Durable ‘Nashville Cat’ Wayne Moss Passes

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Wayne Moss performs at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum during his Nashville Cats program in 2009. Photo: Donn Jones, courtesy of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

A vital presence on the Nashville music scene for seven decades, Wayne Moss has died at age 88.

He was a first-choice session guitarist, a record producer, the owner of Nashville’s oldest independent recording studio and the co-founder of the seminal country-rock bands Area Code 615 and Barefoot Jerry.

Born in 1938 in South Charleston, West Virginia, Moss spent his teenage years playing in local bands. He made the move to Nashville in 1959. Fellow musicians recognized his talent and began recruiting him to play on Music Row recording sessions.

The first hit song that Moss played on was “Sheila” by Tommy Roe (1962). Moss also played guitar on “Oh Pretty Woman” by Roy Orbison (1964) and on Bob Dylan’s acclaimed LP Blonde on Blonde (1966). He also played on R&B star Joe Simon’s 1969 album The Chokin’ Kind and its Grammy Award winning title track.

His work on guitar and/or bass can be heard on the records of more than 30 Country Music Hall of Fame members, including Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Charley Pride, The Everly Brothers, Roger Miller, Kris Kristofferson, Eddy Arnold, Willie Nelson, Bobby Bare, Marty Robbins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Grandpa Jones, Porter Wagoner and Charlie McCoy.

Wayne Moss was in the studio band for Dolly Parton’s signature tunes “Jolene” (1973), “I Will Always Love You” (1974) and “Coat of Many Colors” (1971). Moss was also a guitarist on Tammy Wynette’s iconic “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” and “Stand By Your Man” (1968). His guitar solo on “Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line” by Waylon Jennings (1968) inspired Marty Stuart to begin playing. Moss also played on the Charlie Rich mega hit “Behind Closed Doors” (1973).

Moss was on recordings by such pop artists as Fats Domino, Joan Baez, Carl Perkins, The Beau Brummels, Artimus Pyle, Nancy Sinatra, The Monkees, Ronny & The Daytonas, Al Kooper, Leonard Cohen, Perry Como, Esther Phillips, Simon & Garfunkel and Peter, Paul & Mary, as well as Orbison, Dylan, Simon and Roe. He toured with Rock & Roll and Country Hall of Famer Brenda Lee as a member of her band, The Casuals, in 1959-62. Back in Nashville, he joined The Escorts, one of the city’s earliest rock & roll bands.

He and fellow West Virginia musician McCoy ran a Nashville nightclub called The Sack. When it wen out of business in 1961, they used the venue’s equipment to build a recording studio in Moss’s garage in Madison. Dubbed Cinderella Sound, the small studio has hosted recording sessions by artists including Jackie DeShannon, The Steve Miller Band, Linda Ronstadt, Grand Funk Railroad, The James Gang, Tracy Nelson, Faron Young, The Louvin Brothers and Merle Kilgore. Cinderella Sound was unusual in that it didn’t advertise and wasn’t even listed in the phone book. It has succeeded via word-of-mouth for its entire 65-year existence.

In 1969, some of Music Row’s top session musicians formed the group Area Code 615. Members included Moss and McCoy, plus Mac Gayden, Bobby Thompson, Buddy Spicher, David Briggs, Norbert Putnam, Kenny Buttrey, Ken Lauber and Weldon Myrick. Area Code 615 was a unique fusion band combining elements of rock, jazz, country and funk. It recorded two albums for Polydor Records before most of its members returned to their more lucrative session work.

Moss, Buttrey and Gayden next formed Barefoot Jerry with keyboard player John Harris. The pioneering country-rock group recorded for Capitol, Warner Bros. and Monument. Its disc debut was the 1971 LP Southern Delight. Buttrey and Gayden left. Moss and Harris recruited Russ Hicks and Kenny Malone for 1972’s LP Barefoot Jerry. The lineup expanded into a nine-member ensemble for 1974’s Watchin’ TV and Barefoot Jerry Live (recorded in 1973, released in 2007). Membership varied, but the band continued under Moss’s leadership. The title tune of You Can’t Get Off with Your Shoes On scraped the bottom of the pop charts in 1975. Keys to the Country (1976) and Barefootin’ (1977) rounded out the band’s discography. In addition to being a group member, Wayne Moss produced the Barefoot Jerry records.

Barefoot Jerry was name checked in the Charlie Daniels hit “The South’s Gonna Do It Again” in 1975. Billed as “Barefoot Jerry,” Wayne Moss appeared in the landmark 1981 documentary Heartworn Highways alongside Daniels, Guy Clark, David Allan Coe, Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, Townes Van Zandt, Steve Young and other country “outlaws.”

In the 1980s, Wayne Moss returned to studio work. He spent 15 years in the house band of TV’s Hee Haw. He also had some success as a songwriter. Among those who have recorded his tunes are Hall of Famers The Oak Ridge Boys, Chet Atkins, Brenda Lee and Willie Nelson.

Cinderella Sound continued to be active in the ‘80s, ‘90s and beyond. Jerry Reed, Connie Smith, Ricky Skaggs, Tony Joe White, John Hartford, Kathy Mattea and Mel McDaniel have been among the studio’s dozens of clients. Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame member Gretchen Peters recorded her Mickey Newbury tribute album at Cinderella Sound in 2020.

The Country Music Hall of Fame honored Wayne Moss as a Nashville Cat in 2009. Moss was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2013. Three years later, author Michael Selke published the biography Nashville Cat: The Wayne Moss Story.

Wayne Moss passed away on Monday, April 20. Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

Robert K Oermann
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