Nashville Cats
Record Production in Music City
Travis D. Stimeling
Reviews and Awards
Winner of the 2020 Belmont Award for the Best Book related to country music
Certificate of Merit in category Best Historical Research in Recorded Country or Folk Music, Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence
"Stimeling's Nashville Cats provides detailed and compelling glimpses of these musicians who were a force in establishing not only the Nashville Sound but also in creating a fluid musical notation system and in helping establish Nashville's country music recording industry." -- Henry Carrigan, No Depression
"Broadly conceived, meticulously researched, and engagingly written, Travis Stimeling's Nashville Cats gives Music City's studio musicians the attention they have long deserved." -- John W. Rumble, Senior Historian, Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum
"I have been waiting for this book for years! Studio musicians were (and are) key to musical production and there is no one better to explain their importance than Travis Stimeling. His book will be a great addition to my graduate and undergraduate classes where students will be able to see how intimate moments behind the scenes create public musical expression." -- Kristine M. McCusker, Professor, Middle Tennessee State University
"Travis D. Stimeling's fabulous book is the first to tell us the important history of session musicians during the Nashville Sound era, and it brings our understanding of country music recording history to a whole new level. Anyone interested in the exciting story of how individual musicians helped shape country music should read Nashville Cats." --R Leigh H. Edwards, Professor of English at Florida State University, and author of Dolly Parton, Gender, and Country Music