The Nashville Sound: Bright Lights and Country Music

by Paul Hemphill, Don Cusic (Foreword by)

Overview

While on a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, journalist and novelist Paul Hemphill wrote of that pivotal moment in the late sixties when traditional defenders of the hillbilly roots of country music were confronted by the new influences and business realities of pop music. The demimonde of the traditional Nashville venues (Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, Robert’s Western World, and the Ryman Auditorium) and first-wave artists (Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, and Lefty Frizzell) are shown coming into first contact, if not conflict, with a new wave of pop-influenced and business savvy country performers (Jeannie C. “Harper Valley PTA” Riley, Johnny Ryles, and Glen Campbell) and rock performers (Bob Dylan, Gram Parsons, the Byrds, and the Grateful Dead) as they took the form well beyond Music City. Originally published in 1970, The Nashville Sound shows the resulting identity crisis as a fascinating, even poignant, moment in country music and entertainment history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820348636
Publisher:	University of Georgia Press
Publication date:	04/15/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	296
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

PAUL HEMPHILL (1936–2009) was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and attended Auburn and Harvard Universities. In addition to long work as a sportswriter and columnist at the Atlanta Journal, he was the author of several collections of journalism, novels, and memoirs, including, among others, Too Old to Cry, King of the Road, and Leaving Birmingham: Notes of a Native Son. Hemphill returned to country music in 2005 with Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams. Hemphill served on the faculties of Emory University, Brenau University, and the University of Georgia, where he taught writing.

Table of Contents

Foreword to the 2015 Edition 5

Preface 11

Prologue: Friday Night at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge 15

Part 1 Hillbilly Heaven 25

Music City, U.S.A. 27

A&R Session with Chet Atkins 47

The Nashville Sound 55

Session at Bradley's Barn 73

Making It 81

John Wesley Ryles, I 103

Part 2 White Soul 113

Days of Innocence 115

Sunday in Tate City 123

Days of Change 131

Home on the Range with Tex Ritter 141

Days of Dollars 151

A Shoeshine from DeFord Bailey 161

Part 3 Spreading the Word 169

Going Public 171

The Billy Dilworth Show 189

Nashville West 205

Glen Campbell 223

The Future 235

On the Road with the Po' Boys 243

Epilogue: Saturday Night at the Opry 263

Index 281

Editorial Reviews

To say Hemphill is writing about country music is like saying Hemingway wrote about boxers and fisherman. What Hemphill writes about is America, and he has done it here with the incisive feel and the fine sure language and that very special knack of keeping his subject alive in print that so many of us strive for but so few of us achieve. A damned fine reading experience.

Life magazine - Joe McGinnis

From the first words of its preface—spent submerged in the smoky haze of Tootsie’s on a rowdy Friday night thick with booze and the kinds of aspirations that Music City can both foster and crush—The Nashville Sound is nothing short of captivating and essential to understanding the genre, whatever its boundaries may have been, or will be."

Chapter 16 - Steve Haruch

It’s the first ‘real’ book written about our music. The people, the songs, the places, all come to life in these pages.

Bill Anderson

A marvelously honest look at music that deals with what people—real, live truck-driving, factory-working, beer-drinking people—feel about life.

Louisville Times

A first-rate book . . . that reads as smoothly and sparklingly as a bluegrass breakdown.

New York Times - Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

All these years later, the Prologue [‘Friday Night at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge’] reads as though it happened last night.

Country Music magazine

The best book ever written about country music.

Chicago Sun-Times

A rich, raw slice of American life.

|Los Angeles Times

A rich, raw slice of American life.

Los Angeles Times

The best book ever written about country music.

Chicago Sun-Times

“The best book ever written about country music.”—Chicago Sun-Times

“A first-rate book . . . that reads as smoothly and sparklingly as a bluegrass breakdown.”—Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times

“All these years later, the Prologue [‘Friday Night at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge’] reads as though it happened last night.”—Country Music magazine

“A rich, raw slice of American life.”—Los Angeles Times

“It’s the first ‘real’ book written about our music. The people, the songs, the places, all come to life in these pages.”—Bill Anderson, singer, songwriter, and Grand Ole Opry star

“To say Hemphill is writing about country music is like saying Hemingway wrote about boxers and fisherman. What Hemphill writes about is America, and he has done it here with the incisive feel and the fine sure language and that very special knack of keeping his subject alive in print that so many of us strive for but so few of us achieve. A damned fine reading experience.”—Joe McGinnis, Life magazine

“Anyone ever exposed to country music—which means nearly everyone—will go for the book the way Uncle Joe goes for bacon and grits.”—Publishers Weekly

“A marvelously honest look at music that deals with what people—real, live truck-driving, factory-working, beer-drinking people—feel about life.”—Louisville Times

From the Publisher