Hometown of Buddy Cannon

Hometown of Buddy Cannon. . , Murray Franklin “Buddy” Cannon, born in Lexington, Tennessee, on April 20, 1947, is a Nashville-based songwriter, record producer, music publisher, and former record company A&R (artists and repertoire) executive. He ranks among the most successful Nashville record producers in recent decades for his work with George Jones, Joe Nichols, John Michael Montgomery, Kenny Chesney, Merle Haggard, Reba McEntire and Willie Nelson. As A&R director for Mercury Records, he brought Billy Ray Cyrus, Sammy Kershaw and Shania Twain to the label. And as a songwriter, he has written hits for George Strait, Mel Tillis, Vern Gosdin and Willie Nelson., After learning to play guitar with help from his uncle, Dalton Tate, Cannon performed on radio station WDXL in Lexington, with a country band, the Rhodes Boys, and played shows with several local bands. After high school he moved to Chicago, working as a musician in a country band. Six years later he moved to Nashville where he immediately found work playing bass with country singer Bob Luman and started writing songs. Singer-songwriter-music publisher Mel Tillis heard Cannon's demos and called him. Cannon left a steady club gig to work for Tillis as a songwriter, song-plugger and bass player. Not long after, in 1978, Tillis scored a No. 1 country hit with a song Cannon had cowritten, “I Believe in You.”, Tillis' recordings at that time were produced by Jimmy Bowen, and Cannon closely observed Bowen's techniques. He also learned production from working on demo sessions for Tillis' Sawgrass Music and Sabal Music. In 1987, Tillis sold his publishing companies to PolyGram Music, and Cannon was one of only two staff members retained by PolyGram. The following year, Cannon cowrote Vern Gosdin's No. 1 country hit “Set 'em up, Joe,” and in 1989 he cowrote George Strait's No. 1 single “I've Come to Expect It From You.”, Cannon also placed songs with Glen Campbell and the group Alabama, who were produced by Harold Shedd. When Shedd was appointed head of PolyGram Records Mercury Nashville label, he moved Cannon from the publishing division of the record company as a director of A&R. While at Mercury Records, Cannon played a significant role in signing several top-selling artists. His first artist as a producer was Sammy Kershaw, and in 1993 he produced Kershaw's No. 1 hit “She Don't Know She's Beautiful.”, As a side project, Cannon and songwriter-producer Norro Wilson produced one of George Jones' later hits, “High-Tech Redneck.” Cannon left PolyGram in 1996 and two years later teamed with Wilson to form Bud-Ro Productions. Earlier, they had produced Kenny Chesney's first gold album, I Will Stand, and Cannon has since coproduced every Kenny Chesney album from I Will Stand to date. Total sales now exceed 30 million SoundScan units., Cannon has also produced albums by Alison Krauss, Chely Wright, Chris Young, David Lee Murphy, Jamey Johnson, Reba McEntire and Sara Evans. The albums he produced for Willie Nelson were among the most highly acclaimed of Nelson's later career, In 2016, Cannon received a Grammy award for the album Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin.