Jack Linneman

In May 1964, at the Starday Sound Studio in Nashville, Linneman played Dobro with Carl Story & his Rambling Mountaineers on the sessions for Sacred Songs of Life & the Hereafter (Starday SLP 315, 1965). The band had Bud Brewster on banjo, Willie Brewster on mandolin, Tommy Jackson on fiddle and Claude Boone on bass.

He left Starday to build a studio of his own on three acres about three and a half miles from Music Row, on the near-northeast side of town, and ran it with his son Billy. He helped design the building, built his own console with rotary knobs, and was an early dealer for Universal Audio, installing one of Bill Putnam’s first consoles. He meant Hilltop for clients such as independent artists, who wanted a good record without a big budget. Hilltop has been in business ever since; it marked its 60th anniversary in 2023.

At the start of the 1980s Linneman hired John Nicholson, a young engineer, after a single meeting. Nicholson learned the trade from Jack and Billy Linneman and bought Hilltop from the family in 1994. Jack Linneman died in 2011. On June 4, 2017, the Nashville chapter of the Audio Engineering Society gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award as a founder of Hilltop, at a ceremony at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum where Billy Linneman spoke.