The Nashville Cats
Both part and product of the dynamic Nashville music scene of the late 1960s, the Nashville Cats exhibited a multitude of talents. Their ranks ranged from veteran guitar pickers and Grand Ole Opry legends to pioneer multi-instrumentalists and Muscle Shoals rhythm players. Starting with the easy-going and creative sessions for Bob Dylan's Nashville albums, the Nashville Cats went on to work with a vast cross-section of the recording industry. The Cats' prowess and efficiency revived Nashville as an in-demand music hub, and the hits they played on defined the country and rock genres for many years afterward.
Buddy Spicher
As a band musician, Buddy Spicher toured with Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, the Osborne Brothers, Ray Price, Hank Snow, and Faron Young. In the studio, he recorded with hundreds of country artists, including Country Music Hall of Fame members Waylon Jennings, George Jones, Roger Miller, Charley Pride, Marty Robbins, Bob Wills, and many others.
Norbert Putnam
Norbert Putnam started his career in his teens recording with soul singer Arthur Alexander at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. After moving to Nashville, Putnam recorded often with Elvis Presley, and other sessions varied from country stars Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and Dottie West, to pop and rock recordings with Jimmy Buffett, Bobby Goldsboro, Michael Nesmith, Linda Ronstadt, and many others.
Hargus "Pig" Robbins
After succeeding Floyd Cramer as Music Row's most prominent session keyboardist in the 1960s, Robbins created several of the most storied piano parts in country music history.
Jerry Reed
Jerry Reed was championed by legendary guitarist-producer Chet Atkins, who incorporated some of Reed's advances into his own style. Reed's songs were cut by Atkins, Johnny Cash, Nat King Cole, Tom Jones, Brenda Lee, and Elvis Presley. As a guitarist, Reed played on hits by John Hartford, Homer & Jethro, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and many others.
When Bob Dylan engaged Nashville musicians to craft a series of landmark albums, and when Johnny Cash brought rock, pop, and folk to town to appear on his groundbreaking TV show, they initiated a blending of musical genres that has echoed down through generations. After Dylan and Cash showed the way, acoustic instruments and country-flavored arrangements began surfacing in music made across America, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Today, Nashville's music community includes internationally recognized rockers, pop hitmakers, singer-songwriters of every flavor, and an Americana movement that provides a vision of roots music different from the one created on Music Row.