Wayne Moss, a prolific guitarist and producer who performed on landmark Nashville recordings by Roy Orbison, Tammy Wynette and others earlier than serving to to increase the attain of nation music as a member of the experimental country-rock teams Space Code 615 and Barefoot Jerry, died on Monday at his residence in Madison, Tenn. He was 88.
His demise, from persistent obstructive pulmonary illness, was confirmed in an announcement from his household.
A member of Nashville’s A-Crew of first-call studio musicians, Mr. Moss performed on recordings by luminaries like Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Charley Pride and quite a few others within the Sixties and ’70s.
He was one of many three guitarists who performed the indelible staccato riff that ignites Mr. Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman,” a chart-topping pop single in 1964. He additionally improvised the filigreed guitar phrasing on Bob Dylan’s “I Want You,” a Prime 20 pop hit in 1966, and the atmospheric guitar half on Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” a No. 1 nation single in 1973.
“Pay attention fastidiously,” Mr. Younger added, and “you’ll hear modern electrical lead components that drew consideration to Nashville’s world-class musicianship.”
A nimble bass guitarist as properly, Mr. Moss laid down the funky groove on “The Chokin’ Kind,” a Grammy Award-winning pop hit for the soul singer Joe Simon in 1969, and obtained within the woozy Salvation Military marching band temper of “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” a Prime 10 pop single from Mr. Dylan’s 1966 album “Blonde on Blonde.”
Working with Mr. Dylan, Mr. Moss stated, introduced out the perfect in him and his fellow Nashville musicians.
“We used to consider Nashville periods as being relaxed, however Dylan modified our complete strategy,” he was quoted as saying in Frye Gaillard’s 1978 e-book, “Watermelon Wine: The Spirit of Nation Music.” “He was so relaxed and laid-back that your inventive juices took on a completely totally different side. Something we needed to attempt, have at it.”
More and more, Mr. Moss needed to spend much less time on the information of others and extra on Barefoot Jerry, the improvisational Southern rock band he began in 1971 with different members of the A-Crew.
He additionally needed to focus extra on producing information at Cinderella Sound, the recording studio he inbuilt 1961 in a transformed two-car storage outdoors his residence. Maybe Nashville’s oldest repeatedly working unbiased sound studio, Cinderella Sound would go on to host tasks by Linda Ronstadt, Mickey Newburythe Steve Miller Band and others.
Wayne Moss was born on Feb. 9, 1938, in South Charleston, W.Va., one in every of 4 kids of Brodie and Mattie (Carr) Moss. His father labored as an engineer for Carbide Chemical, and his mom was a seamstress and homemaker.
Wayne began taking part in guitar at 8 and was touring along with his personal rock ’n’ roll band, the Versitones, by the point he was a youngster. He had no intention, he stated in a 2018 interview with the Nashville radio station WMOT, of staying in West Virginia.
“There was nothing to do up there however work in a chemical plant or a coal mine,” he stated. “My dad labored at Carbide, and I didn’t need black lung, so I obtained out of there.”
In 1959, he moved to Nashville, the place an audition with Chet Atkinsthen head of the native division of RCA Information, was unsuccessful. After a stint with Brenda Lee’s touring band, Mr. Moss started to safe studio work in Nashville. By 1962, he had performed on his first No. 1 hit file: “Sheila,” by the pop singer Tommy Roe.
In 1969, after years of session work, Mr. Moss shaped the country-rock band Space Code 615 — named for Nashville’s space code — and, two years later, Barefoot Jerry. An early Southern rock band, Barefoot Jerry launched six albums within the Nineteen Seventies however was maybe finest identified for the enthusiastic point out the group obtained on the Charlie Daniels Band’s single “The South’s Gonna Do It,” successful in 1975.
His survivors embody his spouse of 10 years, Dee (Moeller) Moss, and 5 kids from two earlier marriages that led to divorce, John Moss, Sheila Pearson, Patricia Harvey, Elizabeth Moss and Amanda Wolters.
For all of his musical acumen, Mr. Moss couldn’t learn music. He nonetheless was instrumental within the institution of the Nashville quantity system by which musicians transcribe music through the use of numbers, not phrases, to symbolize chords. Mr. Moss borrowed it from the notation that the vocal group the Jordanaires used to chart its harmonies because it backed Elvis Presley.
Charlie McCoy, a fellow West Virginian and famous Nashville instrumentalist, stated in his 2013 speech inducting Mr. Moss into the West Virginia Music Corridor of Fame, “His curiosity concerning the numbers that the Jordanaires would use to shorthand their music led us to develop what has turn into the usual with Nashville studio musicians, the Nashville quantity system.”
