David R. "Fergie" Ferguson (born July 2, 1962, in

Nashville Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

, Davidson County,

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

) is an American

recording engineer An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproducti ...

Career

Ferguson's career began in 1980 when "Cowboy" Jack Clement hired him as a runner at Clement's Cowboy Arms Hotel and Recording Spa, in Nashville, Tennessee, where Ferguson worked as an engineer after a couple of years. It was while working at Clement's studio in 1982 that Ferguson first met

Johnny Cash John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American singer-songwriter. Most of his music contains themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially songs from the later stages of his career. ...

. Other artists that Ferguson worked with in the 1980s included

Charley Pride Charley Frank Pride (March 18, 1934 – December 12, 2020) was an American Country music, country singer. Beginning his career as a Negro league baseball player in the early-1950s, he later pursued a career in country music, becoming the gen ...

Eddy Arnold Richard Edward Arnold (May 15, 1918 – May 8, 2008) was an American country music singer. He was a Nashville sound (country/popular music) innovator of the late 1950s, and scored 147 songs on the ''Billboard'' country music charts, second onl ...

, and rock-n-roll band U2. Ferguson appeared as himself in U2's 1988 film, ''

Rattle and Hum ''Rattle and Hum'' is a hybrid live/studio album by Irish rock band U2, and a companion rockumentary film directed by Phil Joanou. The album was produced by Jimmy Iovine and was released on 10 October 1988, while the film was distributed by ...

'', and portrayed his mentor and once real-life boss, Jack Clement in the 1989 biographical drama film '' Great Balls of Fire!'' about

Jerry Lee Lewis Jerry Lee Lewis (September 29, 1935October 28, 2022) was an American pianist, singer, and songwriter. Nicknamed "The Killer", he was described as "rock 'n' roll's first great wild man". A pioneer of rock and roll and rockabilly music, Lewis m ...

. In the 1990s and 2000s, Ferguson worked as the

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...

-winning American Recordings albums produced by

Rick Rubin Frederick Jay Rubin (, ; born March 10, 1963) is an American record producer. He is a co-founder of Def Jam Recordings, founder of American Recordings, and former co-president of Columbia Records. Rubin helped popularize hip hop by produci ...

, beginning with '' American Recordings'' (1994) and continuing through '' American VI: Ain't No Grave'' (2010). Ferguson has also engineered or produced recordings for such artists as

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

artist

John Prine John Edward Prine (; October 10, 1946 – April 7, 2020) was an American singer-songwriter of country-folk music. Widely cited as one of the most influential songwriters of his generation, Prine was known for his signature blend of humoro ...

bluegrass music Bluegrass music is a genre of American roots music that developed in the 1940s in the Appalachian region of the United States. The genre derives its name from the band Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Bluegrass has roots in African America ...

artist

Mac Wiseman Malcolm Bell Wiseman (May 23, 1925 – February 24, 2019) was an American bluegrass and country singer active for seven decades in the twentieth century. He was part of Bluegrass music's earliest generation, though bluegrass never defined him. ...

, Sturgill Simpson,

Tyler Childers Timothy Tyler Childers ( ; born June 21, 1991) is an American country singer and songwriter. His music has been described as a mix of neotraditional country, bluegrass, folk, and honky-tonk. His breakthrough studio album, ''Purgatory'' (2017) ...

, and the Del McCoury Band. and many others. In 2012, he went on tour with Swedish singer-songwriter

Anna Ternheim Anna Ternheim (born 31 May 1978) is a Swedish singer-songwriter. Early life Ternheim was born 31 May 1978 in Stockholm, Sweden. When she was 10 years old she began playing the guitar, writing songs and performing. During a year abroad in Atlant ...

for whom he recorded her album '' The Night Visitor''. In April 2020, ''Years'', a collaborative album between John Anderson,

Dan Auerbach Daniel Quine Auerbach (; born May 14, 1979) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and record producer, best known as the guitarist and vocalist of The Black Keys, a blues rock band from Akron, Ohio. As a member of the group, Auerbach has ...

, and David Ferguson was released. In 2021, Ferguson recorded "The Housebuilding Song" for Rockstar Games' album '' The Music of Red Dead Redemption 2: The Housebuilding EP'', a collection of tracks from the game ''

Red Dead Redemption 2 ''Red Dead Redemption 2'' is a 2018 action-adventure game developed and published by Rockstar Games. The game is the third entry in the ''Red Dead'' series and a prequel to the 2010 game ''Red Dead Redemption''. The story is set in a fictiona ...

.''

The Butcher Shoppe Studio

In 1994, Furguson partnered with singer-songwriter

to establish the Butcher Shoppe, a recording studio located next to a former meat packing plant on the

Cumberland River The Cumberland River is a major waterway of the Southern United States. The U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 8, 2011 river drains almost of southern Kentucky and ...

in the Germantown neighborhood of

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

. The Butcher Shoppe hosted recording sessions for such notable Americana artists as

, Margo Price, and Sturgill Simpson. The studio was forced to close in 2020 when the property was sold, and Ferguson began operating a home recording studio.

Personal life

Ferguson resides in nearby

Goodlettsville Goodlettsville is a city in Davidson and Sumner Counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It was incorporated as a city in 1958 with a population of just over 3,000 residents; in 2020, its population was 17,789. It is part of the Nashville metropo ...

, Tennessee, near his boyhood home.

Career

The Butcher Shoppe Studio

Personal life

References

Further reading