There are just a few distinct session gamers in Nashville who can legitimately declare to be a part of the forged of “Nashville Cats” who have been in excessive demand for many years to carry out on nation albums, together with albums from throughout the American music spectrum. There are even fewer session gamers who can declare they have been additionally a part of the unique Muscle Shoals Rhythm Part. Piano and keyboard participant, songwriter, producer, studio proprietor, and performer David Briggs was a type of uncommon unicorns.
Although he began in Florence, Alabama as a younger child reluctantly succumbing to piano classes when he actually wished to study the guitar, David Paul Briggs (born March 16, 1943) would go on to carry out and report with a few of the most essential performers in American historical past, and on a few of the most timeless recordings ever etched in vinyl.
Briggs would find yourself on the songs of Elvis Presley, Johnny Money, Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Reed, Linda Ronstadt, Brenda Lee, Roy Orbison, B.B. King, Dan Fogelberg, Peter, Paul & Mary, Joan Baez, Al Inexperienced, Dean Martin, Joe Simon, Tony Joe White, Joe Tex, Ronnie Milsap, Leon Russell, Joe Cocker, Bob Seger, the Pointer Sisters, and plenty of extra.
It began even earlier than David Briggs may drive. He would win expertise contests enjoying boogie woogie piano, and began acting on native tv within the Nineteen Fifties with an act referred to as The Crunk Brothers. It was throughout this time that Briggs met bassist Norbert Putnam, which might lead to a long-term friendship. Putnam invited Briggs to hitch the rock & roll band The Rhythm Rockets. This resulted in Briggs enjoying on a demo session for Jimmy C. Newman in Florence and assembly Peanut Montgomery.
After the session, Peanut Montgomery invited David Briggs throughout the Tennessee River to Muscle Shoals and the legendary FAME studios. At the moment, FAME and Muscle Shoals was barely on the recording map. However shortly after being employed in because the studio’s session keys participant, all of that might change. Briggs would play on most all the early hits emanating from the studio because it shortly grew to become world-renown.
It was throughout this time that David Briggs additionally began writing songs, and would additionally begin recording his personal albums, principally of instrumentals. Brenda Lee and Dan Penn would lower David Briggs songs, bringing his stature up one other notch. Quickly producers from Nashville have been coming right down to Muscle Shoals to try to seize that sweaty sound. However because the city’s lodging have been not so good as Nashville’s, finally producers and arrangers like Felton Jarvis and Ray Stevens satisfied David Briggs and different session gamers to maneuver to Nashville.
The place in Muscle Shoals you may solely take part in a couple of dozen recording classes per 12 months, in Nashville, the work was countless. David Briggs carried out on 140 recording classes his first 12 months in Music Metropolis, 1965. In 1966, he would do over 400 classes. On the top of his session work, David Briggs was doing 420 classes a 12 months. Regardless of this quantity, Briggs continued to jot down songs, report albums underneath his personal title, and carry out stay, together with with the session supergroup Space Code 615.
By the late ’60s, David Briggs had partnered with Norbert Putnam to open the Quadrafonic Sound studio. It could in the end go on to be the premier studio in Nashville for rock musicians to report at, together with Neil Younger, Dan Folgerberg, and Jimmy Buffett, together with internet hosting loads of nation classes too.
Additionally with Norbert Putnam, David Briggs based the publishing firm Danor Music, in the end discovering songwriters Troy Seals and Will Jennings. Since studio time at Quadrafonic grew to become so excessive in demand, Briggs would additionally construct the Home of David studio a couple of blocks away, which remains to be in operation at this time.
However maybe the place David Briggs is finest identified publicly is his work with Elvis Presley. Briggs was first given the chance to report with The King in 1966 when Floyd Cramer was operating late. Briggs would report and tour with Elvis on and off for the subsequent decade, most memorably when Briggs joined Presley’s TCB band enjoying piano and clavinet all through 1976.
David Briggs was a type of guys who in the event you erased his contributions to American music, it wouldn’t sound the identical. However he did most of his work in studios, out of the highlight, and behind-the-scenes, caring extra about shifting the music ahead than any notoriety which may include it. Nonetheless, he was inducted into the Alabama Music Corridor of Fame in 1999, and the Musicians Corridor of Fame as a part of the unique Muscle Shoals Rhythm Part in 2019.
David Briggs died on April 22, 2025 on the age of 82.
Fellow Nashville Cat Mac Gayden additionally just lately handed away.
– – – – – – – –
When you loved this text, think about leaving Saving Nation Music A TIP.
