Nashville's Unwritten Rules

[bill_h]

A lot's been said on this board about Chet as the Dean Of Nashville Record Producers and most certainly a lot has been said about Chet as Mr. Guitar but what about Chet's influence on the Nashville business model and Nashville's unwritten rules? For anything to work as well as Nashville's unwritten rules do Chet would have to have been involved to some extent in their evolution.

Gwynneth Paltrow was quoted as nearly as I casn recall that she "fell in love with the craft of lyric writing and the Nashville business model" while she was working on the movie "Country Strong." ( Or was "Country Strong" the name of the song and not the movie?)

I've always assumed that Chet had a lot to do with the evolution of Nashville's unwritten rules and the Nashville business model but don't know much in the way of specifics. Other than Owen Bradley I can't think of anyone who could have had as much influence on the Nashville business model. If anyone has any information on this topic I'd love to hear about it and i'm sure others would as well.

[Norm]

What are the "unwritten rules?"
If you leave that to speculation you get all kinds of "I know a guy who delivered milk to this big star and HE said yada yadayada..."

Chet and unwritten rules? Sponsoring Charlie Pride was definitely going against "unwritten rules" The Carters went up against unwritten rules (and downright dictatorship) when they refused to play the Opry if Nashville blocked Chet (which they tried to do)

Chet and Owen Bradley angered a lot of people by cutting back on pedal steel and fiddles in the sixties but it can be said they kept Nashville alive during the rock and roll onslaught.

Marty Robbins 'El Paso' crossed the unwritten rule of no song shall last longer than three minutes... that wasn't Chet but that was an unwritten rule for years.

Building Studio B was a groundbreaking move on the part of Sholes, Atkins and RCA. Arguably the first designed for purpose recording studio built in Nashville.

That should get us started

[Norm]

Still a little stumped by the"unwritten rules" proposition.

I believe I read once where Chet, trying to deflect the noise made about "the Nashville Sound", said that he and Owen were just trying to keep their jobs and it was the media that made it a Big Deal.

As far as "rules" go, I get the impression that Studio B got shut down due to a union dispute over whether a producer was allowed to manipulate the control panel of the recording consoles. I can't cite that as fact but I do know the reason for closing it to recording seems to be some sort of secret. Even with all of its audio problems Studio B was considered an almost magic room because so many hits had come out of there. They had room resonance issues that got cured apparently when engineer Bill Porter hung wedge shaped acoustic tile boards from the ceiling. Unfortunately non of these were retained for historical purposes

It may have been as simple as Studio A just being a better design all around than Studio B but, again, it is hard to find any information about the closure or Studio B.

In any case, somebody enlighten us on the "unwritten rules"

[bill_h]

Nashville's Unwritten Rules essemtially refers to the way business is conducted on music row. There are more verbal agreements and handshake deals than one would think for a multi billion dollar industry. As far as specifically how many rules there are and what they are I can't answer that because I don't know what all of them are. As a matter of fact "Nashville's Unwritten Rules" could even refer to a concept or a way of thinking rather than a finite set of rules for all I know. What I do know is if someone was to disregard one of Nashville's Unwritten Rules he or she would have a hard time getting anywhere on music row. Here's an example.

Suppose i was a songwriter and one of my songs had caught Garth Brooks' attention and Garth was interested in recording the song. If that was the case I would get a letter from Garth's record label asking for a "hold" on the song. A "hold" woud essentially mean that I would stop pitching the song up and down music row while they make up their minds if the song was going to make it on Garth's next cd. Garth would have several meetings with his manager,producer, and the A&R representative from his record label and they would listen to lots and lots of material. This process could take several months or possibly even a year or more.

Now suppose that during this time that even though I stopped pitching the song like I promised, it ended up catching George Strait's attention somehow or other and George's record label asked for a hold on it. The right thing to do would be to tell George that it's already on hold for Garth. If George is still interested he will ask for a "back up hold."

Suppose that I outsmart myself and don't tell George that it's already on hold for Garth and tell George he has a "hold" on the song. If George hears Garth doing the song on the radio while George is working on his cd that would not be a good thing - namely for me! Word woud get out. Garth would feel like he had to apologise to George and let George know that he had no intention of stealing his song. When they figure out that whole thing happened because I decided to be slick and burn the candle at both ends Garth and his people would be really ticked off at me as would George and his people. The way people in the music industry talk, it wouldn't be any time at all until everyone up and down music row knew what happened and would probably make a point to avoid me like the plague. Although it's unlikely that either side would seek legal recourse against me it would take a long long time to recover from my little shennaigan.

That was a long winded response for sure but hopefully this will help anyone who had no idea what I was talking about. With the way doing business on music row can be so straightforward, simple, and informal yet so effective it has to have Chet involved in it someway, somehow in its' formation. Hopefully someone will be able to elaborate.

As far as Marty Robbins' "El Paso" being way over three minutes long, I've been told that that's the song DJs used to play when they had to move the mail

[bill_h]

I totally forgot to mention in my long-winded post ( see above ) that there's even a book titled "Nashville's Unwritten Rules."

[Norm]

Well, there you go...

I wasn't aware of the book. Here's one of the reviews from Amazon which probably sums it up to a degree:

__________
This study of the country-music industry takes a smart look at the business end of America's most popular musical genre. Music journalist Daley divides Nashville's music empire into four fiefdoms: producers (whom he dubs ``princes''), songwriters, publishers, and musicians. Among musicians, the author focuses not on star performers but on session musicians--the professionals who give the music its identifiable sound. With this rule in place, Daley adopts an anecdotal approach to the growth and development of Nashville, calling on his dozens of interviews with major figures to explain what makes the city the undisputed capital of country. Those interviewed range from relative old-timers like Owen Bradley (who, with Chet Atkins, helped to establish many of the unwritten rules of Daley's title) to the newest musicians to join the A-list of session players selected to cut records by producers. Daley painstakingly details such unwritten rules as ``Thou shalt live in Nashville,'' which refers to the industry's disapproval of anyone daring to commute between the main hive and the outlands. Indeed, if producers are the princes of Nashville, then the twin villains, observes Daley, are the swaggering provinces of New York and Los Angeles, whose expatriates are treated with no small amount of suspicion when they arrive on Nashville's Music Row, purportedly threatening the local industry's ``rigid, familial, and benignly feudal structure.'' Rigid as this parochial prejudice against outsiders and commuters may be, it has also, as Daley points out, helped to keep country music authentic and has led Nashville to spectacular success in sending its music all around the nation. A solid plumbing of the forces driving a dominant and uniquely American industry.

_________

I have no further opinion since I haven't read the book. I thought you were referring to urban legend "unwritten rules"

As moneymaking as the industry is in Nashville I think the country music core is very small town in its attitude. There is nothing wrong with that and it is understandable since country music has had to "play defense" against the more lucrative pop music industry. It's not as rural-minded as it was in Acuff's day but it is still small town minded in many ways.

[bill_h]

Thanks Norm. Judging from the review it lookls like Nashville's Unwritten Rules may not be exactly what I thought they were. Maybe the book does cover some of the principles behind the verbal agreements and handshake deals that take place and how and why they're just as effective, if not more effective, than written contracts. But from the review, the purpose of the book seems to be to enlighten up and comers/hopefuls as to how the powers that be see things. ( Or the powers that were when the book was written.) At any rate it's no surprise that Chet was mentioned in the review since Nahsville's unwritten rules work as well as they do.

The book must have been written during one of the periods when Nashville and music row had its' head on straight. Nashville has always gone through 5 - 10 year periods when it does really well. Then here comes the ones from LA that lose their jobs b/c Nashville is cutting into LA's record sales. They end up convincing the suits on music row that they can show them how to reach the pop market and increase their sales. These LA rejects end up getting hired on music row and then the music sucks. It takes the suits 5 - 10 years to figure out the LA transplants are doing more harm than good and then the cycle starts all over again.

I contend that when music row has its' head on straight, Nashville is the cat and not the mouse in seesaw game. I don't believe any rapper, grunger, or nose ringer can cross over to the country charts the way Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and others were able to cross over to the pop charts in the 70's. ( And it seems like ages ago since the last time music row had its' head on straight!)

I'm not trying to elevate Nashville above LA. I just think it's futile to try to turn Nashville into LA. If only Chet and Owen Bradley were were here today and if the suits on musoic row were level headed enough to listen!

[Norm]

The "suits" were mostly in New York, not Nashville. The major labels considered their Nashville operations as subsidiaries. To the suits in New York, Nashville was hillbillies and rustics that sometimes made a lot of money. One of the hardest parts of Chet's job as VP of RCA in Nashville was getting the suits in New York to back artists he liked. The Everly Brothers, for example. Chet got them hooked with another company and they did very well indeed but apparently RCA/New York put the kibosh on Chet signing them to RCA for whatever reason. They probably just didn't want to go "over budget" for their Nashville office in spite of Chet's proven track record.

And that condition still exists today. The CEO's and finances for most Nashville operations are still city men in suits in New York or, to some degree, Los Angeles.

[Alan Copeland]

The "suits" were mostly in New York, not Nashville. The major labels considered their Nashville operations as subsidiaries. To the suits in New York, Nashville was hillbillies and rustics that sometimes made a lot of money. One of the hardest parts of Chet's job as VP of RCA in Nashville was getting the suits in New York to back artists he liked. The Everly Brothers, for example. Chet got them hooked with another company and they did very well indeed but apparently RCA/New York put the kibosh on Chet signing them to RCA for whatever reason. They probably just didn't want to go "over budget" for their Nashville office in spite of Chet's proven track record.

And that condition still exists today. The CEO's and finances for most Nashville operations are still city men in suits in New York or, to some degree, Los Angeles.

Norm, I read somewhere that due to Elvis' popularity, RCA didn't have enough capacity to produce many records other than his.

[Norm]

That's an interesting thought, Alan.

Sounds like the kind of logic the RCA front office might employ since they already had the hottest single artist under contract.

If it was really a true state of affairs it validates the efforts of Chet and others to come up with the urbanization of country music (The Nashville Sound) because without that, country music might possibly been allowed to wither.

That's the thing about "Show Business."
The "Business" part is in back rooms lined with adding machines, overseen by men who never smile and far away from music or the "Show."