Chet Atkins’s instrumental skills and performing experience led directly to his work as producer and recording executive, first as assistant to RCA country recording director Steve Sholes in the 1950s and eventually as head of the label’s Nashville operation. In these positions Atkins nurtured the careers of numerous RCA acts and became a principal architect of the country-pop Nashville Sound, which enlarged country music’s audience during a time of tumultuous changes in American music and media. Along with Owen Bradley and a handful of other producers, Atkins brought country music to new levels of popularity and respect while helping to build a broadcasting infrastructure that would support stylistically diverse artists in the decades that followed.