page_title: Nashville sound
section_title: Countrypolitan
hierarchical_section_title: Nashville sound / Countrypolitan
caption_attribution_description: English: Lynn Anderson on stage April 2011
context_page_description: The Nashville sound originated during the mid 1950s as a subgenre of American country music, replacing the chart dominance of the rough honky tonk music which was most popular in the 1940s and 1950s with "smooth strings and choruses", "sophisticated background vocals" and "smooth tempos" associated with traditional pop. It was an attempt "to revive country sales, which had been devastated by the rise of rock 'n' roll" as a distinct genre from the rockabilly that spawned it.
context_section_description: In the early 1960s, the Nashville sound began to be challenged by the rival Bakersfield sound on the country side and by the British Invasion on the pop side; compounding these problems were the sudden deaths, in separate airplane crashes, of Patsy Cline and Jim Reeves, two of the Nashville sound's biggest stars. Nashville's pop song structure became more pronounced, and it morphed into what was called countrypolitan—a smoother sound typified through the use of lush string arrangements with a real orchestra and often background vocals provided by a choir. Countrypolitan was aimed straight at mainstream markets, and its music sold well through the later 1960s into the early 1970s. Among the architects of this sound were producers Billy Sherrill (who was instrumental in shaping Tammy Wynette's early career) and Glenn Sutton. Artists who typified the countrypolitan sound initially included Wynette, Glen Campbell (who recorded in Hollywood and not Nashville), Lynn Anderson, George Jones, Charlie Rich, and Charley Pride.
  The Bakersfield sound, and later outlaw country, dominated country music among aficionados while countrypolitan reigned on the pop charts.
  Upon being asked what the Nashville sound was, Chet Atkins put his hand into his pocket, shook his loose change, and said "That's what it is. It's the sound of money".
caption: Lynn Anderson
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