
07/02/2025
"The musicians in this town will cut you a hit if you don’t get in their way too much,” producer and guitarist Chet Atkins was fond of saying. What a perfect way to describe the intuitive magic Nashville’s studio professionals applied to their work.
Upright bass player Bob Moore, a key component of the Nashville Sound and core member of Nashville’s A-Team, played on an estimated 17,000 sessions during his career. A sizable portion of them took place at RCA’s Studio B.
“We didn’t know what songs we were going to do. They’d present us with a demo and a good song, and a lot of them would go into the control room and leave us alone, and we’d work the song out and knock on the glass and say, ‘Let’s cut.’ Every now and then, you just know that it’s going to be a hit,” Moore recalled.
Moore played on hundreds of hits at Studio B, including Floyd Cramer’s “Last Date,” the Browns’ “The Three Bells,” and Elvis Presley’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight.” For “Crying” by Roy Orbison, Moore also served as musical director.
Moore, a Nashville native, began playing the upright bass as a teenager and worked with Country Music Hall of Fame members Little Jimmy Dickens, Flatt & Scruggs, Eddy Arnold, Red Foley, and Marty Robbins before becoming a first-call studio musician.
Pictured: on the left, Moore plays a session at Owen Bradley’s studio; on the right, Moore is with Flatt & Scruggs for a WSM radio show.