RCA Studio B, 1611 Roy Acuff Place, Nashville, TN (2025)

05/20/2025

Country Music Hall of Fame member Dolly Parton recorded “Coat of Many Colors,” the title track of her eighth studio album, for RCA Victor at Studio B in April 1971.

Produced by Bob Ferguson, “Coat of Many Colors” poignantly shares a painful memory from Dolly’s childhood while demonstrating her storytelling prowess. Though rich in love, the Parton family struggled to provide for their twelve children. From a bag of donated remnants, Dolly’s mother, Avie Lee, sewed young Dolly a coat by piecing together some of the brightly colored scraps, and as she sewed, she told Dolly the biblical story of Joseph and his coat of many colors. Though Dolly proudly wore the patchwork coat to school, her classmates were not impressed with it. They laughed at her, broke the coat’s buttons and took it, then locked Dolly in a closet.

When the song came to her in 1969, Dolly was traveling on Porter Wagoner’s tour bus. Because she didn’t have paper, she scribbled the words on the back of a dry-cleaning receipt from one of Wagoner’s suits. Dolly later told journalist Chet Flippo of the song’s healing powers: “For years, I had that in my mind, and it became a masterpiece to me, and I never worried about it anymore.”

“Coat of Many Colors” is one of Dolly’s favorite songs not only because of its specific connection to her life but also for its universal appeal. Added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 2011 and listed in 2021 in “Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” special issue, “Coat of Many Colors” reached #4 on the “Billboard” country singles chart on Christmas Day, 1971.

Pictured: Dolly Parton with Porter Wagoner at Studio B.

05/16/2025

Between 1957 and 1977, approximately 18,000 sessions were recorded within Studio B's walls, including #1 hits on both the country and pop charts. Explore a sampling of those hits here.

1950s

Don Gibson – Oh Lonesome Me (1958)
Everly Brothers – All I Have to Do Is Dream (1958)
Elvis Presley – Big Hunk o’ Love (1959)
The Browns – The Three Bells (1959)
Jim Reeves – He’ll Have to Go (1959)

1960s

Hank Locklin – Please Help Me, I’m Falling (1960)
Roy Orbison – Running Scared (1961)
Skeeter Davis – The End of the World (1962)*
Connie Smith – Once a Day (1964)
Eddy Arnold – What’s He Doing in My World (1965)

*a #2 hit on both the country and pop charts

1970s

Dolly Parton – Joshua (1970)
Charley Pride – Kiss an Angel Good Morning (1971)
Donna Fargo – The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A. (1972)
Ronnie Milsap – Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends (1974)
Gary Stewart – She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles) (1975)

Pictured: Charley Pride in Studio B, late 1960s

05/14/2025

If a country recording in the late 1950s or early 1960s required backing vocals, chances are that either the Jordanaires or the Anita Kerr Quartet were going to supply them. For her part, Anita Kerr (born Anita Jean Grilli) came from singing with her family in Memphis to Nashville, where she created a group to sing on WSM’s "Sunday Down South." After backing Red Foley on his recording of “Our Lady of Fatima” and arranging for Decca Records, Kerr assembled the quartet of Dottie Dillard, Louis Nunley, Gil Wright, and herself for session work.

The group sang backup on numerous country recordings from the Nashville Sound era, including Jim Reeves’s “He’ll Have to Go," a #1 country hit that reached #2 on the pop charts in 1960. In the early 1960s, Kerr was hired as Chet Atkins’s assistant and worked on RCA sessions, where she led the vocal group and arranged numerous recordings that were cut in RCA Studio B. Among them were releases by Floyd Cramer, Al Hirt, Rosemary Clooney, and Roy Orbison. Studio B recording engineer Bill Porter was impressed by Kerr’s musicality and ability to compose vocal arrangements on the fly.

“Anita had perfect pitch. She was just right on every time; could tell you exactly what the note was, why, and everything else. She had good arranging ideas,” Porter recalled in a Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum oral history interview. “Most of these sessions didn’t have charts. She’d tell them this, that, and everything, and get it together. And then hum a part. They’d work it out and do the arrangement.”

The Anita Kerr Singers also recorded their own work, with albums that included 1959’s “Voices in Hi-Fi" and 1965’s Grammy-winning “We Dig Mancini.” Kerr left Nashville for California to focus on writing and arranging for film, then departed the United States altogether in 1970 to live with her family in Switzerland. She continued to compose and arrange for many years after, earning a NARAS Governors Award in 1992 for her contributions to popular music. She died in 2022 at ninety-four years old.

The Anita Kerr Singers pictured from left: (below) Gil Wright, Anita Kerr; (above) Dottie Dillard, Louis Nunley.

05/08/2025

Few films left audiences more devastated in the 1960s than “Dr. Zhivago”—an epic tale of two star-crossed lovers torn apart by a brutal war. As the credits rolled for John Hartford, however, he was left with a different feeling in the theater: pure, urgent inspiration. “When I came home, I was really turned on,” the singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist recalled.

Twenty minutes later, Hartford had written the song that would define his career: “Gentle on My Mind,” a freewheeling tune about a restless soul who keeps a vision of his love “in the backroads by the rivers of my memory . . . ever gentle on my mind.”

Recorded by Hartford at Studio B in 1967 with producer Felton Jarvis, “Gentle on My Mind” would quickly become one of the most-covered songs of its era—even though it violated “all the principles of pop songwriting,” in Hartford’s words. “It’s a banjo tune, it has no chorus, it has a lot of words so that it’s hard to sing. One of my songwriting principles at that time was that the words should travel past you as fast as they do in conversation.”

Despite its intricate, lengthy lyrics, many top artists were moved to cut their own version of “Gentle on My Mind”—most notably Country Music Hall of Fame member Glen Campbell, whose definitive recording cracked both the pop and country Top Forty in 1968.

He’d also make “Gentle on My Mind” the theme song of his TV variety series, "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour," and recruited Hartford to the show’s cast of musicians.

“Gentle on My Mind” won four Grammys in 1968—two for Campbell’s version, and two for Hartford’s original. Nearly fifty years later, a version by country trio The Band Perry won the Grammy for Best Country Duo/Group Performance.

05/02/2025

Stand right where American icons made music history. Tours of Historic RCA Studio B are offered daily.

Monday–Thursday
10:30 AM, 11:30 AM, 12:30 PM, 1:30 PM, 2:30 PM, 3:30 PM

Friday–Sunday
10:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 1:00 PM, 2:00 PM, 3:00 PM

*Tours are only available in conjunction with Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum admission

https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/experiences/studio-b

05/01/2025

From 1958 to 1960, army service interrupted ELVIS PRESLEY’s career, but when he started recording again, Studio B's broadening reputation—and engineer Bill Porter's proven abilities—led executive Steve Sholes to bring RCA's top-selling singer back to Nashville for his first post-army sessions.

On the evening of March 20, 1960, Presley and manager Colonel Tom Parker rolled up to Studio B's back door in a chartered bus. In the studio Presley relaxed by telling army stories, joking, and gathering around the piano with the Jordanaires to warm up by singing gospel songs. Two years had passed since any of the executives or studio musicians had heard Presley make a record.

"I was trying to get a balance on the mix and everything, and then I kept feeling this pressure," Porter remembered. "I tried to look behind me, and, literally, within an arm's distance or less, was Colonel Parker, Steve Sholes, [another] VP from RCA, and Chet Atkins, all like—if I make a mistake, they're going to grab me, you know."

Of the six songs Presley recorded that night in an epic 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. session, three made the pop charts. "Stuck on You" scrambled all the way to the peak of the pop ranks on "Billboard," and its flip side, "Fame and Fortune," made it to #17. "A Mess of Blues" reached #32 in the US, but it went #1 in England.

Presley returned to Studio B two weeks later, on April 3, 1960, for another all-night session. The twelve-hour marathon revealed Presley's growing confidence, subtlety, and vocal range. The session also yielded two hits which would reach #1 on the pop charts: "It's Now or Never" and "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" Together, the two extended sessions provided the tracks for Elvis's fourth album, "Elvis Is Back!"

04/25/2025

Smooth-singing Jim Reeves, known affectionately as "Gentleman Jim," captured audiences across the globe with his warm baritone. The only high school graduate in his family, Reeves had a fierce determination to succeed and a perfectionist spirit that shaped his work ethic in the studio. He favored sport coats and tuxedos for stage wear, which fit his pop-leaning brand of country seamlessly. He recorded several pop crossover hits at RCA Studio B, including "He'll Have to Go," "I Missed Me," and "Am I Losing You.”

Though his life was tragically cut short by a plane crash in 1964, his memory lives on through eighty hits on the country charts and his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1967. He was one of country music's leading artists of the 1950s and early 1960s, and his influence continues to resonate.

04/23/2025

“You had to be just one of the guys.”

Guitarist Velma Williams Smith was the only female member of the fabled A-Team of first-call Nashville studio musicians who worked regularly at Studio B from the late 1950s into the 1970s.

Born in Epley Station, Kentucky, Smith sang and played standup bass in the Williams Sisters, a duo with older sister Mildred, who also sang and played guitar. They caught a big break while opening a show for Bill Monroe. He was so impressed with their talent that he arranged a meeting with Grand Ole Opry executive George Hay, who put the sisters on the show the same day they auditioned, in 1941, when Velma was fourteen.

After regular Opry performances, the Williams Sisters joined Roy Acuff’s band. Mildred soon decided to leave her career and get married, but Velma remained, playing bass with Acuff for nine years. She later played in Carl Smith’s band, the Tunesmiths, where she met fiddle player and music industry entrepreneur Hal Smith, who co-founded the publishing firm of Pamper Music. The two were married in 1948. According to the 1950 federal census, they were living then in Madison, just north of Nashville, with her occupation listed as “singer and radio entertainer.” Hal was listed as “fiddler and radio entertainer.”

After watching Velma Smith play guitar from the wings of the Opry stage one night in 1953, producer and guitarist Chet Atkins invited her to play on a recording session for the Davis Sisters (Skeeter and Betty Jack Davis). It yielded the duo their only #1 hit together, “I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know.”

Soon after, she became a regular member of the A-Team that backed artists at Studio B and other recording studios in Nashville. She played rhythm guitar on many famous recordings, including “Welcome to My World” by Jim Reeves, “Make the World Go Away” by Eddy Arnold, “The End of the World” by Skeeter Davis, and “Oh, Lonesome Me” by Don Gibson to name a few. She even played rhythm guitar on Atkins’s records. Smith was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2014.

Pictured: Smith and singer Faron Young at Studio B.

04/16/2025

The Browns were preparing to quit the music business when a little gift from France intervened. The sibling trio of Jim Ed, Maxine, and Bonnie Brown had notched hits such as “Here Today and Gone Tomorrow” and “I Take the Chance” but were tiring of the high-risk, low-reward grind. With the mindset of cutting one last song and calling it a day, they convinced producer Chet Atkins to let them record “The Three Bells”—which became their signature hit.

French performer Edith Piaf popularized the song, originally known as “Les Trois Cloches,” in 1946 and introduced it to American audiences while she was touring the United States. Bert Reisfeld wrote lyrics for an English-language version, named “The Three Bells” and interpreted by the Melody Maids, the Andrews Sisters, and Piaf herself.

In 1959, the Browns put their spin on “The Three Bells” in a session at RCA Studio B. Taking the lead part, Jim Ed Brown poignantly recounts the birth, marriage, and death of Jimmy Brown (altered from Jean-François in the French version), with his sisters adding their smooth, close harmonies. Arranger Anita Kerr, whose background singers mimicked bell chimes as accompaniment, helped trim the song from nearly six minutes to a more radio-acceptable runtime.

"The Three Bells" became an early smash of the Nashville Sound era, quickly selling more than half a million copies. It reached #1, where it stayed for four weeks, and eventually surpassed one million in sales. It even temporarily stalled the retirement of the Browns, who released hits such as “The Old Lamplighter” before breaking up in 1967. Maxine and Bonnie returned to their native Arkansas to raise families, while Jim Ed remained in Nashville and embarked on a long solo career that included the hits “Pop a Top,” “Morning,” and the Helen Cornelius duet “I Don’t Want to Have to Marry You.”

Jim Ed died in 2015, the same year the Browns were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Bonnie died one year later, and Maxie died in 2019.

04/09/2025

Before she could be discovered on a nightclub stage by Hollywood producers, Ann-Margret Olsson had to discover herself.

At her early performances, the singer, dancer, and actress recalled experiencing a profound transformation: one from a shy, quiet teenager to “a prancing, gyrating, uninhibited performer totally consumed by singing, dancing, and pleasing the audience.”

As she burst onto the scene in 1961, the press often painted her as the female answer to Elvis Presley (with whom, coincidentally, she would later co-star in the film "Viva Las Vegas"). For her second album—1962’s aptly titled "On the Way Up"—Olsson didn’t shy away from the comparisons, recording at RCA Studio B in Nashville with producer Chet Atkins, as Presley had done.

Among a selection of R&B hits and pop ballads, Olsson purred her own slinky version of Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel.” She also teamed with Presley’s go-to backing vocal group, the Jordanaires, along with the Anita Kerr Singers and a studio band that included pianist Floyd Cramer and Atkins himself on guitar.

“I hooked up with some of the best musicians in the business,” she said. As a result, she earned her first (and only) Top Twenty pop hit, "I Just Don't Understand"—later recorded by the Beatles for BBC Radio.

Olsson would return to Nashville to record 1969’s "The Cowboy and the Lady," a collaboration with Lee Hazlewood, at RCA Studio A. She reteamed with Atkins in 1977, sharing the stage at the Grand Ole Opry House for the television special "Ann-Margret: Rhinestone Cowgirl."

04/04/2025

Historic RCA Studio B, “Home of 1,000 Hits,” is a landmark with a legacy built by some of the most important producers and artists in country and pop music. The studio floor is where musicians helped develop the famous Nashville Sound, a musical style characterized by background vocals and strings. It’s also one of the places where the “Nashville number system”—a shorthand notation for a song’s chord progressions—was refined. During a golden window, from 1957 to 1977, approximately 18,000 sessions were recorded within its walls, including more than 200 songs by Elvis Presley. The many hits spread Nashville’s reputation as Music City worldwide.

Today, preservation of the fully functional studio is made possible through a partnership between the Mike Curb Family Foundation and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

Learn more: https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/experiences/studio-b

04/02/2025

Earlier this month the Museum hosted members of the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society to demonstrate the Gretsch Chet Atkins Centennial Gentleman. The instrument, designed to pay tribute to one hundred years of “Mister Guitar,” combines elements from several guitars the Country Music Hall of Fame member played throughout his partnership with Gretsch.

In 1952 Gibson introduced a new solid body guitar endorsed by Les Paul. Atkins wanted an endorsement model of his own, and his opportunity came in 1954 when he met Jimmie Webster, a sales representative for Gretsch. However, the proposed model Gretsch showed Atkins came as a bit of a shock.

The company had attempted to emphasize Atkins's country roots with western-themed ornamentation, including a steer’s head on the headstock and fingerboard inlays engraved with cow and cactus figures. "I never liked all that western junk,” Atkins said, “but I was so glad to a get a guitar with my name on it, I didn’t say anything."

By 1955 Gibson had released four different additional models of Les Paul guitars, and Gretsch would expand its line of Chet Atkins guitars as well. A deluxe version, the Country Gentleman, debuted in 1957 and would become Atkins's primary guitar for twenty years. The Country Gentleman was wider than the Hollow Body 6120, more tastefully ornamented, and had a rich walnut-brown finish. Atkins’s influence was obvious.

Atkins was a tinkerer in pursuit of perfection. "Many of [Chet's] home modifications found their way into the Gretsch guitar line,” said Fred W. Gretsch. “Although I will always be grateful to Chet for his role in the success of the Gretsch guitar brand, we should all acknowledge that Chet’s greatest contribution to the world was in fact his role in crafting the Nashville Sound during his tenure with RCA Records."

Atkins's instrumental and performing experience led directly to his work as a producer and recording executive. "A lot has been written about my career as a guitarist, recording artist, and record producer,” he said. “It’s the guitar that has carried me, nourished me, and made me who I am.”

Pictured: (L to R) Chet Atkins with his Country Gentleman, Billy Harlan, Pig Robbins (partially obscured), and Don Everly during a session at Studio B, 1958.

RCA Studio B

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