New Books In Music

In the late 1960s, Nashville’s recording industry was a hit-making machine. A small clique of writers, producers, engineers and session musicians gave sonic shape to the pop-friendly “Nashville Sound” and generated hit after hit for artists like Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline. For up-and-coming artists like Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, the same rules regarding creative control applied. Decisions about song choices and production teams would be made by executives at big record labels like RCA and not the artists. By the early 1970s, a rebellion was afoot in Music City. As Michael Streissguth demonstrates in his page-turning Outlaw: Waylon, Willie, Kris and the Renegades of Nashville(It Books, 2013), the commercial ascent of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson coincided with their fierce challenge to the industry’s power structure. In Kristofferson’s case, his 1970 debut album — nurtured and recorded by a production team independent of the Nashville Machin