Bill Porter (sound Engineer) - Awards and Legacy

Awards and Legacy

In 1992, the TEC Foundation inducted Porter into their TEC Awards Hall of Fame, along with synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog and record producer Phil Ramone. Porter asked Chet Atkins to accompany him to the ceremony, but Atkins could not attend because of a prior engagement at Carnegie Hall. However, before the honor was conferred at the ceremony, a video was played of Atkins congratulating Porter, saying "you improved the echo sound tremendously and made things sound so big and so full."

Author John McClellan, biographer of Atkins, writes of Porter's golden ear:

"He is considered by many to be the greatest recording engineer of all time ... Bill Porter deserves as much credit as anyone in creating the "Nashville Sound." He achieved this through his creativeness, his ability to hear sound as colors, and his skill in capturing on tape the full bloom or three dimensions of sound—width, height and depth."

In 2003, Porter won the William T. Kemper Award for Excellence in Teaching, and he was honored with a lifetime achievement award from the St. Louis chapter of the Audio Engineering Society.

Late in life, Porter said that among his favorites of his career recordings were Atkins's The Most Popular Guitar, an album recorded with lush string orchestration, and Jerry Byrd's Byrd of Paradise, recorded during Porter's stint with Monument Records. Regarding the Nashville Sound, Porter believed that it was in the people who were involved: Hank Garland, Ray Edenton, Buddy Harman, Harold Bradley, Bob Moore, Boots Randolph, Floyd Cramer, Velma Smith, Charlie McCoy, the Anita Kerr Singers, and the Jordanaires. He said, "They play perfectly together because they were like family. They did it without thinking! ... They played methodical yet simple rhythm patterns or fills. It was almost a jazz concept from the standpoint that a lot of it is in their head. If you listen to Hank Garland, you won't hear the same lick twice."

Porter's fourth wife, Mary, died while he was teaching in St. Louis. In 2004 he met Carole Smith, a native of Ogden, Utah, and he moved his belongings, including thousands of records, to Ogden in 2006 to be with her. The two married in 2006. Porter's health declined from Alzheimer's disease, and he died in a hospice near Ogden on July 7, 2010, at the age of 79. He was survived by his wife Carole, a brother and a sister, and his children Nancy and Gene.