Harold Bradley (born January 2, 1926), also known as Harold Ray Bradley, is an American country and pop guitarist and entrepreneur. He was part of the original "A Team" of Nashville superpickers,
Guitarist Harold Ray Bradley grew up in Nashville. At first, he was interested in the banjo (which he eventually learned to play), but his older brother Owen suggested that Harold concentrate on guitar. Harold was playing amplified jazz guitar by 1943, and Owen got him a summer job that year playing lead guitar with Ernest Tubb’s Texas Troubadours. After serving in the navy from 1944 to 1946, Harold enrolled at George Peabody College in Nashville, where he studied music. To enhance his income, however, Harold played on the Opry with Eddy Arnold and Bradley KincaidHis first country recording session came in 1946, when he recorded with Pee Wee King’s Golden West Cowboys in Chicago. As recording activity increased in Nashville, Bradley’s studio workload grew. For instance, his acoustic rhythm guitar opened
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Red Foley’s 1950 smash hit “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy,” which went to #1 on both the country and pop charts.
Harold recorded three albums as a pop guitarist on Columbia Records, "Misty Guitar", "Guitar for Lovers Only", and "Bossa Nova Goes to Nashville" in the 1960s. Though he is a capable lead guitarist, Bradley’s studio specialty has been rhythm work. On many sessions, he was part of a studio-guitar triumvirate with lead specialists Hank Garland and Grady Martin. Garland excelled in jazzy licks, Martin in funkier leads. In the aftermath of Garland’s disabling 1961 car accident, Bradley often took Garland’s place, and Ray Edenton played rhythm guitar.
Bradley’s rhythm playing wasn’t always apparent when listening to recordings, although his parts were essential contributions, as in Roy Orbison’s #2 pop hit “Crying” (1961). Occasionally Bradley did play lead parts that stood out. For example, he played the opening banjo notes on Johnny Horton’s 1959 hit “The Battle of
Over the years Bradley played on literally hundreds of hit recordings, including Eddy Arnold’s “Make the World Go Away,” Don Gibson’s “Oh Lonesome Me,” Brenda Lee’s “I’m Sorry,” and Roger Miller’s “King of the Road.” Other hits to which he contributed are Ray Price’s “Danny Boy,” Jeannie C. Riley’s “Harper Valley P.T.A.,” Bobby Vinton’s “Blue Velvet,” Burl Ives’s “Holly Jolly Christmas,” Faron Young’s “Hello Walls,” Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man,” and Conway Twitty’s “Hello Darlin.’”
After operating two small Nashville recording studios in the early 1950s, Harold and Owen opened Bradley Film and Recording on Sixteenth Avenue South in 1955. Soon they added a second studio, using a military Quonset hut. Along with RCA Studio B, which opened in 1957, the Bradley Studios helped give birth to the pop-influenced Nashville Sound. The Bradley studios also served as a workshop in which hard-country singers retooled their music for an evolving marketplace where country competed with rock & roll and pop. For that matter, the Bradley Studios yielded their share of pop and rock hits. After Columbia purchased the Bradley studio in 1962, Owen and his son Jerry opened Bradley’s Barn east of Nashville in tiny Mt. Juliet, Tennessee.
into the Country Music Hall of Fame, Bradley received the AF of M’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2010 Harold was one recipient of the Trustees Award at the 52nd Grammy AwardsHarold Bradley received the 2016 Cecil Scaife Visionary Award during a gala event at the Musicians Hall of Fame.. The award, founded in the name of the music industry pioneer and veteran, Cecil Scaife, is given annually to an individual whose life and work have made it possible for future generations to realize careers in the music industry.
Among the cinematic soundtracks boasting Bradley's touch are ''Kissin' Cousins,""Clambake,""Stay Away Joe,""The Fastest Guitar Alive,""Sugarland Express,""A Walk In the Spring Rain,""Tick, Tick, Tick,""Breathless,""Smokey & The Bandit II,""Coal Miner's Daughter,""Six-pack,""Missing" and "Sweet Dreams. Bradley also appeared briefly In Robert Altman's award-winning movie "Nashville."
(Adapted mainly from the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum’s Encyclopedia of Country Music).