With the smooth high-quality production of the "Nashville Sound," the ground-breaking innovative guitar styles coming out of Los Angeles, and a diverse range of influences from jazz to rock 'n' roll and bluegrass, country music moved into the modern period. A key event was the development of a "Bakersfield Sound" in California which is primarily associated with Buck Owens and Merle Haggard.

Singer and guitarist Buck Owens (b. 1929), with his group the Buckaroos, which included guitarist Don Rich (1941-74), helped to forge the Bakersfield Sound. Their first big hit was "Act Naturally" (1963), on which the guitar has a thick-textured metallic cable twang sound with string bending. One of the group's most interesting tracks is "Memphis" (1965), Owen's version of a Chuck Berry song. This opens with bluesy chordal figures and has a well-executed raunchy sound, which anticipates country rock.

The talented Roy Nichols worked with singer and guitarist Merle Haggard from the mid-1960s. His licks and riffs have been widely admired on many of Haggard's songs. James Burton also did sessions with Haggard, adding touches such as the "chicken pickin'" technique.

CLARENCE WHITE

One of the most exceptional prodigies to emerge in the 1960s was Clarence White (1944-73). He started in bluegrass with The Kentucky Colonels, recording with them from 1963 and producing one of the greatest instrumental bluegrass albums, Appalachian Swing (1964). White's virtuoso acoustic bluegrass picking and harmonic interplay with the other instruments are highlighted on an album that has a seamless flowing quality. His intermingling of swinging lines and fills with slides and chordal elements is heard on "Nine Pound Hammer." "Listen to the Mocking Bird" and "Billy in the Lowground" feature his characterful melodic phrasing and individual approach to stretching time into a relaxed and personal style of syncopation. White has an ability to transcend the mechanical-sounding edge in guitar picking, and this can be heard on the deceptively loping yet subtle solo on "I Am a Pilgrim," the elastic phrasing on "Sally Goodin," and on "John Henry," where his guitar sound forms a pleasing contrast to the mandolin. Among other skills are White's arpeggiated crosspicking variations across three adjacent strings to achieve a banjo-roll effect.

White adopted a different approach when he started using a Fender Telecaster electric guitar with a B. Bender device. His distinctive steel-guitar style additions made a new contribution to his vocabulary, and can be heard on many of his recordings.

White worked with The Byrds from 1968, and played on a number of their albums,  including Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde (1969) and Untitled (1970), which feature his sharply  executed yet subtle melodic country fills using slides and multinote bends. He also played on sessions for the Everly Brothers and Joe Cocker. Highlights toward the end of his career are with Muleskinner and recordings by the reformed Kentucky Colonels. White's progressive style, his rhythmic originality and his subtle lines form a link between an older style approach to bluegrass and a supple improvisational medium. He has been enormously influential.

GRAM PARSONS

An exceptional songwriter and an innovator who helped to define the beginnings of country rock with his first album Safe At Home (1967), Gram Parsons (1946—73) formed the International Submarine Band. He worked for a short period with The Byrds in 1967-68, when he released some of his finest work. As a guitarist, Parsons uses the instrument to play chords and adds further guitarists, including James Burton, to his recordings. Burton contributes a variety of attractive touches to GP (1973) and works closely with Al Perkins' pedal steel. "We'll Sweep out the Aisles in the Morning" has a beautifully executed melodic slide break on Dobro, and on "Kiss The Children," a short section with double stopping and bending is played with smooth technical mastery. The rocky "Big Mouth Blues" has driving upper register solos with a brittle tone and echo. The number "Grievous Angel" (1974) features acoustic and electric guitar parts from Parsons and Burton with added work from Bernie Leadon.

JAMES BURTON

Country-guitar parts are often made up of well-crafted elements using licks and melodic phrasing. In a long and illustrious career, James Burton (b. 1939) has been one of the best session and backing guitarists, laying down a vast number of superb suitar tracks.

Burton has a technical versatility that enables him to use devices such as "chicken pickin'," in which the guitar plays triplets with the first two notes muted to mimic clucking. He is one of the greatest country session players, yet despite producing albums such as Corn Pickin' S^Slide Slidin' (1969) and Guitar Sounds of James Burton (1971), Burton remained largely unrecognized as a leading guitarist until he started to work with high-profile artists in live concerts. In the late 1960s, he joined Elvis Presley, working with him until Presley's death in 1977. He added classy country-style breaks on records such as In Person at the International Hotel Las Vegas (1970). After Gram Parson's death, members of his group continued to work with Emmylou Harris. Burton too had a key role in Harris' Hot Band, and played on a number of her albums. His concise solos can be heard on "Queen of the Silver Dollar" on the album Pieces of Sky, recorded in 1976.

NEW GRASS

Bluegrass became an umbrella term for an evolving area of acoustic country music that could range from the traditional to open-minded music that is close to jazz and classical music with harmonic shifts and conceptual approaches to form. Groups such as The Kentucky Colonels in the 1960s set a high standard and pointed the way for a new sophistication in bluegrass. During the 1970s, a number of talented guitarists worked in the bluegrass area, one of the most skilled being Norman Blake (b. 1938), who produced albums ranging from the down home Back Home in Sulphur Springs (1972) to the outstanding Whiskey Before Breakfast (1976). One of the most remarkable new guitarists to emerge is Tony Rice (b. 1951), a modern-thinking flatpicker who merged country with jazz and progressive folk elements. Rice started working with traditional bluegrass groups before launching a solo career in the mid 1970s. With a full reedy tone and supple rhythmic
 
flexibility, Rice helped to forge a new style of single-note playing; on Tony Rice (1977), mandolinist David Grisman's instrumental "Rattlesnake" is a quantum leap in terms of arrangement compared with traditional country notions, with time changes and impressionistic harmonies. Rice plays melodic excusions that weave in and out of the arrangement in a style that defies generic boundaries. "Plastic Banana" opens with the guitar playing an extended folk-inspired line that develops in alternating sections with the other instruments. On the uptempo bluegrass number "Farewell Blues," Rice holds his own with a stream of inventive lines and solos. The development of this area has been an important addition to country, reflecting an artistic side of acoustic country music with depth and vision. One of Rice's techniques is to pick notes and lines and mix them with open-string notes that ring at upper and lower registers. This gives lines extra floating notes and a sense of rolling continuity. In 1980, he formed the Tony Rice Unit.

ALBERT LEE

Coming from a tradition of playing in a voluble style with a dense complexity, Albert Lee (b. 1943) fits into a way of approaching country that stems back to figures such as Jimmy Bryant. One of his obvious characteristics is that he improvises as well as working within set licks and motifs. Lee started working in the US, joining Emmylou Harris' Hot Band in 1976, and taking over the role filled by James Burton. His playing at this time is featured on "Luxury Liner" (1977) and "Quarter Moon in A Ten Cent Town" (1978).

Lee produced a debut solo album hiding (1979), on which he plays "Country Boy." First written with "Head Hands and Feet" in the early 1970s, "Country Boy" has also become a tour deforce signature track, showcasing Lee's technical dexterity. Using a sharp snappy tone he plays countermelodies, fast skittering melodic motifs, and contrasting sections with double stopping using muting and echo.

Lee worked as a top sideman with Eric Clapton, the Everly Brothers, and many others, but he also produced an instrumental album, Speechless (1987) that demonstrates his ability to run complex long lines made up of attractive variations on stock country licks, tricky turns, and his own improvised ideas. His own composition, "T-Bird to Vegas" shows him using a stinging tone and snappy percussiveness on the head, with its hammer slides and ringing notes followed by a tightly articulated propulsive solo break. Another side of his playing can be heard in the tremulous melody for "Seventeenth Summer," which features a graceful solo with bluesy bending over arpeggiated acoustic guitar, and on "Romany Rye," with its wistful melody with tasteful simple phrases using a dry, bright sound. On traditional material, he brings his metallic twangy string sound to the fiddle tune "Arkansas Traveler" and the folky "Salt Creek."

COUNTRY TODAY

In the 1980s, country veered toward pop influences with glossy overproduction and the use of synths. During this time, a number of guitarists who were beginning to establish themselves gained a strong grounding in the more artistic side of country, drawing on the best traditional music and bluegrass. Country music has always had a high standard of instrumental skill, and in the 1980s figures such as guitarist and mandolinist Ricky Skaggs (b. 1954) helped the mainstream to rediscover its rich musical heritage and steer away from the lighter side of pop. The rock-crossover instrumental group, The Hellecasters, with Jerry Donahue, John Jorgensen, and Will Rayhas recorded some of the most impressive guitar music, combining traditional country style with rock. On the album, The Return of the Hellecasters (1993), they play a fusion of country with rock jazz, combined with other influences that use intricate guitar parts. The album's showcase is "Orange Blossom Special," with its cutting stacatto, rock effects, and steel-guitar type lines.

ROCK GUITAR IN COUNTRY

In the 1990s there was a move toward modern pop and rock guitar sounds in country. The shift in style came in from the end of the 1980s with figures such as Clint Black. On "One Emotion" (1994), guitarist Dan Huff brings modern guitar styles to the music and today there is a shift in style and a tendency for country to reinvent itself as rock on albums. This is evident on albums where session guitarists such as Dan Huff and Brent Mason play in a completely different non-traditional country style. A new generation has assimilated the developments of the modern pop and rock era, using blues rock and heavy-metal type fast lines with effects.