Owen Bradley

Owen Bradley ( born October 21, 1915 in Westmoreland, Tennessee; † 7 January 1998) was a major American producer of country music and a pioneer of the Nashville Sound.

Life

Owen Bradley grew up in Nashville. He began his musical career as a pianist in bars and clubs nearby. The radio station WSM in 1935 he had first appearances. Soon he received a firm commitment and worked his way up to director of music. He held this position from 1947 until 1958. Moreover, he founded his own dance band, the Owen Bradley Orchestra and recorded records. His greatest commercial success was the title Blues Stay Away From Me, which reached number 17 in 1950 on the U.S. charts.

In 1947 he was commissioned by Decca producer Paul Cohen, the offer to head as his assistant in Nashville recordings. Bradley told. In 1951, he opened with his brother Harold, a film studio, which moved two years later to the city center and was soon converted into a music studio. It was the first studio in the neighborhood known as " Music Row " is now known and is the commercial heart of country music. After Cohen had left Decca, Bradley moved up to vice president of the Nashville section. He maintained this position even after the merger with the MCA label in 1961. As a producer, he worked successfully with established stars like Red Foley, Ernest Tubb, Webb Pierce, and others.

In the early 1960s began a very successful collaboration with Patsy Cline. Bradley gave her class song material and changed their style in the direction of pop music. Similar succeeded with Brenda Lee. Instead of barren country instrumentation certain string sections and background choruses that sound. The sales figures rose steeply. Owen Bradley was so beside Chet Atkins and Billy Sherrill to the most important architects of the Nashville Sounds.

In order to allow his eldest son, the production of demo tapes, in 1961 he bought a farm outside of Nashville and taught in a barn a simple studio one. When, in the course of the successful Nashville Sounds increased the demand for music studios leaps and bounds, there were gradually more and more stars to recording sessions in his barn, which under the name of " Bradley 's Barn " ( eng: " Bradley's Barn ") was known.

1974 Owen Bradley was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 1988 he returned from his retirement back to kd with the Canadian singer long to produce an album dedicated to Patsy Cline.

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