Music

Porter Wagoner‘s golden, rhinestone-crusted bootsand intricately stitched wagon-wheel cuffs provide some showbiz flash for the cover.
But inside photographer Ed Rode‘s coffee-table book Songwriter Musician: Behind the Curtain With Nashville’s Iconic Storytellers and Players, a series of static images captures a raw sense of dozens of creators affiliated with Music City.

The Chicks make goofy faces for the camera, informal Luke Bryan plays guitar with his shoe scuffing a couch, Dolly Parton gets lost in personal nostalgia, Dierks Bentley strikes a pose next to the mud-covered pickup that brought him to Nashville, and George Strait flashes a smile under a blue clear sky, though his eyes suggest a bit of sorrow or weariness.

People operate in a dynamic world, and through constant movement, convey multiple feelings at a time. When they reveal a little more than intended, a shift in expression or a gesture can cover the deep emotions when they rise to the surface. But a still photo, taken at the right moment, can capture a fleeting window to something intangible in the subject that might have been perceptible for a millisecond.

Given the emotional disposition at the heart of music, Rode’s portraits bring depth to a range of familiar artists and not-so-public songwriters and musicians. Self-published Aug. 20 by Ed Rode Photography, Songwriter Musician is more than 30 years in the making, drawing on the thousands of music-related photos he’s accumulated since moving to Nashville in 1990.

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“The way I like to shoot photos — as a photojournalist, as a documentary photographer — is capturing moments, capturing people as they are, trying to reveal personalities, trying to really tell a story,” Rode says. “I want to tell a story with one photo.”

Writing about music, it’s been said, is like dancing about architecture — words can never fully capture the pitch of an A-flat or the snarl of a Telecaster. Likewise, a photo can’t convey the spiritual tone of a scintillating mandolin or the raucous volume of an amped-up honky-tonk. But Rode’s photo of bluegrass icon Bill Monroe, leaning against a tree as he plucked his Gibson F-5 Master, provides a sense of Monroe’s relationship to his instrument. And a two-page spread of Keith Urban and Steven Tyler jamming in front of a packed house at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge captures the exuberance in the room, even if the page itself is silent.

Rode relates to the joy in the Urban-Tyler club collaboration and to the necessity that drove Monroe to play for 10 minutes impromptu for an audience of one in a Tennessee field.

“When he started playing, it was [like] breathing,” Rode says. “That’s the way I feel. I wake up every morning and I want to pick up a camera, I want to go make a photo. I want to capture a moment that won’t be repeated again. I dream about it. To me, I’m the luckiest SOB in the world. I do something that I absolutely love.”

Rode’s younger years set him on a path that’s obvious in hindsight. He grew up in a Midwestern home where Chet Atkins and The Beatles were frequently on the turntable. He had an affinity for drumming that ticked off his teachers and his Catholic-school principal, who was able to monitor classes from his office.

“I would be there banging the heck out of the desk,” he remembers, “and over the loud speaker, I’d get, ‘Rode, stop drumming.’ And to me, that was like fuel.”

He apprenticed at The Grand Rapids Press in Michigan, learning his craft while shooting photos at rock concerts, car wrecks, political speeches and basketball games. Shortly after accepting a job at The Nashville Banner in 1990, he got an assignment to cover a No. 1 party, where he met Atkins, the same guy whose albums were part of his childhood soundtrack. Atkins took a liking to Rode and had him over to his Music Row office a number of times. And, as Rode got enmeshed in the city’s creative community, Atkins encouraged him to think about doing some sort of documentary on Nashville’s songwriters and musicians.

Within a few years, Rode went freelance, shooting album covers, Music Row parties and concerts, and he built a significant catalog of candid shots and official portraits. He pitched the coffee-table book to publishers periodically, but never got a bite. Finally, with the aid of several investors, he designed and released the book on his own, uncertain of its commercial value but convinced of its historical importance. It captures plenty of familiar faces — Taylor Swift, Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn and Chris Stapleton, just for starters — but also features a number of “insiders,” including songwriter Bob McDill (“Good Ole Boys Like Me,” “Amanda”), guitarist Mike Henderson, songwriter Dennis Morgan (“Smoky Mountain Rain,” “River of Love”) and producer Chris DeStefano (Chris Young, Chase Rice).

Rode holds an affinity for his subjects’ work.

“I feel like we both start with blank slates,” he explains. “Back in the day, you put a blank roll of film up and you’d shoot. You start with nothing. And when you’re writing a song, you got a piece of paper in front of you and a pencil or whatever and you start with nothing, and then out comes something. And I kind of felt that kinship a little bit.”

Rode is selling Songwriter Musician from his website, but even though his 30-year project is complete, the work is not.

“I haven’t stopped shooting songwriters,” he says. “The day I step off this earth, you can probably call my career done. But up until then, it’s really easy to pick up that camera and carry it with me everywhere I go.”

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