Jerry Glenn Kennedy, a 13-year-old who recorded for RCA Victor as “Jerry Glenn,” got the shock of his young life when he walked into a Nashville recording studio in September of 1953. • There, among the studio band hired to accompany him, was his ultimate guitar idol – Chet Atkins. “When I saw him, I froze up,” he laughs.
Eight years later, Kennedy began making his own history as a member of Nashville’s A-Team, its elite squad of first-call session musicians. Over the next three decades, his electric guitar and Dobro graced countless rock, country, and R&B records, along the way helping more than a few reach #1.
Playing sessions, however, was only part of his story. As Mercury Records’ head Nashville producer from 1962 to ’84, Kennedy crafted some of Nashville’s most-enduring recordings by everyone from Roger Miller to Charlie Rich, Jerry Lee Lewis to Reba McEntire.
Marty Stuart, a longtime admirer and country historian, agrees.
“Jerry is truly one of the lead architects in the creation of the Nashville sound. He played the hound-dog dobro on Jeannie C. Riley’s ‘Harper Valley PTA’ and on many of Tom T. Hall’s most-iconic songs, and he somehow navigated Jerry Lee Lewis through a decade of sessions that resulted in some of the greatest country music that has ever been made. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
“There’s no one else on earth who can boast of such things. Any of those feats qualifies him for any and all Halls of Fame.”
Shreveport, Louisiana, was the starting point. Born there in 1940, Kennedy grew up in a musical melting pot where country, blues, R&B and Cajun sounds blended freely. His mom, Essie, was a country fan, his dad, Gordon, a deputy sheriff, sang at funerals and weddings.
Shreveport’s KWKH radio also shaped his future. At four, Kennedy discovered his first musical hero – the station’s country singer, Harmie Smith. “I loved the sound of his guitar,” he remembers. A few years later, his parents bought a Silvertone guitar he calls, “…a real piece of junk hangin’ around my neck, but it was enough to get me interested.” A Harmony Gene Autry model soon followed.
In 1948, KWKH debuted the Saturday night “Louisiana Hayride” show, modeled on the Grand Ole Opry. Later nicknamed “Cradle of the Stars,” it launched the careers of Hank Williams, Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jim Reeves, Webb Pierce, Faron Young, and James Burton.
One Friday in June, 1950, Gordon Kennedy took nine-year-old Jerry to his first guitar lesson with Tillman Franks, bassist and guitarist on the “The Hayride.” Gordon died unexpectedly the following Monday, and Franks became a surrogate father/mentor while teaching the youngster to play and sing simple three-chord country songs. His progress was swift and within six months Franks had Kennedy (using a Martin 00-18 his mother bought for him) teaching some of his students.
Kennedy took Franks’ advice to listen to “The Hayride” and visit when he could. At 12, he won a talent contest emulating “Hayride” singer Jimmy Lee Fautheree, who played guitar behind his head. Afterward, Franks, whose connections stretched beyond Shreveport, contacted RCA country producer Steve Sholes (who discovered Atkins and later signed Elvis) about recording the kid as a singer and guitar player (though he wasn’t trying to be a vocalist).
Les Paul and George Barnes were among his other guitar heroes, and he listened to a lot of guitar-oriented material. “R&B things and rock and roll lit a huge fire under me,” he says.
On “Hayride” visits, Kennedy sometimes witnessed history in the making. In late 1952, he saw one of Hank Williams’ final performances, and while sitting in the balcony in October, 1954, Scotty Moore caught his attention as Elvis Presley performed his debut single “That’s All Right.” The memory stands out.
“Scotty starts playin’, Elvis starts dancin’…” The Hayride audience erupted. “We never heard a note that Scotty played!” he laughs.
On other visits, he saw Lefty Frizzell and Hank Thompson; the solidbody used by Frizzell’s guitarist left a deep impression.
“That was the first time I put eyes on a Telecaster,” he said. “I heard it and thought, ‘I’ve gotta have one of those!’ I begged my mom for a year, and I don’t know how – she was not a wealthy lady at all – she was working, selling cookies, and she bought me one.”
To plug in, Kennedy purchased a homemade amp.
Straight out of high school in May, 1958, Kennedy walked into a job. Franks, by then running “Hayride,” added him to the house band. He swapped the Tele for a Les Paul Standard he bought at Shreveport’s J&S Music. Franks had him record a teen ballad in Nashville, backed by the A-Team including guitarists Hank Garland, Grady Martin, and Harold Bradley.
When the show closed in 1960, Kennedy (by then married to former “Hayride” singer Linda Brannon) began freelancing. He swapped the Les Paul to his buddy, future Nashville session guitarist Billy Sanford, for a ’54 Strat that Sanford had painted orange.
“My back was beginning to bother me, and the Strat was lighter,” he explains. “Three hours with it was nothing.”
Occasionally, he worked with Shreveport star Johnny Horton, world-famous for his hit single “The Battle of New Orleans.” Franks, who was Horton’s manager, played bass, and Horton’s guitarist was Gerald “Tommy” Tomlinson.
By then, Kennedy had a second local mentor in Mercury Records promotion man Shelby Singleton. Impressed by Singleton’s uncanny knack for picking hits, Mercury hired him in 1960 as head producer in Nashville, despite the fact he played no instruments.
Seeing the strong sales of Chet Atkins’ instrumental LPs, Singleton signed Kennedy and Tomlinson, and on October 28 and 29, 1960, the duo recorded Guitar’s Greatest Hits, a mix of country, pop, and easy-listening favorites backed by A-Team heavy hitters. Billed as Tom and Jerry, Kennedy used his Strat, Tomlinson his Gretsch 6120.
One moment particularly amused Kennedy.
“Can you imagine a 20-year-old kid sittin’ in a chair 10 feet from Hank Garland, trying to play [Garland’s signature instrumental] ‘Sugarfoot Rag?’” (laughs)
Kennedy’s emotions about the record are mixed.
“It could have been so much better,“ he says. “So many people tell me, ‘I’m a guitar player and I learned how to play by listening to that album.’”
It would be their only collaboration, because just days after the session, Tomlinson lost a leg in a car crash that killed Horton and injured Franks.
“It was years before I would listen to that project,” Kennedy reflected. “It bothered me that much.”
Mercury released three subsequent Tom and Jerry instrumental albums with Kennedy and other session players.
Kennedy started making regular trips to Nashville to translate Singleton’s musical ideas to the musicians on his sessions. When it became a full-time job, he moved his family there in March, 1961.
“Shelby let me go in (the studio) and come up with stuff that was different,” he recalls. His skills impressed other producers, including Atkins, who was RCA’s top country producer at the time, as well as Decca’s Owen Bradley, and Don Law at Columbia, all of whom hired him for sessions.
Wanting a new work guitar, Kennedy purchased a new Gibson ES-335 at Hewgley Music. His A-Team status came quickly where most players gradually worked into those hallowed ranks. Singleton was the key.
“God bless him, man,” Kennedy says. “I had an in that a lot of players did not have.”
Playing electric alongside Hank Garland on Leroy Van Dyke’s hit “Walk On By” Kennedy unleashed his hotter side on Presley’s 1962 hit “Good Luck Charm.” The Bradley brothers became friends and mentors; Harold, considered the Dean of Nashville session pickers was, “…like a big brother when I came to town.”
Playing guitar on Bradley’s productions was special. He called the sessions, “…some of the most-learning experiences I had as far as producing records. To hear what we did in the studio and hear it on the radio was two totally different things. A lot happened in that control room that we didn’t know about.”
With more pop and rock acts recording in Nashville, Kennedy, Bradley, and A-Team legend Martin jointly purchased specialty instruments any of them could use for a specific date. One was a round-neck Dobro resonator. “I played it on ‘Harper Valley PTA,’ the Statler Brothers’, and Tom T. Hall’s stuff. Grady ended up playin’ it on some of Loretta Lynn’s records,” Kennedy said. “It sounds like no Dobro that came along after.
“I was bending those strings, not playin’ slide. It was tuned like a guitar, and that’s the way I played.” Kennedy later got sole custody after Bradley sold his share to Martin.
“Grady gave it to me one day. He said, ‘You can have the damn thing. I don’t want it anymore.’ He gave me a piece of paper that granted ownership.”
After hearing the prominent 12-string acoustics on the Rooftop Singers’ 1963 folk hit “Walk Right In,” Kennedy and Bradley bought a Gibson B-25-12. The instrument could be challenging, as Jerry discovered while using it on Bobby Bare’s hit “500 Miles Away From Home.”
“The neck was wide as a two-by-four,” he laughs. “My hand was cramping.”
Hank Williams, Jr. later sold him a ’46 Martin D-18.
“Harold talked me into that. He said, ‘You need a Martin in your collection.’ I had a Gibson (acoustic) I wasn’t playin’ much. Every time I was called, it was usually to do electric,” for which he generally used the 335 or borrowed Bradley’s Jazzmaster.
“He gave that to me one year. I’d say, ‘You ready for it back?’ and he’d tell me, ‘Aw, keep it. I don’t need it yet!’ Between that and the 335, I got what I needed, and I also had a Danelectro six-string bass that Harold helped me get.”
While Kennedy often used whatever amps were in the studio, he initially owned two Gibsons – a GA-77 RVT Vanguard and an Invader before he and Bradley became long-distance patrons of Manny’s, in Manhattan. During a week of New York sessions in July, 1962, they paid a visit.
“We walked in and the guy said, ‘Can I help you?’ I said, ‘Hi, I’m Jerry Kennedy,’ and he said, ‘You’re Jerry Kennedy?’He started yelling, ‘Come meet these guys we send all that stuff to!’”
Guitar effects gained popularity in Nashville, but Kennedy stuck with just one – his amplifier’s built-in tremolo. “[Epic Records producer Billy Sherrill] said, ‘Put that low rumble on there.’ On some records it’s a bottom-y thing. I used the low-end on the amp, and fast tremolo.”
Another change came later that year when he had luthier Dean Porter install palm pedals on the 335.
Working sessions for Sherrill in Columbia’s Studio B – a converted metal shed – allowed him to enjoy another amp.
“There was a Twin Reverb there that, had I been the wrong kind of guy, would have disappeared with me one day (laughs). I loved that amp so much that I really looked forward to Billy’s dates.”
After a different New York visit, he plugged into a new Ampeg at Manny’s.
“I played it a bit, and it sounded great. So, I said, ‘I’ll take it,’” and though he can’t recall the model, he says it was, “My favorite amp in the studio, except for that Fender.” The only other amp he owned was a Standel given to him by Atkins.
THE “PRETTY WOMAN” RIFF
When Jerry Kennedy wasn’t producing hits at Mercury Nashville, he was free to assume his role as a top “A-Team” guitarist.
That was his mission as he walked into Fred Foster’s Monument Records studio on 17th Avenue North on August 1, 1964, toting his amp and ’61 335.
Kennedy found a chunk of A-Teamers setting up, along with Roy Orbison and Foster, the label’s head producer. Guitarist Wayne Moss had played in A-Teamer Charlie McCoy’s Nashville rock band, the Escorts, Buddy Harman was at the drums. While Henry Strzelecki played bass, McCoy, who often played harmonica on Orbison sessions, had no instrument assigned. Boots Randolph brought his tenor and baritone saxes.
Also present were two members of Orbison’s touring band, the Candy Men – drummer Paul Garrison and Billy Sanford, Kennedy’s Shreveport guitar-picking buddy. Orbison sat strumming a 12-string.
They were set to record “Oh Pretty Woman,” a rocker written by Orbison and his songwriting partner/harmony singer, Bill Dees. They’d been playing it on the road.
Sanford and Orbison had discussed the fact many of his biggest hits had smooth “Nashville sound” production complete with string, songs the guitar-driven Candy Men couldn’t faithfully reproduce onstage. Orbison wanted a more-basic sound on his records.
“I suggested, ‘Why don’t you write something that would make use of the instruments we have in the band?’ Which was three electric guitars, bass, drums, and piano.”
Orbison then called Kennedy, telling him, ‘Hey, come over so I can show you what I want to do.’ Kennedy, Sanford, and Moss stood by as Orbison plucked the bass line to the Little Richard hit “Lucille.”
Sanford knew the score; backstage or on the tour bus, he and Orbison would pick riffs together, including “Lucille” and the Everly Brothers’ cover version.
“We were playing that riff one time and ended up trying it one note off – the F#. It was kind of an accident and we had a laugh about it.”
But that lick – F# and all – became the backbone of the “Pretty Woman” arrangement.
“The riff came along before the song did,” Sanford says. “The song must have been in the mill for two or three months before we recorded it.”
Sanford explains how the riff evolved.
“The other guitar player in the band was John Rainey Adkins. When we played it live, Roy would kick it off, then I would come in, then John Rainey would come in where Boots and Charlie came in (on the record), being the eight-bar intro that it was. Roy and I had it pretty worked out, and we stuck with it.”
At the session, Orbison and the musicians worked out a fuller arrangement. Orbison kicked off with the 12-string. Kennedy, playing his 335, Sanford, using the Gibson ES-125 he played with the band and Moss would join.
“On the record, if you listen real close, you’ll hear that 12-string,” Kennedy explains.
The saxes lent heft before Orbison began to sing. Randolph played tenor and McCoy, the A-Team’s multi-instrumental master, blew the baritone.
In 2010, McCoy told VG how it happened.
“I was sittin’ over there with Boots and he said, ‘Hey, I got my (baritone sax) here. Why don’t you grab it?’ “I didn’t play the whole riff, just two notes, so that riff was not only three guitar players and the bass, (but) the tenor sax and the baritone. That’s what made it so powerful.”
A landmark rock-guitar riff – sax and all – was born.
The recording left Sanford, who eventually became an A-Team guitarist, amply satisfied.
“The thing I liked was we had talked about making a record with the instruments in the band, without waiting for the big string section to come in.”
While Kennedy said he liked the record, he admits he didn’t initially see anything particularly endearing about the lick or the song. But he recalls Foster having a sense of its potential.
“Fred and I were good friends, and he called me a week or so later and said he had been playing (the single) for some people.”
Released weeks later, “Oh, Pretty Woman” reached #1 in America and several other countries and stands today as one of Orbison’s greatest hits, his intense vocal, the hypnotic lyrics, and that powerful, percussive riff making it irresistible.
This article originally appeared in VG’s December 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
