The Nashville A-Team

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The Nashville A-Team was a nickname given to a group of session musicians in Nashville, Tennessee, who earned wide acclaim in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s, similar to their West Coast counterpart who became known (after the fact) as the Wrecking Crew. Some members of the Nashville A-Team were also subsequently or previously members of the Wrecking Crew. They backed dozens of popular singers, including Elvis Presley, Eddy Arnold, Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, Bob Dylan, Moon Mullican, Jerry Lee Lewis, Brenda Lee, and others.^[1]

The Nashville A-Team's members typically had backgrounds in country music but were highly versatile. Examples of their jazz inclinations can be found in the Nashville All-Stars album with Chet Atkins titled After the Riot at Newport, the Hank Garland LP entitled Velvet Guitar, Tupper Saussy's Said I to Shostakovitch, Kai Winding's Modern Country, Gary Burton's Tennessee Firebird and Chester and Lester by Chet Atkins and Les Paul. The progressive country band Area Code 615 was composed almost entirely of members of the Nashville A-Team.

In 2007, The Nashville A-Team was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville.^[2] That year's inductees included Harold Bradley, Floyd Cramer, Pete Drake, Ray Edenton, Hank Garland, Buddy Harman, Tommy Jackson, Grady Martin, Charlie McCoy, Bob Moore, Boots Randolph, Hargus "Pig" Robbins, and Jerry Kennedy.^[3]

Noteworthy also is the fact that many A-Team members went on to have solo careers of their own.