Less than a decade after coming to Nashville, six-time Grammy winner Dave Cobb has forever changed the sound of Music City. 

As the producer-in-residence at historic RCA Studio A - a room where Dolly Parton, Waylon Jennings, and others recorded career-defining music- he’s making some history of his own. The studio has become a clubhouse for creatives, including Jason Isbell, Chris Stapleton, and the Highwomen: the Americana supergroup comprising Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris, and Amanda Shires. 
It was Cobb who first introduced Shires and Carlile, having produced albums for both artists. He set them up to write with Hemby, and before long, the band was recording at Studio A. “Everything is possible in that place,” says Cobb, who’s as likely to bring a twenty-piece orchestra into the room as he is to record a lone troubadour with an acoustic guitar. 

Born in Savannah, Georgia, Cobb grew up hearing hymns from his grandmother, a Pentecostal minister, and his parents’ Oak Ridge Boys records. After he picked up the guitar, he fell in love with bands like the Beatles, the Smiths, and AC/DC, and as a young session musician in Atlanta, he absorbed the sounds of the city’s R&B scene. 

He draws from those wide-ranging influences, and countless others, when he’s in the studio, but whether he’s working with legendary singer-songwriter John Prine or pop icon Lady Gaga, Cobb has one focus. “When everything else changes, the voice is universal and timeless,” he says. “To me, it’s all about making space for that and letting the singer lead.”

While living in Los Angeles, he began working with Shooter Jennings, son of country music greats Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter. Through Shooter, he met modern-day outlaws Jamey Johnson and Sturgill Simpson, and produced critically acclaimed albums for both artists. 

Those years were a crash course in country music for Cobb, and spurred his 2011 move to Nashville, where he could become a part of the city’s vibrant music scene and make art, not chase commercial trends. 

In Nashville, Chris Stapleton and Jason Isbell became like family, sharing meals and recording in Cobb’s home studio. After producing and playing on impeccable albums such as Stapleton’s triple-platinum Traveller and Isbell’s Southeastern, Cobb has become one of Music City’s most in-demand collaborators, regardless of genre. 

The head of Elektra imprint Low Country Sound, Cobb has spearheaded albums by Carlile, the Highwomen, blue-eyed soul singer Anderson East, and chart-topping rockers Rival Sons, a band he has worked with for more than a decade. 

Recently, he has expanded into making music for film and television. As a musical consultant and producer on the 2018 remake of A Star Is Born Soundtrack, he produced Lady Gaga’s Grammy-winning showstopper “Always Remember Us This Way.” He has also been tapped for future projects by filmmaker Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge). Though the medium may have changed, Cobb’s focus—the artist’s voice—remains the same. 

“I think it’s all about trying to find something in the track that moves you,” he says. “This is just a new arena.” 

In January, Barry Gibb released the Dave Cobb produced album Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers’ Songbook (Vol. 1). The album is a star-studded collection of Bee Gees and Barry Gibb songs with featured artists Dolly Parton, Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Keith Urban, Olivia Newton-John, Alison Krauss, GillianWelch, David Rawlings, Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile, Jay Buchanon and Tommy Emmanuel. Greenfields has been a success with critics and audiences around the globe debuting at #1 on over a dozen counties top album charts. “To get a call to work on some of those songs, it just doesn't seem real,” says Cobb.