Producing Country Analysis

Producing Country: The Inside Story of the Great Recordings. By Michael Jarrett. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2014. 287 pp (softcover). ISBN 978-0-8195-7464-0.
A Life on Nashville’s Music Row. By Bobby Braddock. Nashville, Tennessee: Country Music Foundation Press and Vanderbilt University Press, 2015. 375 pp (hardcover). ISBN 978-0-8265-2082-1.
Rhythm Makers: The Drumming Legends of Nashville in Their Own Words. By Tony Artimisi. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. 179 pp (hardcover). ISBN 978-1-4422-4011-7.

While the city of Nashville struggles with the opposing forces of rapid growth and a desire to preserve the sites of significance in the history of country and popular music, it is nice to see a concerted
Jarrett’s focus is a chronological oral history accounting of the art and act of record production. First, though, Jarrett offers many of the field’s most accomplished practitioners attempts to define the role of record producer, though the author remains silent and does not synthesize these voices into any kind of coherent single definition. This lack of a singular definition maybe the author’s intent after all. Jarrett then begins with many pre-war historical sessions highlighted by Ralph Peer’s Bristol sessions and Don Law’s Robert Johnson and Bob Wills recordings when the A&R man served as the recordings “producer.” While Jarrett does not access primary oral accountings, he finds very capable narrators in Don Law Jr, Chet Atkins, and Bob Irwin. Jarrett next ventures into the post war country honky tonk era when the records were still cut live. While mainstay country recordings by Kitty Wells, Hank Williams, Hank Snow, and Merle Travis are explored, Jarrett effectively argues for the inclusion of country-influenced recordings by Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, and Ray Charles. This effective methodology carries forward into the next two sections dealing with the multi-track and modern country music industry. Producing Country is an excellent walk through the history of not only country music recording but the craft of record production that can be read either from front to back or used as a reference book. However, it could have been even more effective with the inclusion of some discographical information, such as exact recording dates and studio names, as Jarrett points the reader to a reissue rather than the original recordings. Since these are one to two page narratives, a detailed bibliography of more thorough accountings of the producer and