Norbert Auvin Putnam was born in 1942. He grew up near Florence, learning to play an upright bass. In his teens he joined David Briggs and Jerry Carrigan in a local group. They were all too young to drive, so Garrigan’s father usually provided a “taxi” service to get them to wherever they were performing.
They were spotted by Tom Stafford, who hired them to work at the SPAR studio, above the Florence drugstore, where they met Rick Hall and Billy Sherrill. The boys’ main task was to record demo versions of the songs that the owners were writing, which could then be used to sell the songs to singers who were looking for original material to record.
When Rick Hall found himself suddenly pushed out of SPAR, he set about establishing FAME, which he wanted to make bigger and better than the previous venture. He hired the boys, plus several of their friends, to work at the new studios, not just to record demos of new songs but also to provide a backing band for the singers that he hoped to attract. It is not hard to imagine the excitement these teenagers felt when they played on the recording of Arthur Alexander’s “You Better Move On” and watched the single go to number twenty-four on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart in March 1962.
Arthur Alexander’s hit was followed by more successes for Tommy Roe, Jimmy Hughes, the Tams and Joe Tex. Then, in 1965, the three friends decided to move on. The money on offer in Nashville, only 125 miles away, was tempting, and so was the opportunity to play with some of the industry’s top names.
Norbert Putnam 2014
Photo: Composemusic (Wikimedia Commons)
Norbert Putnam was soon playing for Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Linda Ronstadt and many more well-known singers. He also got involved in producing, specializing in working with non-country singers who came to record in Nashville. He joined Area Code 615, an eight-man supergroup, and opened Quadrafonic Studio in 1970, along with David Briggs. One of his strengths was his ability to play acoustic bass, an echo of those early-teen years at home in Alabama.
Putnam was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2019.
