Wayne Moss – Guitarist on “Pretty Woman” and “Jolene” – Has Died

When you can sit back and boast about how you played on the signature songs from both Dolly Parton and Roy Orbison—let alone the guitar part on “Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line” by Waylon Jennings, and were part of Bob Dylan’s Nashville sessions recording his iconic album Blonde On Blonde—you can very well claim you left your mark on American culture. Truth is, that’s just where the credits and accolades for “Nashville Cat” session player Wayne Moss begin.

Unfortunately though, his life story ended on Monday, April 20th at the age of 88. The music he made though, it will live on.

Wayne Moss was one of those Nashville session players whose credits were so numerous, it might be easier to list of who he didn’t work with than who he did through the years, with many of his credits simply going unrecorded. When he moved to Nashville in 1959 looking to make it in music, he became friends with harmonica player Charlie McCoy and drummer Kenny Buttrey, falling in with the crowd who was on-call day and night to record the next hit.

It was Hall of Fame piano player Hargus “Pig” Robbins who officially hired on Wayne Moss as a session musician. But only a couple of years after arriving in Nashville, Moss also opened his own studio called Cinderella Sound, which would become legendary in recording circles, in part because of the mystery surrounding it. Along with playing guitar and bass on countless sessions, Moss also worked as a record producer, and accrued numerous songwriting credits over his career as well.

Though country was much of the repertoire that Wayne Moss worked in, he was also known for working with numerous rock performers. That’s why his playing credits span across a wide variety of artists, from Patsy Cline and Lefty Frizzell sessions, to Waylon Jennings, Charley Pride, Charlie Daniels, Kris Kristofferson and Loretta Lynn, to Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Linda Ronstadt, and the Steve Miller Band.

If you were one of those rockers who came to Nashville to tap into the city’s rich musical talent, Wayne Moss was one of the names you wanted to have on your recordings. He could bring that country feel, but remain palatable to rock sensibilities. Former Monkees member Mike Nesmith, Carl Perkins, and Nancy Sinatra were some other names the solicited the services of Wayne Moss. Though studio sessions were mostly what he was known for, Moss was also in the touring band of Brenda Lee for a spell.

Wayne Moss was around long enough to see the very start of the Nashville recording community, and around long enough to see it go through numerous permutations, from classic country gold, to the rise of rock, to Countrypolitan, and into the Outlaw era. He also played in two of Nashville’s most legendary session player bands, Area Code 615 and Barefoot Jerry.

As big labels bought up or operated many of Nashville’s studios, Wayne Moss kept his Cinderella Sound independent. The studio emerged out of the closing down of a nightclub called The Sack that Moss owned with Charlie McCoy. They took the sound equipment from the club, and built a studio out of it in the garage of Wayne Moss’s Madison-area home. It would go on to become legendary, and one of the last independently-owned studios in the city.

Grand Funk Railroad, James Gang, Steve Miller Band, Linda Ronstadt, Mickey Newbury, and more were some of the names who sought Cinderella and Wayne Moss out to record. The studio wasn’t listed in any phone book, and wasn’t part of public knowledge. You had to know somebody who new Wayne Moss to get permission to record there. That made the space magical to the artists and bands that ventured to Nashville to record at the place owned by the guy who played the iconic guitar riff on “Pretty Woman.”

Wayne Moss was born on February 9th, 1938 in South Charleston, West Virginia, and grew up playing in bands in Charleston, knowing he wanted to be a musician. Moss was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2013. He probably should be a candidate for the Rock and Roll and Country Music Halls of Fame as well.

So the next time you hear the guitar on Bob Dylan’s “I Want You,” or Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman,” or Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” think of Wayne Moss who put the sound to the stories of some of the greatest pieces of recorded music in history.

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