Jim McGuire has been the foremost music-industry photographer in Nashville for more than thirty years, as renowned for his love of music and musicians, wry wit, and 1947 Ford station wagon as he is for his skill with a camera. Most of the big recording stars have visited his studio: Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Doc Watson, Dolly Parton, Carole King, Townes Van Zandt, John Hartford, Emmylou Harris, and Kris Kristofferson, to name just a few.

Nashville Portraits, a landmark project, is an expanded book version of an extraordinary traveling exhibition organized by the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia. The show brings together sixty portraits; the book includes five additional photos, an essay by folklorist and historian William R. Ferris, and insightful biographies and quotations about each artist&# 8217;s personality, style, and contributions to the music scene. The text enhances our enjoyment of McGuire’s radiant images, reproduced here in beautiful duotone.