Over three decades, Ed Rode has applied legendary portraitist Henri Cartier-Bresson’s motto — that great photography lives in “the decisive moment” — to chronicling Nashville’s music community.

Songwriter Musician reflects that intent, capturing a culture-changing period in Music City’s story through distinct, revelatory portraits that trace the arc of Rode’s own prolific, multifaceted career.

Having finished his Master's degree in Photo Communications from Ohio University, Rode moved to Nashville in 1990 to work as a photojournalist for the Nashville Banner, the city’s afternoon daily. At the paper, Rode covered sports, breaking news and a range of feature stories, routinely photographing members of Nashville’s busy music industry as they worked through the business of creating. 

Spurred by conversations with Country Music Hall of Fame member Chet Atkins, the retrospective started to take shape. “This is a town of songwriters and session musicians,” Atkins told Rode. “Go photograph them because they’re usually in the background. People out there hear their work, but don’t know who they are.”

Rode took Atkins’ advice, moving from recording and writing studios to green rooms and living rooms, capturing intimate, decisive moments with singers, songwriters, session musicians and stars.

The portraits in Songwriter Musician collect those moments and render the layers of music-making in Music City. Rode shows legends in their later years, cementing their legacies. He captures stars mid-stride. He gets inside the minds of people who write songs, produce records and conjure instrumental hooks. 

Each image tells a story of humanity, creativity and achievement through a moment in time. Atkins picks up his signature Country Gentleman, a shaft of golden sunlight beaming in from Music Row. Dolly Parton lets her guard down as scenes that sealed her fame flash on a monitor nearby. Taylor Swift spins and smiles, just as superstardom rolls in. 

Over the decades, Rode's career branched and stretched — he lectured on photography and the tenets of journalism at Western Kentucky University, O’More College of Design and currently teaches full-time at Murray State University. He’s spent years as a commercial and editorial photographer capturing the soul of Nashville's music scene. His work took him beyond city limits, traveling the globe for esteemed clients such as Pilot Corporation, Dave & Buster's, Sony, Bridgestone Americas, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Jack Daniel's Distillery, Habitat for Humanity and United Way. Ed hasn’t limited himself to commercial work; he’s served as a documentary photographer for filmmaker Ken Burns and captured the energy of many musical acts on tour. Selected for the prestigious Annenberg Space for Photographers' "Country: Portraits of an American Sound," he was a guest speaker for its Iris Nights Lecture Series in Los Angeles, California. Each experience expanded his eye. Each sharpened his instincts. 

He continues to gather moments in Nashville as legends pass and stars rise, finding just the right nanosecond, framing it to the millimeter, and making it permanent.

“I’ve had the privilege of witnessing musical history in the making,” Rode says. “Capturing the present – for the future, has been the journey of my life.”

Songwriter Musician is a portrait of that journey, and a true, timeless story about Nashville.

— Ed Rode