Country music in the 1960s increasingly embraced smooth orchestration, background vocals and polished studio production. The Nashville Sound softened honky-tonk’s rough edges, while countrypolitan pushed the crossover idea even further toward adult pop.
From honky-tonk to polish
Producers such as Chet Atkins helped create recordings that could reach country and mainstream pop audiences at the same time. Patsy Cline became one of the style’s defining voices before her death in 1963.
Major artists
Jim Reeves, Eddy Arnold, Patsy Cline and later Glen Campbell represented different versions of the smoother Nashville approach.
Why it matters
The Nashville Sound helped country music expand beyond regional markets and established the crossover model that later country-pop artists would repeatedly use.