A vacation trip to see the World’s Fair in New York changed the orbit of popular music in Nashville. In August 1965, Nashville session player Charlie McCoy was in New York on that trip when Bob Johnston invited him to play acoustic guitar on a session he was producing for Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited” album.
The track was “Desolation Row,” the epic 11-minute song that closes Dylan’s sixth record. “Long song,” McCoy said with a laugh recently during an interview at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville. “There was nobody else playing fills but me. Later on Bob Johnston confessed to me, ‘I was using you as bait to get Dylan to come to Nashvillle.'”
The result is seen in “Dylan, Cash and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City,” a comprehensive exhibit that runs through Dec. 31, 2016, at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. In this exhibit, visitors learn how an initial interlude with rock musicians exposed Nashville’s rich vein of studio talent to a much broader audience and, in the process, made Nashville cool.
Chicago artist-musician Jon Langford (Mekons, Waco Brothers) contributed the exhibit’s artwork and aesthetic template.
Besides covering Dylan’s work in Nashville (debuting with “Blonde on Blonde,” followed by “John Wesley Harding,” “Nashville Skyline” and “Self Portrait”), the exhibit features the hip ABC television series “The Johnny Cash Show,” which aired on prime time from June 1969 to March 1971.
In February 1969, Cash and Dylan recorded more than a dozen duets in two days; one of them, “Girl From the North Country,” appeared on “Nashville Skyline.” Cash and Dylan also connected with the Nashville cats, the no-nonsense group of session players popularized in the 1966 Lovin’ Spoonful hit “Nashville Cats.”
The cats were led by future Country Music Hall of Fame member McCoy and included Charlie Daniels; Kenny Buttrey, McCoy’s former drummer in the Escorts; guitarist-producer Norbert Putnam; and many others.
Dylan showed up for the “Blonde on Blonde” sessions in March 1966. Recording had started in New York before Johnston moved it to Nashville with ringers Al Kooper (keyboards) and Robbie Robertson.
Dylan and the cats set up camp in Columbia Studio A, 34 Music Square East. Others who recorded there included Cash, Dusty Springfield and Patsy Cline. In 2014 the studio was restored and reopened through an estimated $10 million donation from the Curb Family Foundation, though it is not open to tours.
“We were booked at 2 p.m.” said McCoy, who played harmonica on the song “Obviously 5 Believers” on “Blonde on Blonde.” Dylan’s “flight was late. He came about 6 and said, ‘I haven’t finished writing the first song; you guys hang loose.’ We started at 4 in the morning with ‘Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,’ a 14-minute ballad. After that, Studio A became the home of some of these folk rock people. The great thing about Dylan is that it exploded the town. The ‘A’ team guys (The Nashville “A-Team” session players included Floyd Cramer on keyboards, Bob Moore on bass) were as full (with work) as they could get. They couldn’t do any more. All of a sudden there’s this new volume of recording. There became a need for a lot more players.
“The studios started springing up right and left.”
This is where “Dylan, Cash and the Nashville Cats” makes profound tracks.
For example, the exhibit pays homage to the outsiders Quadrafonic Studio, aka “The Quad,” where Steve Goodman’s self-titled 1971 debut album was recorded with Putnam and Kris Kristofferson. Quad co-owner Putnam produced the early hit records of Jimmy Buffett at the studio that also attracted Jerry Jeff Walker and J.J. Cale. “They built that studio, thinking they would be the home for hippie artists with their alternative lifestyle,” McCoy explained, “because smoking grass and all that was absolutely not allowed in mainstream studios here.
“Although I did not agree with it, I think David (Briggs, co-founder) and Norbert were smart in they let guys do what they want.”
Michael Gray, museum editor and co-curator of “Dylan, Cash and the Nashville Cats,” explained, “Perceptions of Nashville at that time (1966) from hipsters in New York and LA was of a small conservative country town that was out of step with what was happening with rock ‘n’ roll music in the late 1960s.”
Leonard Cohen came to Nashville from Canada, and Paul McCartney’s Wings hit Music City in 1974 to record the songs “Junior’s Farm” and “Sally G” at Buddy Killen’s Sound Shop studio. George Harrison recruited Nashville cat Pete Drake to play pedal steel on “All Things Must Pass” (1970), and Ringo Starr recorded 1970’s “Beaucoups of Blues” in Nashville. “People thought, ‘If Bob Dylan can make a masterpiece like ‘Blonde on Blonde’ in Nashville, maybe we should go there,'” Gray said. “Another thing Dylan did was that he actually named the musicians on album jackets. McCoy added, “There weren’t many people doing that back then.”
Connections were made, as illustrated by the Cash section of the exhibit. Gray reflected, “Neil Young came to Nashville to be on the Cash TV show and booked a session at Quadrafonic. He met Ben Keith, who was playing Dobro and pedal steel. Ben was with him for over 40 years. It wasn’t like Neil blew in, did one session and forgot about these guys.”
The exhibit incorporates nearly 100 audio samples, rare film clips and 50 artifacts that include McCoy’s modest 1970 datebook, showing notations for sessions for “Bob Dylan March 11 for ‘Self Portrait,'” “Charlie Louvin March 10” and a canceled March 9 Vernon Oxford session. No artist’s name is written in bigger letters than the others.
“Even after ‘Blonde on Blonde,’ Dylan wasn’t any more important than Don Gibson or Bill Anderson,” said McCoy, who played the harmonica on George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” A companion exhibit CD will be released June 16 and will include a previously unheard Dylan outtake of “If Not for You.”
Dylan used a Mahogany 1941 Martin guitar in the early 1960s, and that is on display, along with Charlie Daniels’ mid-1950s Fender Telecaster, deployed on Dylan’s “Nashville Skyline” and “Self Portrait.”
The Byrds’ 1968 album “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” introduced pedal steel guitar to rock audiences. Playing on that album was Lloyd Green, whose Show-Bud pedal steel guitar is in the exhibit, the first time it has been in a museum display. Green played the pedal steel in sessions cut at Columbia Studio A. The instrument was flown to Nashville from Texas on a private jet for the exhibit. “It’s one of the most important pedal steel guitars in country music history,” Gray said. “Not only did he play that on the Byrds record, he played it on Tammy Wynette’s ‘D-I-V-O-R-C-E,’ Charley Pride hits and thousands of sessions.”
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is open daily 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets are $24.95 for adults, $14.95 for ages 6-12, and free for 5 and under. Visit http://www.countrymusichalloffame.org for more info.
Hoekstra is a freelance reporter and host of “Nocturnal Journal With Dave Hoekstra” on WGN radio.
