NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Welcome to The Nashville Dispatch, a new feature starting this week on NRI NOW.
The Nashville Dispatch will be a monthly column submitted by Burrillville native Keith Bradford, host of Ya Gotta Love It, a country music show on NBRN based in Nashville, Tenn.
Bradford will cover topics in the music business designed to inform, entertain, and enlighten people interested the topic, particularly in the country genre. Also a singer and song writer, Bradford is the owner and operator of KMA Records in Nashville and brings more than 60 years of industry knowledge to the endeavor.
Do you have questions about the music business? Have a topic or artist you’d like Keith to discuss? Send your questions and requests to keith@nbrnonline.com.
Where is the Nashville Sound?
There was a time when everyone thought that if you wanted to make a good Country record, you had to go to Nashville. All aspiring singers as well as established acts wanted the Nashville Sound. Now we advance the timeline, and everyone is asking “Where is the Nashville Sound?”
Many people are saying that Nashville turned its back on Country Music. Oh really? Did Nashville turn its back on Country Music or did Country Music turn its back on Nashville? When you listen to main stream Country radio, the DJ doesn’t say which songs were recorded in Nashville and which ones were not. Great Country records are being produced from all over the globe. Muscle Shoals, Australia, Canada, New York, and of course Texas are just a few places where great Country records are given birth.
The geographical location of a recording studio no longer has much bearing on the quality of the sound of a Country Music record.
I like to give as an example the young spoiled rich kid, whose parents buys him a half a million dollar audio mixing board. The kid next door has equipment worth less than $500 in total assets. They both produce a, “finished mix” on a song. The kid that mixed the song with bare bones equipment ends up with a recording worthy of playing on the radio, while the rich kid, even with the help of the latest technology, ends up with a recording that sounds horrible.
You get the point, I hope. It doesn’t matter where the recording is done. What matters is the sound of the finished product that comes out of the location. Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t expect anyone to produce a project inside a chicken coop in Rhode Island, and then title it, “Nashville Sounds from Rhode Island.”
The Music Business…
Ya Gotta Luv It.
