David Briggs, a Music Force in Alabama and Nashville, Dies at 82

David Briggs, a keyboardist and study operator who played a fundamental role in the establishment of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, as a recording center in the 1960s before helping to revitalize the main country music, died on Tuesday. He was 82 years old.

His brother, John, said his death, in a hospice center, was caused by complications of renal cancer.

Mr. Briggs contributed not only to one but two main developments in popular music. As a member of the original rhythm section in fame recording studios, he helped put the village of Northern Alabama of Muscle Shoals on the musical map. He played in historical R&B recordings such as “You Better Move On” by Arthur Alexander (1962), “Steal Away” by Jimmy Hughes (1964) and the tams “” What kind of fool (do you think I am) “(1963), all the best singles and singles?

The rhythm section in fame, whose members also included Norbert Putnam in the bass and Jerry Carrigan in the battery, perfected a house sound that, with its long mixture of country and soul, was separated from the R&B that came out of Motown Stax. “You Better Move On” attracted the attention of the Rolling Stones, who launched its version of the song in 1964.

The other decisive moment of Mr. Briggs occurred when he, Mr. Putnam and Mr. Carrigan moved to Nashville at the end of 1964 and begged the recordings of countries with the discreet and rich variant in Nashville sound grooves that was known as “Countrypolitan.”

“We brought some more blues and pop-rock than what Nashville was doing at that time,” Putnam said in an interview.

He recalled that singer Ray Stevens, then a better arranger who worked at Muscle Shoals and Nashville, once said: “You play modern music better than the team we have in Nashville.”

After just a few months in Nashville, Mr. Briggs had distinguished himself as one of the city’s first studio keyboard players. He would continue to participate in hundreds of sessions a year after the 1980s.

(A completely different rhythm section, known as swampers, would take the slack in muscle banks, working with luminaires such as Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett).

David Paul Briggs was born on March 16, 1943 in Killen, Alabama, Northeast or Muscle Banks. He was the old man from two children of James and Myrtle (Myrick) Briggs. His father was a carrier.

Classic training, David begged to play professionally as a teenager. He worked in a local band called Crunk Brothers and, through them, with Mr. Putnam and finally won the entrance to fame session. Mr. Briggs and Mr. Putnam played in the success of Tommy Roe, “Sheila”, and were members of his accompaniment band when Mr. Roe was an opening act for the Beatles in his first concert in the United States, in 1964.

Meanwhile, Mr. Briggs had begun to write songs and launch the occasional disk as a singer and keyboardist. One was a simple produced by Owen Bradley, who urged him to move to Nashville in 1964 to do study work.

In 1966, Mr. Briggs was an 11 -year -old association with Elvis Presley, including eight years in his TCB band, a work that he would maintain, along with his session work, until the death of Presley in 1977.

In 1969, Mr. Briggs and Mr. Putnam opened Quadraphonic Sound, a highly demanded study organized by Neil Young projects, Dan Fogelberg, Jimmy Buffett and the Jackson. That year, Mr. Briggs joined the area code 615, a session musicians, including Mr. Putnam and guitarist Mac Gayden, who died this month. The band launched a pair of freewheeling rock rock rock albums in Polydor Records.

Mr. Briggs and Mr. Putnam also founded their own editorial company, Danor Music, who succeeded with pop hits No. 1 as “Higher Love” by Steve Winwood and “Don’s We Hear We have all” by Whitney Houston.

The two men sold quadrías sound in 1979, but Mr. Briggs opened another study, House of David, three years later. The Blasters, Norah Jones, Bootsy Collins and the indie-rock band I have it were among the many clients of David’s house, along with BB King, for whom Mr. Briggs wrote arrangements.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Mr. Briggs begged to write and organize (and sometimes singing) Jingles for Coca-Cola, Kentucky Fried Chickn and other products. In 1988, he became the musical director of the Annual Television Awards program of the Country Music Association, a position he held until 2001.

Together with Mr. Putnam, Mr. Carigan and guitarist Terry Thompson, Mr. Briggs was included in the Musician Hall of Fame in Nashville in 2019. He remained active as a musician and owner of study until 70 years.

In addition to his brother, two children survive, Darren and Gabriel, and a grandson. His marriage to Judy Mclemore ended in divorce.

Remembering the opening of Quadraphonic Sound in an interview for the Oral History Program of the National Association of Music Merchants, Mr. Briggs said about his association with Mr. Putnam: “We wanted a study that was a little better than anywhere else we would have recorded.”

He added: “When we started, it was going to be a small demonstration study, but then we started buying more exenous things. It simply grew slowly and became this hot place.”