Night Train to Nashville

July 24, 2023
Retired gemologist Blackman’s scattershot debut recounts how Nashville radio station WLAC became a pioneering venue for Black rhythm and blues music in the 1940s and ’50s. Drawing heavily on stories from her grandfather E. Gab Blackman, a nearly 30-year veteran of the station, Blackman notes that Gab was hired as an ad solicitor in 1946 at a moment when the radio industry was under threat from the increasing popularity of television. He soon teamed up with the station’s disc jockey, Gene Nobles, to play so-called “race records” previously deemed “too low-class and dirty for the airwaves,” a move that attracted “a mixed-race audience and inspire a cultural revolution,” according to Blackman, who also profiles William Sousa “Sou” Bridgeforth, the owner of a prominent Black nightclub in Nashville who introduced Gab to some of the musicians WLAC showcased. While much of this history is genuinely fascinating, Blackman’s heavy reliance on Gab’s stories and iffy sourcing will prove less than satisfying to students of music history; for example, while she interviewed Little Richard, who was one of many Black musicians attracted to Nashville by WLAC to perform and record songs, nothing in the book indicates what information was derived from those conversations. This rich chapter of American music history awaits a more reliable account.