The Story of The Nashville EP

After determining his reputation was too tarnished to make a real run at a recording career, Dill left England and landed in late 60s California— Los Angeles to be exact. Even though his foray into British record companies had failed, Dill enjoyed the favor of a few music business professionals who put in a good word for him with their North American counterparts.

Dill in Southern California

Dill had enjoyed his experience in the studio and parlayed his connections into several menial jobs in one of the many independent studios around LA. Not quite apt enough of a musician to score work as a studio player, Dill concentrated on building his engineering skills and continued to work on songwriting. As his prowess behind the recording console developed, Dill began making connections around the valley and had a front row seat to the burgeoning Laurel Canyon scene.

Dill would take his trusted 12-string electric guitar to the many venues hosting songwriters. There he watched songs that would define a generation come to life. Dill would cross paths and become friendly with the likes of Stephen Stills, James, Taylor, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Roger McGuinn, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Brown, Michael Nesmith, Joni Mitchell, and even the great Frank Zappa. He was there for the birth of such genre bending bands like the Eagles, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and the Flying Burrito Brothers.

Dill was fascinated by the way these future legendary troubadours fused elements of country music with rock and roll, creating a truly unique sound as striking and as identifiable as the British Invasion sound earlier in the decade.

Unable to break into the songwriting or artist scene in any meaningful way, Dill began to wonder if there was a place for him in the southern Californian scene. After half a decade as brit transplant in La La Land, Dill decided to try his hand in a music town not quite as saturated as LA, but on the rise in prominence.

Dill in Nashville

Nashville, TN was cultivating a different musical genre, but that was part of the attraction for Dill. It occurred to him that if rockers could infuse country into their music for a new sound, what if country artists infused their style with a little bit of rock and roll. Dill thought his twist was more than just a gimmick. He imagined he was walking along the edge of brilliance. Dill was convinced he had a unique formula to that would help Nashville lite a fuse.

Dill arrived in Nashville in late 1974. He came to town with an impressive west coast studio resume and was able to find work as an engineer in one of the many independent recording studios peppered around the midtown avenues collectively known as Music Row.

Nashville’s music scene was much different than Laurel Canyon and LA. Although there was a strong songwriting scene, there was no central venue that served as the hub. Dill frequented the many bars and late night jam sessions as he could, pitched his ideas about fusing elements of rock and roll into country music, but either due to suspicion that Dill was a musical carpetbagger or just prejudice against rock and roll long hairs, he did not find anyone who caught his vision.

Dill decided to take matters into his own hand. He convinced the owner of one of the studios where he was working to let Dill use some studio time with the house band to put his vision to the test. One late night, after the main session, Dill recorded three of his original compositions with some of Nashville’s finest (or at least some solid b-level players). It took awhile for them to catch on to what Dill wanted, but being fans of the music being made on the pop charts, they eventually locked in and really enjoyed themselves.

What did it mean to introduce rock elements into country? Dill wanted that strong backbeat that he so loved from those British Invasion records. And he had learned a lot about how those California Laurel Canyon vocals were recorded. He doubled vocals, used panning in creative ways and stacked harmonies. He also picked places to tastefully introduce tasty distorted electric guitar licks.

These studio pros “dug in” and got the work done. They even enjoyed themselves. Dill was enthusiastic if anything and his easy going nature was infectious. Here is what was scrawled onto sessions notes, found in the studio’s archives years later:

DB - guitar & singing
Jake Harold - bass guitar
Harrison Sensing, Jr - piano
Hensley Story - steel guitar
Henry Kephart - banjo
Franlklin “Bowstring” Breedlove - fiddle
James McThomas - drums
Producers - BB and DB

The BB producing is assumed to be Dill’s employer, “Big Bubba” John Tanker. Big Bubba John was impressed with the results and made a deal with Dill to create an independent label to release Dill’s music. He christened this new venture Guitar City Records. Big Bubba John had been wanting to test the record mogul waters and thought Dill’s “new Nashville sound” could be the gimmick he needed to set himself apart from the more established Nashville names.

He manufactured a few thousand copies of the Dill Bourbonridge EP, but not really being schooled in how to promote a record, Dill and his patron ended up spinning their wheels. Reflecting on it later Dill confessed, “I placed so much energy in getting the sound I wanted, I forgot to write some actual good country songs.” Big Bubba John remembers, “I really didn’t know what I was doing when it came to starting a record label. I was so into having a piece of plastic with my record label’s name on it I forgot the first rule of Nashville— ‘It is always about the song,’ not all about the sound.”

In late 1976, Dill decided Nashville did not hold the fortunes he was seeking and once again re-located. This time he would try the city that never sleeps. Dill would spend his next era in New York city.

Big Bubba John never received a single order from record stores for Dill’s EP. As far as he knows, it was never played on the radio. When he died, his wife found a few surviving boxes of “The Nashville EP,” tracked down Dill, and sent them to him.

Coda

Big Bubba John sold his recording studio sometime in the late seventies. The building became another studio and some of the equipment from Big Bubba John’s studio was incorporated into the new spaces. An engineer with the new studio found a collection of all the old master multi-track recordings and instead of throwing them out, decided to listen to them to see what exactly was on them.

He eventually came across the Dill Bourbonridge recordings and was intrigued. He found the sound very fresh and well recorded and produced. He was unable to find any information on the artist as it was just labeled as “DB test.” The engineer assumed it was for testing the equipment (“db” being the shorthand for “decibel” in sound recording parlay) and added this reel to his collection for testing equipment. He was intrigued by the heavy drums, distorted guitars, and layered vocals that he rarely heard in Nashville and found these recordings useful in demonstrating the studios sonic range.

Sometime later, this engineer was giving a freshly signed country act and their producer a tour of the studio. The artist, a new country band, and this producer were looking for a studio in which to record this new act’s debut. The “DB test” reel was used to demonstrate the sonics of the studio. It is said the band and producer were not only impressed with the studio’s functionality, they loved the rock elements mixed with Nashville country of the recording. They not only selected this studio for their recording but also would reference the “DB test” recordings many times to figure out how the rock elements were blended to create such a modern take on a country sound. Thus, began a decade long tradition in the 1980s of blending more rock elements into Nashville’s country records. The phrase “let’s add some more DB to this” become shorthand for heavier drums and guitars.