Mac Gayden was a Nashville native, with family roots that go back to the founding of the city. But his upper crust upbringing was no hindrance to his passion for African American music as a teenager. He snuck into R&B clubs on Jefferson Street in the 1950s and soaked up the late night sounds on WLAC radio. When he started working in studios and writing songs, he found himself comfortably and happily in the overlapping zone between soul, blues, country and R&B. Besides writing Everlasting Love with his colleague Buzz Cason, a song taken to the top ten by Robert Knight, Gayden wrote one of the signature songs of Nashville’s Night Train era. He plays guitar on it too. The Clifford Curry hit “She Shot A Hole In My Soul”

Other accomplishments: Gayden came up with a combination of wah wah pedal and slide guitar for a J.J. Cale record that became a famous technique. And he was a founding member of Area Code 615 and Barefoot Jerry, supergroups that let Music City’s best studio pickers stretch out and tell the story of the real Nashville in the late 60s and early 70s.

My radio colleague Gina Frary Bacon arranged a sit down with Gayden to talk about his musical life and philosophy then and now.