Born 118 Years Ago Today in Chicago, the Music Visionary Who Signed Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline and Helped Make Nashville the Country Music Capital

Record executive Paul Cohen helped establish Nashville as a centre of country music, shaping Decca’s country division and guiding the careers of major performers. Born in Chicago on 10 November 1908, he signed artists including Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline, and produced Wells’s “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels”, the first country number one by a solo female artist.

Cohen joined Decca’s American operation in 1934 and began building its country roster, later setting up recording sessions in Nashville and helping establish the label’s local office. He left Decca’s country division in 1958, later led country operations at Kapp Records and served as Country Music Association president when the Country Music Hall of Fame opened in 1967. He died aged 61 in 1970; Nashville’s Music Row offices closed a week later in tribute.