Maps of Music

Nashville Skyline (1969)

Where the lyrics of Nashville Skyline take you, and where it was really made.

Johnny Cash first raised the idea of a Nashville country album with Dylan in 1965, but the sessions did not happen until 1969.

Key places

Recorded in Nashville (1969)

Recording site Nashville — Recording location in Nashville, Tennessee. The dot marks the city centre, not the studio building itself. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Nashville Skyline: ninth studio album by Bob Dylan
• Released 9 April 1969 by Columbia Records as LP, reel-to-reel tape, and audio cassette
• Complete immersion into country music, building on the rustic style of John Wesley Harding
• Simple songwriting structures, basic lyrical themes, and a charming domestic feel
• Introduced a soft, affected country croon, a new singing voice from Dylan, who had temporarily quit smoking

Background

• Johnny Cash first discussed a Nashville country album with Dylan in 1965 and expressed interest in producing it
• Cash said in a March 1965 interview with Music Business magazine that he had his own ideas about the Nashville sound
• The sessions did not materialize until 1969; by June 1965 Dylan had gone fully electric with Highway 61 Revisited
• The political climate was polarized: King and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated in 1968 and riots broke out in most large American cities
• Dylan had been a leading cultural figure for political and social commentary throughout the 1960s
• Clinton Heylin wrote that making albums with Johnny Cash in Nashville was tantamount to abdication in many eyes
• Kris Kristofferson said Dylan opened all the doors in Nashville with Blonde on Blonde and Nashville Skyline

Recording

• Recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, at Columbia Studio A
• Musicians included Norman Blake, Fred Carter Jr., Charlie McCoy, Pete Drake, Charlie Daniels, Bob Wilson, and Kenneth A. Buttrey
• Johnny Cash sang and played guitar on 'Girl from the North Country', with Bob Wootton on electric guitar
• Production by Bob Johnston; engineering by Charlie Bragg and Neil Wilburn

Cover

• Front cover photographed by Elliot Landy; back cover by Al Clayton

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota; raised in Hibbing, Minnesota.
• Moved to New York City in January 1961 to pursue a music career.
• Signed to Columbia Records after playing harmonica on Carolyn Hester's album; debut album Bob Dylan released in 1962.

Members

• Solo artist; backed over the years by bands including the Hawks/the Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and his touring band led by bassist Tony Garnier.

Career

• Breakthrough with The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963); protest songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements.
• Went electric with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited (1965) and Blonde on Blonde (1966), provoking controversy among folk fans.
• Motorcycle accident in 1966 led to nearly eight years without touring; Basement Tapes recorded with the Band.
• Converted to Christianity in the late 1970s and released gospel albums; won Album of the Year Grammy for Time Out of Mind (1997).
• Has toured since 1988 on the Never Ending Tour; won an Academy Award and ten Grammy Awards; awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Newsweek critic praised the great charm of the album and how Dylan exploited subtle differences on a deliberately limited emotional and verbal scale
• Rolling Stone's Paul Nelson wrote that the album achieved an artistically impossible statement about being happy and could well be Dylan's best album
• The Village Voice's Robert Christgau argued that the beauty of the album lay in its totally undemanding and one-dimensional songs
• Billboard's Ed Ochs wrote that the satisfied man speaks in clichés
• The Listener's Tim Souster felt that something was missing from the idyllic country landscape

Reappraisal

• Paul Nelson revised his opinion in a review of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II less than three years later, saying he had been misinformed
• Christgau later included the album in his Basic Record Library of 1950s and 1960s recordings
• Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums, third edition (2000), ranked it number 579
• Public Enemy referenced the album in their 2007 Dylan tribute song 'Long and Whining Road'

Records

• Generally positive critical reaction and strong commercial success
• Dylan's fourth UK No. 1 album
• Reached No. 3 in the United States

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Johnny Cash's promotional appearance on The Johnny Cash Show on June 7 helped the album become one of Dylan's best-selling albums.
• Three singles were pulled from the album, all of which received significant airplay on AM radio.
• Kris Kristofferson later sang with Johnny Cash in The Highwaymen.
• Public Enemy paid tribute to the album in the 2007 song 'Long and Whining Road'.
• Cash sang and played guitar on 'Girl from the North Country', one of the few tracks with guest musicians named individually.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Maps of Ages ↗ (mapsofages.com)

Privacy · Contact