R.I.P., Mac Gayden

One of the original Nashville Cats left us a treasure trove of timeless tunes.

Even though you may not know his name, you’ve heard Mac Gayden’s guitar, and you’ve damn sure heard his songs.

Gayden was an in-demand session guitarist who elevated tracks like JJ Cale’s swamp rock classic, “Crazy Mama” (Gayden perfected the use of a slide through a wah-wah and chorus pedal, which in turn encouraged Steve Miller to give it a go on “The Joker”), classic albums such as Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, and co-founded legendary outfits Area Code 615 and Barefoot Jerry. He also penned a pair of modern standards: “She Shot a Hole in My Soul” (the hit version by Clifford Curry featured 615ers Gayden, Norbert Putnam, and Kenny Buttrey as his backing band) and “Everlasting Love” (co-written with Buzz Cason).

When I was writing Have a Little Faith: The John Hiatt Story, Gayden kept making appearances. Not only had he played on two of Hiatt’s albums, 1985’s Warming Up to the Ice Age and 1990’s Stolen Moments, but Area Code 615 was instrumental in inspiring Hiatt to make the move to Nashville at the dawn of the 1970s.

Gayden’s most important contribution to Hiatt’s catalog occurred during the sessions for Stolen Moments. As I wrote in Have a Little Faith: The John Hiatt Story:

Stolen Moments offered another opportunity to be in the presence of another one of Hiatt’s heroes, Mac Gayden. Along with Norbert Putnam, he was part of Area Code 615, the group that inspired John to move to Nashville twenty years before. In the ensuing years, however, Gayden had become withdrawn from the public eye after an LSD mishap. He was flown in to work on overdubs, and Johns gave him a tape of “Thirty Years of Tears” to learn. After a few failed attempts, it was obvious that Gayden was struggling. Hiatt and Johns both had enormous respect for Gayden, so Johns patiently sat with him in the control room, face-to-face. “In one last attempt, I said to Mac, ‘Look, I just want you to make me cry,’” Johns wrote in his memoir. “I ran the tape, and he proceeded to play the most amazing, heart-wrenching guitar part, climaxing with a solo that still brings a tear to my eye whenever I hear it. With one simple sentence, I had finally found a way to get through to him in his altered state, and he proved what I had believed all along, that there was still an amazing musician in there fighting to get out.”¹

For the last several years, Gayden battled with Parkinson’s Disease, succumbing this week on April 16th at age 83. Before he passed, however, he was able to see the positive impact he’d made on musicians not only in Nashville but around the world. The Country Music Hall of Fame honored him and his fellow Nashville Cats in 2013. In 2022, several of his friends and old bandmates, including Cason and Charlie McCoy, got together to pay tribute to his legacy at Nashville’s 3rd and Lindsley. To this day, his songs and guitar work continue to blast out of radio towers and earbuds far and wide.

This weekend, spend some time with an original Nashville Cat.

1. Johns, Glyn. Sound Man. Page 273. New York: Plume, 2015.