Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City (Distributed for the Country Music Foundation Press)

Bob Dylan bucked executives at his record label and surprised his fans when he came to Nashville in 1966 to record his classic album Blonde on Blonde. Working with the city's unmatched session musicians, Dylan produced a rock & roll masterpiece and went on to record two more albums there. Dylan's embrace of Nashville and its musicians – the Nashville Cats – inspired many other artists, among them Neil Young, Joan Baez, and Leonard Cohen, to follow him to Music City. Around the same time, Johnny Cash was recruiting folk and rock musicians – including Dylan – to appear on his groundbreaking network television show, The Johnny Cash Show, shot at the Ryman Auditorium, home of the Grand Ole Opry.

This companion book to the exhibit Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City looks at the Nashville music scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a time of great cultural vitality for Music City.