Farris Coursey
Musician · 1911–1968 · Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee
Farris Coursey was a Nashville session and radio drummer often credited as the first studio timekeeper of the city's original recording “A-Team.” A formally trained percussionist who could read charts and double on vibes, he anchored countless early Castle Studio dates and is best remembered for the thigh-slap rhythm he improvised on Red Foley’s “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy.”
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- Born in 1911 in Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee, roughly 60 miles south of Nashville, and moved to the city during its 1930s–40s dance-band era.
- Joined WSM radio as a staff drummer in 1937, a salaried post he held for some three decades alongside his studio work.
- Played in the Francis Craig and Owen Bradley orchestras, and reportedly served as Bradley’s business manager.
- Improvised the leg-slapping “shoeshine” rhythm during a November 1949 Castle Studio session for Red Foley’s “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy,” a Decca single that topped the charts in 1950.
- Recorded as a sideman behind a wide range of artists including Patsy Cline, Ernest Tubb, Webb Pierce, Buddy Holly, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
- Counted among the first generation of the Nashville A-Team, the core session players who shaped the city’s recording sound from the mid-1940s.
- Kept time on WSM’s “Waking Crew” morning radio program and WSM-TV’s “Bobby Lord Show” until his death in 1968.
