Rock: Nashville 1950s Overview

Rarely has a section of the pop market been as completely dominated by the major companies as country music was during the 1950s. Only five companies—RCA, Decca, Columbia, Capitol, and MGM—reached the top spot on the best-seller charts until independent Cadence claimed it for seven weeks at the end of 1957 with the Everly Brothers’ “Bye Bye Love.”

Nashville, Tennessee, was the commercial centre of the mid-South, dominated by banks, insurance companies, and a handful of specialist country-music publishing companies, including Acuff-Rose, Peer-Southern, Tree, and the Nashville office of Hill and Range, which employed full-time writers to provide new songs for the major labels to record and promote. Although many singers employed their own touring musicians to help define their sound, Nashville-based producers invariably preferred the city’s pool of studio musicians when it came time to record. Sessions were quicker and more efficient, but the result was a formulaic sound that normally had little impact beyond the country market.

This approach was challenged when Elvis Presley recorded “Heartbreak Hotel” with his own trio, augmented by pianist Floyd Cramer and a four-man vocal group, under the supervision of Chet Atkins at RCA’s Nashville studio in January 1956. It did not sound much like any previous country record, and its worldwide success led to a redefinition of what could be done in Nashville. Presley only occasionally returned to record there, preferring New York City or Los Angeles, but during the next few years the Everly Brothers, Brenda Lee, Marty Robbins, and Johnny Cash were among the many Southern singers who made records in Nashville that broke through the fences into the world of pop.