Musical Branding, Artist Identity, and the Nashville Sound

Abstract Many writers have treated the Nashville Sound as a single, monolithic style characterized by smooth background vocals, reverberant lead vocals, and sparing instrumental accompaniments. Yet, in a 1991 interview, prolific Nashville session guitarist Harold Bradley observed that “[w]hen people say the Nashville Sound, you know, singularly, I think they’re wrong, because it should be plural. Everybody that’s heavy has had their sound. . . .” Drawing upon Mark Samples’s (2012) work on musical branding, this chapter examines the ways that record producers, session musicians, and recording artists used the musical resources of Nashville’s recording studios to develop signature sounds that helped listeners identify their favorite singers on recordings and radio. Moreover, building upon recent work on the development of all-country radio during the 1960s, this chapter argues that musical brands may have played an essential role in maintaining listener attention, thereby ensuring the success of the new format.