Owen Bradley - Later Years and Honors

Later Years and Honors

In 1974, Owen Bradley was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. One additional claim to fame is that he produced records (six) for more fellow Hall of Fame members than anyone else except Paul Cohen who produced nine Red Foley, Ernest Tubb, Webb Pierce, Kitty Wells, Maybelle Carter, Mel Tillis, Brenda Lee, Patsy Cline and Bob Wills . He retired from production in the early 1980s, but continued to work on the selected projects. Canadian artist k.d. lang chose Bradley to produce her acclaimed 1988 album, Shadowland. At the time of his death, he and Harold were producing the album I've Got A Right To Cry for Mandy Barnett, who is best known for her portrayal of Patsy Cline in the original Nashville production of the stage play Always...Patsy Cline.

His production of Cline's legendary hits like "Crazy," "I Fall to Pieces" and "Walkin' After Midnight" remain, more than forty years on, the standard against which great female country records are measured today. It is his work with Cline and Loretta Lynn for which he is best known, and when the biopics Coal Miner's Daughter and Sweet Dreams were filmed, he was chosen to direct their soundtracks.

In 1997, the Metro Parks Authority in Nashville dedicated a small public park between 16th Avenue South and Division Street to Owen Bradley, where his bronze likeness sits at a bronze piano. Owen Bradley Park is at the northern end of Music Row.