08/23/2026
Many Thanks for sharing RCA Studio B! More Photos from George IV's Feb. 7, 1966 "Steel Rail Blues" Session @ RCA Nashville, w/ Gordon Lightfoot on Guitar in the George Hamilton IV Library & Museum Photo Albums.
Considered among the greatest Canadian folk singer-songwriters of the twentieth century, Gordon Lightfoot spent formative years recording in Nashville—records that would help define the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and ’70s.
Lightfoot fell in easy with the city’s country players. In 1962, he came to RCA Studio B to work with producer Chet Atkins, guitarist Grady Martin, pianist Floyd Cramer, and the Anita Kerr Singers. Among the songs he recorded was “(Remember Me) I’m the One,” which he would later describe as sounding “too much like Jim Reeves or Pat Boone.” The song was the beginning of his charting success, reaching No. 3 in Canada.
Taking inspiration from country music and from Bob Dylan’s songwriting, Lightfoot had written songs by the early 1960s that would become standards. Marty Robbins scored a No. 1 country hit with Lightfoot’s “Ribbon of Darkness” in 1965, and in 1966 George Hamilton IV placed multiple Lightfoot compositions on the country charts, including “Early Morning Rain,” which reached No. 9, and “Steel Rail Blues,” which reached No. 15.
After Dylan made his 1966 album, "Blonde on Blonde," in Nashville, manager Albert Grossman suggested to Lightfoot that he record his second album there with musicians Kenny Buttrey and Charlie McCoy. Lightfoot’s "The Way I Feel" was released in 1967. He returned to Nashville again in 1968 to make "Back Here on Earth" with producer Elliot Mazer at Bradley’s Barn, and moved to Woodland Sound Studios in East Nashville to record "Summer Side of Life" in 1970 and ’71.
Pictured: Gordon Lightfoot (right) at Nashville RCA Studios in 1966 with George Hamilton IV, who placed multiple Lightfoot compositions on the country charts.
