Emory Gordy Jr.

Gordy began his career as a studio musician in Atlanta in 1964 when he was asked to fill in during a performance by Tommy Roe at a local concert. A week later he got the proverbial phone call; on the other end of the line was Joe South, an Atlanta-based record producer who had covered Roe on guitar alongside Gordy the week before. Soon Gordy was working alongside Roe, Mac Davis, The Tams and Freddy Weller, as well as touring with Lou Christie, and Billy Joe Royal. With Buddy Buie and J.R. Cobb, he is a co-writer on the Classics IV hit "Traces", listed as number 32 in BMI's Top 100 Songs of the Century. He also arranged Roy Orbison's "Walk On" and The Winston's "Color Him Father".

Gordy moved to Los Angeles in early 1970 and continued working as a studio musician. Along with the studio work, he supplemented with engineering and production work for Debbie Reynolds and Liberace. In 1971, he had the opportunity to tour as a bass player with Neil Diamond and played multiple instruments (including guitar, mandolin, percussion, and vibes) in the recording sessions that led up to Diamond's million-selling Hot August Night.

In 1972, Gordy worked with Elvis Presley, playing bass on Separate Ways and Burning Love. He toured with Presley in 1973, playing bass for Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Later, along with fellow Presley band members James Burton, Glen D. Hardin and Ronnie Tutt, he accompanied Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris on Parson's Grievous Angel album, released the year after Parsons's untimely death in 1973.

By 1979 he joined John Denver’s band, touring the U.S., Australia and Europe and later composing the bass tracks for two of Denver’s albums.

Gordy played on Phil Seymour's 1981 self-titled debut solo album for Boardwalk Records, including the hit single "Precious to Me". Gordy credits that involvement with Shelter Records and its owner Denny Cordell as a meaningful introduction to the rock genre.

Pivoting from major touring in 1983, Gordy became a staff producer at MCA Records Nashville, where he co-produced Steve Earle's seminal releases Exit 0 and Guitar Town with Tony Brown. Gordy also produced George Jones' Walls Can Fall , which won the CMA Vocal Event of the Year for I Don't Need Your Rockin' Chair, Bill Monroe's Southern Flavor, winning the first Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album and artists Nicolette Larson, Rider's In the Sky, Brenda Lee and his future wife, Patty Loveless. Leaving MCA Records for independent production, Gordy produced Alabama's, In Pictures and Christmas Vol. II, Vince Gill's Turn Me Loose and The Things That Matter, and Aaron Tippin's You've Got To Stand For Something and Read Between the Lines for RCA Records. Other notable productions include Jimmie Dale Gilmore's Spinning Around The Sun for Elektra Records, Delbert McClinton's One Of the Fortunate Few for Rising Tide Records and Shawn Camp's 1995 for Warner Bros. Records.

Gordy's abilities were put to the test in 1992, after his wife, Patty Loveless, left MCA, the label that had jump-started her on the path to becoming country music's most notable female neo-traditional vocalist and signed with Epic Records. Plagued by a vocal cord injury that threatened to cut her career short, Loveless was forced to disappear from view for several months while she underwent laser surgery and a period of recovery. Gordy's work on Only What I Feel put his wife's career back on the fast track, and he did it by drawing on her strength as a traditional singer amidst a wave of "New Country" clones. Her subsequent release When Fallen Angels Fly won the CMA Album of the Year in 1995, becoming only the second female winner in the history of the award. Gordy also produced Loveless' Grammy nominated Best Country Album Sleepless Nights and Grammy winner for Best Bluegrass Album Mountain Soul II for Saguaro Road Records.

Gordy was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1992. His wife, Patty Loveless joined him in the GMHOF in 2005. Gordy was named the first Alumni of the Year for Middle Georgia State University in 2015.