Owen Bradley

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

William Owen Bradley was an American musician, bandleader and producer, born on 21 October 1915 in Westmoreland, Tennessee, and died on 7 January 1998. Together with Chet Atkins, Bob Ferguson, Bill Porter and Don Law he was one of the most important builders of the Nashville sound in the country and rockabilly of the 1950s and 1960s. In 1935 he got a job at radio station WSM, home of the Grand Ole Opry, and in 1942 he became its music director.

Music and breakthrough

In 1947 the country division of Decca brought him in as an arranger and songwriter. He produced Red Foley's hit Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy from 1950 and Kitty Wells' It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels from 1952. In 1954, together with his brother Harold, he built the first studio of what would later become Music Row, in a house in Nashville. Later it became known as the Quonset hut studio. In 1958 he succeeded Paul Cohen as head of Decca in Nashville and began what would come to be called the Nashville sound.

Influence

Until then country had been seen as simple and folksy. Bradley and his team of hand-picked musicians, known as the A-Team, gave the melodies more refined lyrics and a polished pop sound. Bradley said that they had left out the fiddle and the steel guitar and added choruses. The singers he produced, such as Kitty Wells, Patsy Cline, Brenda Lee, Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty, became household names, and rock 'n' roll singers such as Buddy Holly and Gene Vincent also recorded with him.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1956Organ and Chimes
• 1961All the Way