Nashville Country Jamboree

Nashville Country Jamboree was a studio-only country act founded by songwriter and producer Johnny Elgin. Born in Texas, Elgin was a veteran country performer when in the mid-'50s he became a host and frequent performer on the Peach State Jamboree radio show on WJAT-AM in Swainsboro, Georgia, and he scored a hit single in 1957 with "Sittin' Alone with the Blues." In 1960, Elgin became manager of WJAT, and a few years later moved to Nashville, Tennessee and hired on as an ad salesman at WKDA-AM. When a song Elgin wrote, "Hello, City Limits," became a hit for Benny Martin, he began focusing on his career on writing and producing, and after launching a short-lived label in 1964, Kash Records, in 1965 Elgin joined the staff of Spar Records, an independent label founded by William Beasley, Alan Bubis, and Reynold Bubis. Though they also released original material, Spar and its associated labels specialized in sound-alike cover versions of pop, rock, and country tunes of the day, and they primarily sold their wares in dime stores, discount outlets, pharmacies, grocery stores, and other places that normally didn't carry records, where they were sold at a budget price. Elgin was put in charge of producing Spar's country product, and he created Nashville Country Jamboree as a vehicle to cover popular country & western hits as well as recording new tunes by Elgin and other songwriters on the Spar roster. While Nashville Country Jamboree's album covers featured six fresh-faced twenty-something musicians (four men and two women), the recordings were actually the handiwork of Elgin and a variety of Nashville session musicians, including some of the best players in Music City, such as Floyd Cramer, Hargus "Pig" Robbins, Norbert Putnam, Wayne Moss, Charlie McCoy, David Briggs, Norbert Putnam, and Pete Drake. Spar released at least eight albums under the Nashville Country Jamboree handle before Elgin left Spar in 1970; he went on to a successful career as an independent producer, later specializing in gospel and Christian music, as well as booking live acts.