Career
Cobb's career in music began as a session musician in Atlanta, sometimes working with producers Dallas Austin and Jermaine Dupri. In the late 1990s he joined Britpop band The Tender Idols, featuring Ian Webber (vocals), Danny Howes (guitar), Guy Strauss (drums) and Joe Jones (bass), and Cobb on guitar and bass. [7] The band signed with New York record label Emagine and released three LPs, the second of which Dave Cobb co-produced. [8] Cobb's involvement in the recording process got him interested in working in the recording studio and led to him recording and producing other bands he was friends with. [5]
Cobb left the band and moved to Los Angeles, California in 2004. Cobb's manager, Andrew Brightman, introduced him to Shooter Jennings, [5] and the two became friends, connecting over shared interest in bands like Ministry, Skinny Puppy, and Nine Inch Nails. [8] Jennings also expanded Cobb's country music education and, in 2005, Cobb produced Jennings' debut solo album Put the "O" Back in Country . Over the next several years, Cobb produced more albums by Jennings, as well as albums by such rock bands as Rival Sons, [3] and co-produced Jamey Johnson's That Lonesome Song (2008) and The Guitar Song (2009). [7]
In 2009, thanks to his professional connection to Jennings, Cobb produced the Oak Ridge Boys' record The Boys Are Back, [4] encouraging the band to record outside their standard catalog. The group then went on to cover songs by The White Stripes, Neil Young and John Lee Hooker. [9]
In 2011 Cobb moved to Nashville, Tennessee. [3] Cobb established a recording studio in a bedroom-sized room at the back of his house and named it Low Country Sound. [10] After meeting Sturgill Simpson at a Billy Joe Shaver concert, [11] Cobb produced Simpson's debut studio album High Top Mountain (2013) and its follow-up, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music (2014). Recorded at Cobb's Low Country Sound studio in only four days, Cobb used many different vintage recording techniques, avoiding any electronic recording approaches for this particular album. [7]
Cobb began working with Jason Isbell in 2013. Isbell's album Southeastern , recorded in Cobb's home and studio, was an effort to chronicle an acoustic sound similar to what is found on Simon And Garfunkel's Bridge over Troubled Water, where a non-traditional recording environment was captured to provide an organic, live and "warm" sound. [5] [12] The same year, Cobb began work producing Early Morning Shakes, the third studio album from Whiskey Myers, a Country Southern rock band from Palestine, Texas. The record was released on February 4, 2014.
Cobb met singer-songwriter Anderson East at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe, and Cobb ended up producing East's 2015 album Delilah, which was recorded at FAME Studios in North Alabama's Muscle Shoals. Rodney Hall from FAME allowed the pair into the archives—in the vault they found George Jackson's song, "Find 'Em, Fool 'Em, Forget 'Em," which is now a track on Delilah. [13] The video for "Find 'Em" is shot at FAME. [14]
In 2015, Cobb founded Low Country Sound (LCS), a record label imprint of Elektra that has a distribution deal with Atlantic Records. [15] The debut project for Low Country Sound was the 2015 record Delilah by Anderson East, who is currently signed with the label. [16] The same year, Cobb co-produced Chris Stapleton's debut studio album Traveller at the historic RCA Studio A on Nashville's Music Row, which was slated for demolition. [10] The album would go on to top the Billboard Year-End Top Country Albums chart in 2016 and 2017, [17] [18] and win the Grammy Award for Best Country Album. [19]
On March 18, 2016, the collaborative album Southern Family was released on the Low Country Sound imprint. Produced and curated by Cobb, the concept album was inspired by the album White Mansions , with themes centered on family values and the artist's experiences growing up in the South. It contains song contributions by Zac Brown, Anderson East, Jason Isbell, Shooter Jennings, Jamey Johnson, Miranda Lambert, Morgane and Chris Stapleton among others. It was officially released on March 18, 2016. [20]
RCA Studio A was saved from demolition, and in July 2016, Cobb began a long-term residency at the studio. [10] The title of Chris Stapleton's 2017 releases From A Room: Volume 1 and From A Room: Volume 2 refer to the albums being recorded at the studio, as does The Oak Ridge Boys' 2018 release, 17th Avenue Revival, referring to the studio's location on 17th Avenue in Nashville.
In 2022, Cobb produced Gavin DeGraw's eighth album titled Face the River , the album 4 by Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, as well as Sammy Hagar and the Circle's album Crazy Times .
In 2024, Cobb produced singer-songwriter Oliver Anthony's debut album Hymnal of a Troubled Man’s Mind , who came to prominence half a year prior with the viral single "Rich Men North of Richmond". While most of the songs were already released as acoustic recordings, they were re-recorded and provided new arrangements by Cobb. [21]
