Area Code 615
Area Code 615/Trip in the Country (Koch)
If you dial 615, you’re calling Nashville. Thirty years ago, if you were arranging a Nashville recording session for a superstar and you needed the best in the business, the seven digits following that area code most likely belonged to the players on this reissue of two albums originally released in 1969-70. Area Code 615 was a short-lived aggregate of the best — and hippest — of Music City session pickers, let loose to create whatever they wanted. A torrent of progressive instrumental creativity and innovation–barely hinted at by their hired-hand work — combined rock, bluegrass and country. That they managed to interpret material as far ranging as “Hey Jude” and “Just Like a Woman” to “Classical Gas” and “Lil’ Maggie” without ever descending into kitsch speaks to the taste and sensitivity required to be the 9-to-5 chameleons they were. But their originals, such as “Stone Fox Chase” and “Devil Weed and Me,” suggest that they were often the most talented composers in the studio even when they were there to back the stars.
