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. Steel guitars, fiddles, and flat-top guitars graced recordings that crossed cultural, political, regional, and social boundaries.
PART 6
Today's Influences
Don’t Look Back
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. Steel guitars, fiddles, and flat-top guitars graced recordings that crossed cultural, political, regional, and social boundaries.
From the Eagles to the Rolling Stones, and from Emmylou Harris to Led Zeppelin, artists found fresh ways to draw on traditional influences. Eventually, genre-blending roots music provided part of the foundation for the Americana music movement.
The mix of imagination and craft forged in Nashville studios has proven as fertile as Tennessee farmland and as capable of finding new directions as a shifting river current.
Nashville’s New Morning
Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash changed the image of Nashville studio musicians and the city’s music scene. The two men also changed Nashville itself.
A generation of songwriters, taking inspiration from Dylan and Cash, but also from acolytes such as Kris Kristofferson and Mickey Newbury, pushed lyrics into new territory. Hot pickers moved to town, drawn by Nashville’s changing image.
Illustrations by Jon Langford
Clubs such as Exit/In and Bishop’s Pub became havens for musical adventurers, setting the stage for future institutions such as the Bluebird Cafe and the Station Inn.
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.
The Nashville skyline keeps growing, and the brightest lights draw inspiration from the groundbreaking work of the crew of Nashville Cats who expanded the image and meaning of Music City USA.