter Wagoner’s production of this disco album adds strings, horns and background singer’s to Simon’s sensuous voice. Bassists Paul Uhrig and Tommy Cogbill anchor the arrangements, and “All Over Me” is prime disco-funk.

47. White Animals, Ecstasy (Dread Beat, 1984)

As I mentioned in my introduction, this list mostly covers 1966 through 1981. I’m not sure what to say about Nashville’s version of New Wave music, but White Animals may have been the best Music City rock band of the ‘80s.

48. Fognode, Beat Hollow (Infrasound Collective 2001/Beat Hollow 2014)

Recorded by North Carolina-born drummer and sound manipulator Brian Siskind, Beat Hollow is a trip-hop influenced record combining pastoral guitar and pedal steel with washes of ambient sound. To my ears, it’s an abstract version of the music Nashville had turned out in the '60s and '70s.

49. Lone Official, Tuckassee Take (Honest Jon’s, 2006)

The greatest record ever made in Nashville about horse racing, Tuckassee Take combines the approaches of Pavement-influenced indie-rock and old-time Music City practices. Matt Button’s songwriting may have been influenced by Dylan’s or Lou Reed’s or Stephen Malkmus’, but the record’s beautiful pedal-steel and guitar textures said what his words couldn’t, or wouldn’t.

UNABLE TO FIND

50. Silver Jews, Lookout Mountain (Lookout Sea, Drag City, 2008)

The last record on the list is about words, not music, though the headlong rush of the guitars and drums seems appropriate for its fragmented message. Songwriter and singer David Berman proved himself a lyricist worthy of comparison with Dylan, but the music harked back to The Velvet Underground.