Stellar Guitarist & Songwriter Mac Gayden Passes

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Mac Gayden. Photo: Jim McGuire, courtesy of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Nashville pop/rock pioneer Mac Gayden died on Wednesday (April 16) at age 83.

Gayden left his mark on Music City as a songwriter, a guitarist and a performer. He co-wrote such soul classics as “Everlasting Love” and “She Shot a Hole in My Soul,” co-founded the Southern rock bands Barefoot Jerry and Area Code 615, recorded a number of solo LPs and played lead guitar on albums by Kris Kristofferson, Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Linda Ronstadt and many others.

Born McGavock Dickinson Gayden and raised in a prominent Nashville family, Gayden pursued music as a career despite his family’s wish that he become a doctor. As a teenager, his guitar skills earned him membership in the pioneering Nashville rock & roll band The Escorts, featuring future Country Music Hall of Fame member Charlie McCoy. In the early 1960s, The Escorts toured regionally and played local gigs, including many fraternity parties at Vanderbilt University.

At one of those Vanderbilt gigs, he met local soul singer Robert Knight. Gayden and Buzz Cason co-wrote “Everlasting Love” for Knight and produced his 1967 hit record of the song. “Everlasting Love” went on to become a pop standard. It has been a hit in various countries 12 times, including U.S. versions by Carl Carlton (1974), Rex Smith & Rachel Sweet (1981) and Gloria Estefan (1995). Superstar rockers U2 issued their rendition of the song in 1994.

Robert Knight introduced Gayden & Cason’s “Love on a Mountain Top” in 1968. The song was a favorite in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, but failed to catch on nationally. But in 1974, Knight’s single became a top-10 in Finland, Ireland and the U.K. The songwriting team also crafted Knight’s 1968 single “My Rainbow Valley,” which became a top-10 U.K. hit via a version by The Love Affair.

Gayden and Chuck Neese co-wrote the beach-music mainstay “She Shot a Hole in My Soul,” which was originated by Clifford Curry in 1967. The song was subsequently recorded by The Box Tops, John Fred & His Playboy Band, Huey Lewis & The News and others.

By the late 1960s, Mac Gayden’s prowess as a guitarist had attracted the attention of Nashville’s top session musicians and producers. With Wayne Moss, Kenny Buttrey, McCoy and others, he formed Area Code 615 in 1969. The group members all maintained their Music Row studio work and split up after two albums. Gayden and Moss formed Barefoot Jerry, which was active in 1971-72 with Gayden in its lineup. The widely admired Barefoot Jerry was mentioned in the Charlie Daniels Band 1975 rock hit “The South’s Gonna Do It Again.”

Like most of the other members of his early bands, Mac Gayden became a popular session musician. Already an accomplished slide guitarist, he fed his playing through a wah-wah pedal to create the ear-catching sound on the 1972 J.J. Cale pop hit “Crazy Mama.” Gayden’s innovative playing was also heard on records by Simon & Garfunkel, Charlie Rich,Leonard Cohen, John Hiatt, Charley Pride, Tammy Wynette and Loudon Wainwright, as well as the superstars cited above.

Gayden’s style was deeply influenced by R&B. In addition to Knight and Curry, he played on soul records by Roscoe Shelton, Arthur Alexander, The Pointer Sisters, Ivory Joe Hunter, Gene Allison and Joe Simon, plus The Valentines, whom he produced (notably on his song “Gotta Get Yourself Together”). Out-of-town visitors Connie Francis, Bobby Vinton, Patti Page, Ian & Sylvia, Robert Mitchum, The Alarm, Jerry Jeff Walker, Michael Martin Murphey and Karen Black had Gayden’s guitar on their sessions, too.

He also continued to record his own music. Mac Gayden issued McGavock as his debut solo LP in 1972. ABC Records signed him for Skyboat (1975) and Hymn to the Seeker (1976). His 1996 collection Nirvana Blues was the most critically praised of his albums.

As a record producer, Gayden created albums with Dianne Davidson and Steve Young. His songs were recorded by Bobby Bare, Porter Wagoner, The Crickets, Gary Lewis & The Playboys, James & Bobby Purify, Carol Chase and The Crickets, among others.

In later years, Mac Gayden worked with a number of independent recording artists. He also operated his label, Wild Child Records. Gayden chronicled his life, music, and search for inner harmony in a 2013 memoir, Missing String Theory: A Musician’s Uncommon Spiritual Journey.

That same year, the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum featured him in its “Nashville Cats” interview series. Gayden was also a key figure in two of the museum’s major exhibitions, “Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues” and “Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats.” The “Night Train” commemorative album won a Grammy Award and included Gayden’s tunes “Everlasting Love,” “She Shot a Hole in My Soul” and “Gotta Get Yourself Together.”

Mac Gayden’s brother Joseph Gayden (1947-2004) managed Quadraphonic Sound Studios in the 1980s and was a sculptor. Brother Hamilton Gayden is a retired Davidson County Judge.

His death was announced by The Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum. Funeral arrangements have not been posted.

Robert K Oermann
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