Nashville sound (music)
The Nashville sound is a significant movement in popular music that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s as a response to the changing musical landscape, particularly the rise of rock and roll. Originating in Nashville, Tennessee—a city long recognized as a hub for country music—the Nashville sound sought to modernize traditional country music by incorporating elements from rock, jazz, and other genres. This transformation aimed to create a smoother, more polished style that would appeal to a broader audience.
Chet Atkins, a prominent musician and producer, is often credited as the key architect of the Nashville sound, working with influential record labels like RCA, Columbia, and Decca to innovate the genre. Artists such as Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, and Loretta Lynn adopted this new sound, which featured refined vocals, layered harmonies, and modern instrumentation, moving away from the traditional rough-hewn style of earlier country music. The Nashville sound not only revitalized the country genre but also attracted listeners who had gravitated toward rock music.
Despite its success, the Nashville sound began to wane by the late 1960s as critics noted its departure from pure country roots, leading to the development of the countrypolitan style. Nevertheless, the Nashville sound left a lasting legacy in American music, influencing future generations of musicians and shaping the evolution of country music.
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Nashville sound (music)
The Nashville sound was a movement in popular music that altered traditional country music in the 1950s and 1960s. Nashville, Tennessee, had long been a center for country music. That form of music spread widely across the country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, by the middle of the twentieth century, competing musical forms—most notably rock and roll—began to draw away country fans and recording revenue. The Nashville sound was a reaction to this change. It was intended to borrow elements of rock and roll, as well as jazz and other genres, to create a smoother, more modern, widely appealing style of country music.
Background
The city of Nashville, capital of Tennessee, has a long and colorful history. One aspect of its legacy often stands out from the rest. Many people today consider Nashville a hub of American music, particularly country music. This perception has deep roots, reaching back to the nineteenth century, although the exact details of its history are hard to determine, and some old, oft-told tales may be apocryphal. Some historians trace the musical legacy of Nashville back to its earliest European American settlers, most notably the famed woodsman Davy Crockett. Crockett was known for his enjoyment of music and his penchant for playing the fiddle.
A more concrete starting point for Nashville’s fame as the “Music City” may be a singing group from Nashville’s Fisk University, the Fisk Jubilee Singers. This group toured widely in the 1870s, at a time when the American South was rebuilding after the Civil War. The Fisk Singers performed many concerts to raise money to help formerly enslaved people in Nashville and beyond afford higher education. One legend has it that the singers, on an overseas performance in England, delighted Queen Victoria so much that she referred to their home city of Nashville as “Music City.”
Regardless of the origins of its musical reputation, by the turn of the twentieth century, Nashville had developed a thriving musical scene. Most of the musicians specialized in country music, a broad form of American music that began its development in the country’s early colonial days. Country music is known for its often simple design and melodies, played on instruments such as fiddles, steel guitars, and “honky-tonk” pianos. Singers with sometimes rough voices may tell stories about daily life and the traditional culture of the rural American South. Many examples of country music have a rollicking and humorous tone, though songs may also be melancholy, serious, or stirring.
Overview
Until the middle of the twentieth century, Nashville was the main hub of country music, which was a primary force in American sound. However, the 1950s began a sudden shift in America’s musical tastes. That decade saw the mainstream appearance of rock and roll, a musical form that combined many earlier traditions into a new sound. The popularity of rock and roll surged across the airwaves and the recording industry. Slots typically reserved for country artists were suddenly dominated by rockers.
Country music, known for its relaxed attitude and reliance on tradition, was faced with a major obstacle. As record sales dropped and the public’s attention waned, country artists and recording companies decided to update their sound to meet the changing world. The result has become known as the “Nashville sound.”
The birth of the modern Nashville sound is usually traced to the owners and artists of several major record labels headquartered in Nashville. Foremost among these labels were RCA, Columbia, and Decca Records. Artists working with these companies were encouraged to incorporate new elements into their traditional country sounds. For example, they sought to make their rough-hewn tunes smoother by taking hints from the rock and jazz playbooks. Some of the more old-fashioned instruments—such as honky-tonk pianos and the fiddle, which had been popular since the eighteenth century—took a lessened role in lieu of more modern setups, including layered vocals and highly polished string sections.
Some music historians give credit most specifically to Chet Atkins, a performer and producer signed to the RCA Victor label. Along with his forward-thinking sound engineer, Bill Porter, Atkins began producing music that sounded like country but also sounded new and different. He styled songs to better match the chart-topping pop songs of the day and assembled a house band to accompany performers that used more mainstream instruments and styles. Some of the many influential country artists who embraced the Nashville sound included Elvis Presley, Don Gibson, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynne, and Roy Orbison.
Whereas traditional country music was usually sung by one person, often in a rough and twangy style, this new Nashville sound featured smoother, more polished vocals with an increasingly crooner-like flare. They also frequently employed background vocalists to provide a deep and layered sound to recordings. Even recording processes saw modernization, with engineers inventing new methods of channeling and capturing the sounds of voices and instruments.
The more polished country style emerging from Nashville won over many traditional country fans and re-captured former fans who had strayed to new forms of music. The Nashville sound proved so popular, in fact, that it began to draw attention away from many rock and roll operations. In the 1950s and 1960s, several rock stars began mingling with the Nashville crowd, looking for new ways to create hit songs.
The original wave of Nashville sound began to lose influence in the late 1960s when many music fans began to feel it borrowed too heavily from other styles and lost its country roots. This resulted in a style known as countrypolitan. However, the Nashville sound made a great impact on American musical history and lent many new innovations to future generations of musicians, country and otherwise.
Bibliography
Duncan, Dayton, and Ken Burns. Country Music: An Illustrated History. Alfred A. Knopf, 2019.
Hemphill, Paul. The Nashville Sound: Bright Lights and Country Music. University of Georgia Press, 2015.
La Plante, Louis. “The Nashville Sound.” Evansville Living, 18 Aug. 2010, www.evansvilleliving.com/articles/the-nashville-sound. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.
Miller, Katie. “A Brief History of the Nashville Sound.” The Culture Trip, 7 Sept. 2016, theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/tennessee/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-nashville-sound. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.
Miller, Katie. “Why Is Nashville Called Music City?” The Culture Trip, 12 July 2017, theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/tennessee/articles/why-is-nashville-called-music-city. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.
“Musicology: The History of the Nashville Sound.” Mixdown, 5 Jan. 2022, mixdownmag.com.au/features/musicology-the-history-of-the-nashville-sound. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.
“Nashville Sound - Branches of Country Music.” PBS, www.pbs.org/kenburns/country-music/nashville-sound-branches-of-country-music. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.